Altap Salamander SDK on GitHub?

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soerentsch
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Altap Salamander SDK on GitHub?

Post by soerentsch »

Hey all,
is there a plan to move the Altap Salamander SDK to GitHub?
Whould be greate. ;-)

...and of course an updated version ;-)

Kind regards,
Soeren
vilo
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Re: Altap Salamander SDK on GitHub?

Post by vilo »

Good point, GitHub is a good place for open-source projects, what Salamander SDK is!

Id' suggest moving there documentation, header files, and upon release, you will add binaries (salrtd9.lib, *.dll, *.pdb). Moreover there should be one repository for shared headers, and separate repos for demo plugins.

I see at least these benefits:
- community can see a progress in development, how much of the most wanted features has been implemented (mostly Unicode support),
- feedback from the community, reviews, discussions, tracking issues,
- community will help you with translating documentation (API is still mostly documented in Czech language),
- as this is a public repository, it is free of cost.

BR,
Vilo
vilo
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Re: Altap Salamander SDK on GitHub?

Post by vilo »

Hi there, what is the plan for releasing Salamander Plugins SDK 4.0? https://github.com/altapsro still has no public repos...

A few more comments from me how the repositories should be organized:
- SDK repo should also contain commit history. No need for complete history, simply just one commit per release (4.0, 3.08, 3.07, maybe a few more). It'd be helpful to see how the API methods and comments were changed through the time, and understand meaning of some multi-argument functions (fs is a good example).
- Plugins will be in separate repos.
- Demo plugins may stay under SDK repo, but UnFAT plugin is a production code, so it should be in a separate repo.
- You should then create SDK release packages (like ftp://ftp.altap.cz/pub/altap/salamand/as308sdk.7z) as before, and host them on github (like I did it here: https://github.com/lejcik/certviewer/releases).

Thanks,
Vilo
Jan Rysavy
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Re: Altap Salamander SDK on GitHub?

Post by Jan Rysavy »

Yes, we plan to release AS 4.0 SDK on GitHub soon.
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tajmone
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Re: Altap Salamander SDK on GitHub?

Post by tajmone »

Jan Rysavy wrote: 11 Jul 2019, 06:01 Yes, we plan to release AS 4.0 SDK on GitHub soon.
Great! Looking forward to it. I'd like to contribute with documentation translation and porting it from plain text to markdown or AsciiDoc (something I've already started working on locally, for my own projects).
vilo wrote: 10 Jul 2019, 23:45 A few more comments from me how the repositories should be organized:
- SDK repo should also contain commit history. No need for complete history, simply just one commit per release (4.0, 3.08, 3.07, maybe a few more). It'd be helpful to see how the API methods and comments were changed through the time, and understand meaning of some multi-argument functions (fs is a good example).
@Vilo, wouldn't it be enough to keep a "devel" branch as a baseline for all development commits and pull requests, and then just merge into master every version bump? This way you'll always have a clean "master" branch containing only release versions (and release tags), but still keep a full history of the various commits that were made between releases (which can also be handy to follow development).

I was looking into the SDK license to see if it allowed to publish it on GitHub — obviously having an official SDK maintained by Altap would be much better, and then just fork it and contribute.
https://github.com/tajmone
krivka
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Re: Altap Salamander SDK on GitHub?

Post by krivka »

Jan Rysavy wrote: 11 Jul 2019, 06:01 Yes, we plan to release AS 4.0 SDK on GitHub soon.
Is it still truth that you plan to release AS 4.0 SDK soon (not necessary on GitHub, if it is more work). I have two students who want to implement some plugins as their bachelor thesis and it would be nice to have the plugins for the new version instead of 3.08.

Thank you very much in advance.
Zbyněk Křivka, Brno University of Technology
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tajmone
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Re: Altap Salamander SDK on GitHub?

Post by tajmone »

krivka wrote: 18 Sep 2020, 09:12 Is it still truth that you plan to release AS 4.0 SDK soon (not necessary on GitHub, if it is more work).
and, if I may add, there are other users monitoring this post and the GitHub repo waiting for an AS SDK update.
So, yes, it would be nice if you could confirm to use whether there are still plans to update the SDK in the future, or if the project is going to be stale.

