MacWorld 1998 October/Macworld (1998-10).dmg/Shareware World/Utilities/Text Processing/GST-TGhostDemo/Torquemada's Ghost - Read Me

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TORQUEMADA'S GHOST - DemoWare release notes



This is a DemoWare version of Torquemada's Ghost. It is fully
functional, but is limited to 32 launches. We are releasing it in this
form so that new users of Torquemada or users of the FreeWare version
of Torquemada the Inquisitor can get a taste of the commercial
Torquemada's command set.

If you were a user of prior versions of Torquemada, your main concern
is likely to be: What has changed?

The Ghost is a scriptable Torquemada. While it can be used
interactively by Drag & Drop, its primary purpose is to allow
AppleEvent scripters to access Torquemada from their AppleScript or
Frontier scripts. Frontier scripter Eugene Barnes has lent us his
expertise by writing Frontier glue scripts for Torquemada's Ghost.
These scripts and their documentation can be found in the folder
"Torquemada’s Ghost Glue ƒ". The functions of Torquemada's Ghost are
described in the Torquemanual under the heading "TORQUEMADA'S GHOST".

The full Torquemanual is stored in the "Torquemada Explained" folder.



Commercial, legal and other pertinent notices...

As mentioned above, this is a DemoWare version of Torquemada's Ghost,
fully functional but limited to 32 launches. The full unrestricted
commercial release (including both Torquemada's Ghost and Torquemada
the Inquisitor) can be obtained from Greg Swann at:

    Greg Swann

    [e-mail]
    [e-mail]

    USPS: 3608 West Cochise Drive
          Phoenix, AZ 85051

Licenses are sold per machine, with a single license costing $50;
2-10 licenses are $45 each. For 11 or more licenses you're better off
buying a site license. Information on registering for the full
releases of Torquemada and my other commercial software, can be found
in the registration software enclosed.

Why is this version DemoWare? As with everything in my life, there is
philosophy here: I don't like crippled software. I don't think much of
ShareWare. And I almost never buy "a pig in a poke". In deciding on a
marketing scheme, I looked for something that would be most appealing
to _me_, were I in your shoes. This is what I've come up with: a fully
functional demo that lets you _find out_ if Torquemada's Ghost is a
useful tool in your working environment. If it is (and obviously _I_
think it will be), then pay me. If it isn't, then ditch it when it
starts to offer to make coupons for you as a full-time gig. A good
deal all around, I think: no guilt for you, no guilting for me; maybe
useful software for you, maybe useful money for me (grin).

Torquemada's Ghost, its source and executable code are Copyright (C)
1998 by Greg Swann. All rights are most emphatically reserved.

The unrestricted (non-DemoWare) version of Torquemada's Ghost is
licensed for use on one machine by the person who paid for it. If you
didn't pay for it, please do! I am one person, with a long-suffering
family, not Conglomerated MegaSoft (not to imply that there's any
virtue in ripping _them_ off!).

Torquemada's Ghost is delivered "as is", without any warranties,
expressed or implied. It is not warranted to be useful _to_ anyone,
_for_ anything, and in no wise am I to be held responsible for any
unfortunate consequences resulting from its use or misuse. And I
_hate_ having to say things like that. I do my best to write useful,
simple, elegant, bug-free solutions to difficult problems. If you take
it into your head that I represent your big chance to "strike it
rich", you will pay a lot in legal fees to discover that you have
miscalculated.

And: to those to whom the above disclaimers do not apply: forgive me
for having to make them. It's _you_ whom I'm working for, for pay or
for free. I appreciate your patronage and your support, and I wish we
all could just comb the others out of our hair...

(Hey, it's a real 'personal' software company! (grin))



About Greg Swann...

Okay, here's the deal: I'm not just a developer, I'm a user of
software as well. I make about half of my money doing Desktop
Publishing. In consequence, I have a pretty clear idea of how to
focus utilities designed to plug gaps in the functionality of major
applications. I am quite sure there are a _lot_ of developers
brighter than I am. But the evidence of experience suggests that few
of them have my advantage of living on both sides of the line, so to
speak.

What does this mean?

First, it means that I have written a _lot_ of mission-critical
utilities in support of the software categories of interest to me:
file management, font management, automated text processing,
PostScript-processing, and automated DTP-software preparation. All
but four of these utilities are FreeWare (the exceptions being
Torquemada and the three packages discussed below) and are available
from Info-Mac and other electronic information services (including
any service offering access to the Arizona Macintosh User's Group
BBS-In-A-Box CD-ROM).

