This is a re-posting of something I posted on the mymercator.com website. I
have not received a suitable number of inquiries from that group, so I
thought I'd try here.
April 2, 2001 (re-posted to EDI-L 4/09/01)
I have developed an EXIT DLL (Dynamic Link Library) for users of Mercator on
Windows/32 systems.
Essentially, this EXIT DLL provides the functionality of a rule which does
not exist in the current release of Mercator, a rule which would appear in
the documentation as:
[single-text-item] =PROMPT("User Prompt String")
While I have found this useful for testing, I'm not yet sure if this would
be useful for production purposes.
What I am looking for are three or four people to test/imagine/play with
this DLL to see ...
1. Is it useful?
2. To make it (more) useful, what features need to be added?
3. Is the documentation clear, complete and usable?
I'll be honest: I have not yet decided if I will...
A. Make this available as a priced, licensed item.
B. Give it away as freeware to serve as a shameless advertisement for my own
skills as a Mercator consultant.
C. Just keep it and use it myself, as a "competitive advantage" over other
Mercator consultants.
(I am leaning toward offering it as a low-priced licensed item, say,
$100-200 per user site).
If anyone is interested in serving as a tester/commenter, just drop me an
e-mail at the address below. Please indicate the city and state in which you
are located as well as a *brief* description of the application you had in
mind. Or, you can say, "Gee, I have nothing specific at this time, but it
sounds useful and I'd like to give it a try." (If you choose this option,
make a very passionate plea for consideration, as I am really looking for
"real" applications).
What's in it for you?
Well, if I decide to release the product as "freeware" (shameless
advertising), you get a credit in the documentation.
If I decide to sell licenses, you get one for free.
If I decide to not release it to the public at large, you get a copy of what
I use for your own use (but not for redistribution!).
To qualify for these fabulous incentives, you will be required to answer a
brief questionnaire at the end of the test period. I bring this up because I
often make software available this way, and darned if I never hear back from
my volunteer testers.
The decision as to who will be official testers will be arbitrary, biased,
opinionated, mine, and of course, final.
There are two files in the kit: a DLL file and a Microsoft Word(r) document.
I can send these as separate attachments to an e-mail or in a single "ZIP"
archive file. Please indicate your preference.
Michael C. Mattias
Tal Systems
Racine WI
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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