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MakeMusic Forum > Public Forums > Plug-In Development - FORUM HAS MOVED! > TGTools... why should I continue buying shareware?  Forum Quick Jump
 
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kaumann
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Date Joined Aug 2002
Total Posts : 883
  		   Posted 12/4/2008 3:46 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Once again... I think this is a shareware piece no. 10 or so which has gone dead ... and I have bought a licence.

There are a few ways to stop developing:
1) be honest and straightforward to customers "we have stopped, sorry". VisualHub by Techspansion is one of those examples.

2) more common way... stop development, dont say any to customers, keep sales up at your website. They'll know soon enough.

TGTools seems to have gone to path no. 2. After a few last Finale updates there has been an "emergency compatibility update" released, with no new features. After the release of Finale 2009- nothing. Many functions of current TGTools are not working with 2009. Last update was more than a year ago.

Would be nice to hear something... well actually not to hear but to get an update that works fully with F2009. Talk is not enough, this is one common scenarios- after stopping the development we keep hearing from the developer that... soon-soon-soon there will be an update. Working on it etcetera.

I really think that it would be honest and decent to tell to customers who had also actually paid some money how the things are. If TgTools is dead then annouce it publicly: "no updates any more". Nothing is eternal, surely not TGTools

hardware: MacBook Pro 15'', 2.4GHz. 4GB RAM, 200GB 7200rpm HD.
software: Finale, TGTools, Wallander Instruments, Motu Symphonic Instrument + Ethno Instrument & Digital Performer, Melodyne cre8, RaySpace, Plogue Bidule, QuicKeys, Kontakt+ more

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Jetcopy
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  		   Posted 12/4/2008 7:45 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Have you tried simply emailing Tobias and asking him? That seems like a logical course of action is you're concerned about his plugins. Another user did just that and received a courteous reply stating that an update will be coming soon.

JT

G4 Powerbook, OSX 10.4.11, 1.67 GHz, 2 GB ram

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kaumann
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  		   Posted 12/5/2008 3:22 AM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Sadly, this is not about mailing to Tobias or anyone else. Of course one could get a nice answer that an update is coming soon.
My posting was about observations throughout past years. No answer by email will change the fact that the last feature update of TGTools was ... soon 2 years ago.
See here www.tgtools.com/versions.htm, I was talking about patterns of stopping the development. TGTools release histoly seems to back up my version.
I am not happy about this and I really wish to be proven wrong. I think that TGTools is the best plugin suite for Finale, I have recommended this software to many people.
The fact is: I have stopped recommending TGTools to others. This is only because the development history shows all signs that Tobias has shifted the focus of his works to other areas.

hardware: MacBook Pro 15'', 2.4GHz. 4GB RAM, 200GB 7200rpm HD.
software: Finale, TGTools, Wallander Instruments, Motu Symphonic Instrument + Ethno Instrument & Digital Performer, Melodyne cre8, RaySpace, Plogue Bidule, QuicKeys, Kontakt+ more

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Saffron
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  		   Posted 12/5/2008 6:31 AM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
One thing to realise is that this is not unique to shareware, less still TG - in fact, it's not even unique to computer software. Pretty much every product has a life cycle, from initial inception, to first, second and subsequent versions, then eventually "matures", before slowly growing old and eventually losing ground to newer, brighter products from elsewhere.

Where is MS-DOS 9? PageMaker 8? Netscape 10? Encore 5 for Windows?

OK, so that latter is "imminent", but so it has been for over a year; the last real upgrade was many years ago. But the pattern is the same: once "hot", eagerly awaited products are gathering dust and moss while younger, glitzier products fill their slots.

At least when this happens with shareware, you haven't spent large amounts of hard earned cash on your dead duck ... :-)

Brian

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Dr. Wiggy
Early music: modern methods



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  		   Posted 12/5/2008 6:37 AM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Saffron said...
Where is MS-DOS 9? PageMaker 8? Netscape 10? Encore 5 for Windows?

Forget that. I've been waiting 11 years for Duke Nukem Forever!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Nukem_Forever

However, the more important question is: why aren't many of the functions in TG Tools part of Finale as standard?

Finale 2009b, 2Ghz iMac, OS X 10.5.5, M-Audio Audiophile USB
Ancient Groove Music
www.ancientgroove.co.uk

Post Edited (Wiggy) : 12/5/2008 6:35:19 AM (GMT-6)

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Saffron
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  		   Posted 12/5/2008 7:50 AM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
I totally agree about that. We should not be forced to use cut-down bundled plug-ins or to pony up for various bits of third party software just in order to enter standard musical notation like tremolos or to obtain decent looking beams.
 