PS: Please, don't let AS go stale. It's already been many years since we've seen a real feature-update (beside the v4.0 update, which was mostly a maintenance update to remove license registration, and a few small improvements, like SVG icons), or the risk is that it might eventually become an obsolete application, possibly unsafe to use.

I'm sure many licensed users would be willing to pay a license renewal fee if AS gets actively developed again. If not, why not release it under an open source license? It has already become a free application, making it open source could ensure it gets developed by the users community, at least for critical updates and integration of the new Win10 features (e.g. support for case-sensitive directories, etc.).
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omega
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Re: Altap Salamander SDK on GitHub?

Post by omega »

tajmone wrote: 18 Sep 2020, 19:53
krivka wrote: 18 Sep 2020, 09:12 Is it still truth that you plan to release AS 4.0 SDK soon (not necessary on GitHub, if it is more work).
and, if I may add, there are other users monitoring this post and the GitHub repo waiting for an AS SDK update.
So, yes, it would be nice if you could confirm to use whether there are still plans to update the SDK in the future, or if the project is going to be stale.

PS: Please, don't let AS go stale. It's already been many years since we've seen a real feature-update (beside the v4.0 update, which was mostly a maintenance update to remove license registration, and a few small improvements, like SVG icons), or the risk is that it might eventually become an obsolete application, possibly unsafe to use.

I'm sure many licensed users would be willing to pay a license renewal fee if AS gets actively developed again. If not, why not release it under an open source license? It has already become a free application, making it open source could ensure it gets developed by the users community, at least for critical updates and integration of the new Win10 features (e.g. support for case-sensitive directories, etc.).
You were brutal blasting the devs viewtopic.php?f=4&t=42118&p=67491#p67491 and now you are begging them. Man look at what you wrote lol
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tajmone
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Re: Altap Salamander SDK on GitHub?

Post by tajmone »

omega wrote: 26 Sep 2020, 12:28 You were brutal blasting the devs viewtopic.php?f=4&t=42118&p=67491#p67491 and now you are begging them. Man look at what you wrote lol
What's the point of this comment of yours? My post (which you deem a "brutal blasting") was pointing out the fact that the PREVIOUS developers hadn't been addressing security issues because they were working (since ages) on the Unicode update. The AS SDK is a separate topic altogether.

If you didn't realize, things have changed since that post: AS has been acquired by a new company, which stated they were going to release a new SDK for v4, and possibly update AS in time. My enquiry is about the NEW status of AS since the acquisition and the app having become free.

Whatever reason makes you thing that another AS customer (who bought a license for the product) shouldn't have the right to complaint about lack of security updates for an application that has access to the filesystem and register; what's the point of your reply? Is there a purpose in your pointing fingers and attaching labels?

If you don't like my opinions (which are motivated and constructive), just ignore them. Your "lol" reply don't seem to add any constructive contributions to the discussions.
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omega
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Re: Altap Salamander SDK on GitHub?

Post by omega »

tajmone wrote: 26 Sep 2020, 13:13
omega wrote: 26 Sep 2020, 12:28 You were brutal blasting the devs viewtopic.php?f=4&t=42118&p=67491#p67491 and now you are begging them. Man look at what you wrote lol
What's the point of this comment of yours? My post (which you deem a "brutal blasting") was pointing out the fact that the PREVIOUS developers hadn't been addressing security issues because they were working (since ages) on the Unicode update. The AS SDK is a separate topic altogether.

If you didn't realize, things have changed since that post: AS has been acquired by a new company, which stated they were going to release a new SDK for v4, and possibly update AS in time. My enquiry is about the NEW status of AS since the acquisition and the app having become free.

Whatever reason makes you thing that another AS customer (who bought a license for the product) shouldn't have the right to complaint about lack of security updates for an application that has access to the filesystem and register; what's the point of your reply? Is there a purpose in your pointing fingers and attaching labels?

If you don't like my opinions (which are motivated and constructive), just ignore them. Your "lol" reply don't seem to add any constructive contributions to the discussions.
This is what you wrote "If AS is no longer active, then just say so and its users can start looking for another product." Guess what? It is no longer active so why are you telling the devs not to let it die? If you did not realize the devs no longer own the product and have stated clearly it is not going to be open source. So why do you all of a sudden repeat absurd requests after the devs sold the company a year ago? My comment is very constructive and valid, the reason i added lol shows how funny you are making these demands a year after the company stopped existing and whatever needed to be said the devs already made clear a long time ago.
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tajmone
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Re: Altap Salamander SDK on GitHub?