Second, it means that if you are likewise interested in these
software categories, it behooves you to support my work. Fanmail is
always nice, of course, but remuneration is the sincerest form of
flattery (grin). Seriously: this is a business, even if a
microscopically small one. It has been worthwhile so far because the
other things commanding my attention have not been as lucrative. But
that is changing (of course, and obviously, _because_ of all the
software). I can make a _lot_ of money writing custom software for
contracted clients. And I can streamline my own production work
without having to monkey-proof and document my tools. So: if I am to
keep doing this, I have to make it pay. If you _want_ me to keep
doing it, you have to pay me. It's that simple.

In many ways, retail software is simpler. You pay or you don't play,
and no one has any illusions. The difference is, the developer needs
a _much_ larger capital commitment, and he needs to surround himself
with babbling morons in suits who might - just possibly - be good
for something other than chuckling about football. Electronically
distributed software gets around that trap, but introduces the
problem exposed here: the ambiguity of the sales transaction results
in a lot of prostrate begging by developers. I don't beg, but I
don't work for free except on my own terms for my own good reasons.

There are three possible "futures" for authors of electronically
distributed software. 1. The rewards do not justify the effort, so
the author goes and plays tennis or something. 2. The author
produces software as an after-work hobby and continues to do so more
or less irrespective of user-response (some of the best and worst
FreeWare comes out of this category). 3. The author's growing
reputation results in him getting more contracted custom programming
work, worth more money, to the point that he no longer has time to
produce electronically distributed software.

It is the last that is happening to me, and this is why you need to
support my work, if you want it to continue. I'll do all right
whether I'm working on problems that confront you or on the problems
of some corporation. But: if you are using software by me that has a
commercial version (and all of them are discussed here), and if you
want me to _continue_ thinking about your problems, rather than the
problems of Consolidated MediCalc - you know what to do...

These are my commercial programs:


XP8 - a very intelligent file filter that cleans up and makes the
filthiest text QuarkXPress-ready. Among many other features, it offers
DOS-file reformatting, financial-text clean-up, garbage disposal,
typographic quality enhancement, and the best quote conversion we know
of. The demoware version of XP8 can be found under the name
XP8.SEA or in the Info-Mac archives as GST-XP8Demo.sit.

Torquemada The Inquisitor - batch global search and replace software
with wildcards, pattern matching, string substitution, et very
cetera. With Drag & Drop under System 7 and above, you can run up to
640 searches on up to 128 files in one batch. Features the most
intelligent case-conversion we know of. The most-recent FreeWare
version (1.1.0) can be found under the name TORQUE.SEA in Library 5
or in the Info-Mac archives as GST-TorqueDemo.sit. The current
commercial version is 1.3.0, offering a great many enhancements,
including new "wildthings" and a _lot_ of new User Interface power.
The commercial version ships with Torquemada's Ghost, a scriptable,
backgroundable Torquemada. A DemoWare version of Torquemada's Ghost
is available as TGHOST.SEA in Library 5 or in the Info-Mac archives
as GST-TGhostDemo.sit.

Shane the Plane 2.0.2 - file and font attribute editing utility.
Interactively or in Drag & Drop batches, permits you to change the
Creator/Type of files, their created/modified dates and times, a
host of significant Finder flags, plus a lot more. Makes files
invisible/visible, makes fonts behave like files by removing their
BNDL resources, batch "pastes" custom icons, intelligently renames
and/or "slugs" files, et very cetera. A demonstration version (fully
functional but limited to 32 launches) can be found in Library 12
under the name SPDEMO.SEA or in the Info-Mac archives as
GSU-STPDemo.sit.

Mark My Words - a very elaborate MS-Word binary to QuarkXPress Tags
text filter. It eats Word 4.0, 5.0 or 5.1 files, interactively or by
Drag & Drop, and converts the binary to QuarkXPress tagged text. You
can elect to include or omit any feature of Word's styling, and many
features can be converted from their WP-like form to their DTP-like
form (e.g., underscoring to italic). With Em Software's Xtags
Xtension, picture and text boxes (including Word's tables) can be
retained. A demonstration version (fully functional but limited to
32 launches) can be found in Library 12 under the name MMWDEM.SEA or
in the Info-Mac archives as GST-MMWDemo.sit.

(While I've vectored all the files toward CIS and the internet, my
primary haunt, they are also available on other services, and on any
BBS which has the most recent version of AMUG's BBS-In-A-Box CD-ROM
on line.)

All of these programs are sold on the same terms: (US)$50 each, per
license. Two to 10 licenses are $45 each. For 11 or more licenses
you're better off buying a site license. All of this is explained in
the registration software supplied with this archive.