Maybe it would be fine if Finale itself were just a piece of shareware that provided the "glue" and basic services to allow users to assemble and run a lot of musical plug-ins, much in the way some VST host software allows you to marshal and control any number of soft synths, samplers and effects - but Finale is the opposite: an expensive, top-end commercial product.
 
Brian
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Jetcopy
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  		   Posted 12/5/2008 11:30 AM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
kaumann said...
Sadly, this is not about mailing to Tobias or anyone else. Of course one could get a nice answer that an update is coming soon.
My posting was about observations throughout past years. No answer by email will change the fact that the last feature update of TGTools was ... soon 2 years ago.
See here www.tgtools.com/versions.htm, I was talking about patterns of stopping the development. TGTools release histoly seems to back up my version.
I am not happy about this and I really wish to be proven wrong. I think that TGTools is the best plugin suite for Finale, I have recommended this software to many people.
The fact is: I have stopped recommending TGTools to others. This is only because the development history shows all signs that Tobias has shifted the focus of his works to other areas.

But to my knowledge, Tobias has not ever charged for anything other than the original TGTools purchase. Which for me was several years ago. I've certainly gotten my moneys' worth and can't complain about it. And unless Tobias would charge a yearly subscription fee, then how can we me upset if the plugins don't get new features?

JT

G4 Powerbook, OSX 10.4.11, 1.67 GHz, 2 GB ram

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Saffron
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  		   Posted 12/5/2008 11:33 AM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Quite! It's like expecting MM to send out each year's new version of Finale to all existing users for no charge whatsoever ...

... a great business model that would be - not! :-)

Brian
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kaumann
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  		   Posted 12/5/2008 11:35 AM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Jetcopy, it is not about being upset. It is just that when I purchased TGTools, it used to be in active development. During the last few years the active development has apparently stopped. Finale 2008 was the last version to receive compatibility update soon after it was released. Assuming that there is a new upgrade every year, we are almost half way to the Finale 2010 which means that even compatibility updates have been stopped.

I am willing to pay money for updates to keep development going.

hardware: MacBook Pro 15'', 2.4GHz. 4GB RAM, 200GB 7200rpm HD.
software: Finale, TGTools, Wallander Instruments, Motu Symphonic Instrument + Ethno Instrument & Digital Performer, Melodyne cre8, RaySpace, Plogue Bidule, QuicKeys, Kontakt+ more

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Saffron
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  		   Posted 12/5/2008 11:53 AM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.

Probably the serious point amongst all this is that if Tobias really has hung up his development boots, and isn't even issuing compatibility updates, then MakeMusic had better take note PDQ and start implementing the missing functionality (tremolos, for example) directly in Finale.

Brian


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Stephen Henry
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  		   Posted 12/22/2008 2:25 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
TG Tools 2.5 has just become available for download today. It has been upgraded to Finale 2009 for both Mac and Windows.
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kaumann
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Total Posts : 883
  		   Posted 12/22/2008 2:28 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Very good news indeed.
I was seriously thinking about the worst scenario.

I hope Tobias will release a major update some day with some new cool functions. I personally wouldn't hesitate to buy an update.

hardware: MacBook Pro 15'', 2.4GHz. 4GB RAM, 200GB 7200rpm HD.
software: Finale, TGTools, Wallander Instruments, Motu Symphonic Instrument + Ethno Instrument & Digital Performer, Melodyne cre8, RaySpace, Plogue Bidule, QuicKeys, Kontakt+ more

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Saffron
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Total Posts : 4504
  		   Posted 12/23/2008 11:39 AM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Stephen Henry said...
TG Tools 2.5 has just become available for download today. It has been upgraded to Finale 2009 for both Mac and Windows.
Scary thought: we're about at that time of year when MM stops working on next year's version (ie, 2009), and starts on the next-but-one year's version (ie, 2010) ...
 
... TG has only just hit the slot this time! cool
 
Brian

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Dr. Wiggy
Early music: modern methods



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Total Posts : 12628
  		   Posted 12/28/2008 6:59 PM (GMT -6)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
while Finale == true;
do{
grumble("when is the new version coming out?");
rejoice("nice new features!");
grumble("new features break my scores", "old bugs still not fixed", "TGTools doesn't work");
rejoice("update released!");
grumble("still not fixed!");
Finale++;
}

Finale 2009b, 2Ghz iMac, OS X 10.5.6, M-Audio Audiophile USB
Ancient Groove Music
www.ancientgroove.co.uk

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