Post by tajmone »

omega wrote: 29 Sep 2020, 02:01 Guess what? It is no longer active so why are you telling the devs not to let it die? If you did not realize the devs no longer own the product and have stated clearly it is not going to be open source.
After the new acquisition and the bump to v4 (and AS becoming free) the new owners opened a GitHub organization for Altap Salamander:

https://github.com/altapsro

This (and a past announcement) lead me to believe that AS development might not be over — or, at least, that it will be patched in the future is there's a need, and that the GitHub organization will host the AS SDK code.

If AS was a dead product, why open the repository? Anyhow, this thread was mainly about enquiring when/whether the updated AS SDK 4.0 will be published on GitHub.

And, yes, you're right. I'm a bit confused about the current status of AS — i.e. whether new developers have taken it on from where the previous ones left, or whether it's dead, or whatever the situation is.
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SelfMan
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Re: Altap Salamander SDK on GitHub?

Post by SelfMan »

Guys, please stop fighting, There is no pont in that.
@tajmone - there are and never were NEW developers. It was allways the same group of people.
Altap was sold because the guys as developers got a offer no one with a clear mind would refuse.
They started to code for Fine and stopped developing Salamander.

It was promised that when time it allows a SDK will be released and bugs fixed with a service release.
There wass no promise of a "new features" release.

I am using Salamander on daily basis as my main file manager. I havent had any problems with it.
Its stable and doing what I need it to do. I am still in contact with the guys.
The forum needs some maintenance time to time which they provide. Yu can be sure that they are monitoring the forum.
Just check the last activity on thier profiles.

So please, stop the thing you have going on. I dont want to ban anyone.
Thank you
omega
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Re: Altap Salamander SDK on GitHub?

Post by omega »

tajmone wrote: 01 Oct 2020, 11:21
omega wrote: 29 Sep 2020, 02:01 Guess what? It is no longer active so why are you telling the devs not to let it die? If you did not realize the devs no longer own the product and have stated clearly it is not going to be open source.
After the new acquisition and the bump to v4 (and AS becoming free) the new owners opened a GitHub organization for Altap Salamander:

https://github.com/altapsro

This (and a past announcement) lead me to believe that AS development might not be over — or, at least, that it will be patched in the future is there's a need, and that the GitHub organization will host the AS SDK code.

If AS was a dead product, why open the repository? Anyhow, this thread was mainly about enquiring when/whether the updated AS SDK 4.0 will be published on GitHub.

And, yes, you're right. I'm a bit confused about the current status of AS — i.e. whether new developers have taken it on from where the previous ones left, or whether it's dead, or whatever the situation is.
What confusion are you talking about? Have you been sticking your head in the sand for a year? The devs have made explicitly clear there is no more development for AS. The company was sold to FINE and they are working for that company. We as members/customers had a very clear and extensive discussions with the devs. All the conversations can be found in the respective threads if you bother to look for it. FINE acquired the company because they wanted the devs and its core business is not filemanager but creating software related in the engineering field. With the acquisition the devs and FINE came to an agreement that AS will become freeware that's it, no open source, no continue development. No more new functionalities to be added, only (critical) bug fixes. It is totally ridiculous to start demanding from the devs or from FINE to make it open source, end of discussion.
costab
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Re: Altap Salamander SDK on GitHub?

Post by costab »

I am curious about the status of the SDK as well - it's 2021 :-)

AS is the best File Manager for Windows, imo (there is also nothing of the same caliber on the MacOs). I don't know what I would do without it. It would be a shame if the development doesn't continue. And if they don't plan to do any work on it, it might be better to release it to the world, i.e. as OSS, so the development continues. I also have to add that I would gladly pay for a yearly subscription. Why not hire more developers to work on it?
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SelfMan
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Re: Altap Salamander SDK on GitHub?

Post by SelfMan »

The Altap guys are pretty busy with their current job and don't have the time to develop Salamander further. Sadly, the amount of people who appreciate a dual pane file manager is also decreasing. Releasing the source code to public would need a lot of time on documentation.
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