Omg!!!! Grow software!! Must see!

patlpp said:

If you don't think it is, speak up and elaborate; contribute instead of the LOL. It's obnoxious.

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Ok... I'll bite. It's terrible design. It's neither usable or accessible. It looks to me like someone learning to write software drew a parallel between data records and plants (because they only know how to write a program to access and modify data records).

The user interface is cluttered and there is no obvious path of resolution for ANY task you want to do. No one should pay for this software because down to the bottom of what it REALLY does can be had free of charge on any operating system or free web sites...

It's piss poor in my opinion... if it matters I am a software developer/user interface engineer...

Thanks man, now the developer can challenge you if he so wishes. Are you saying the whole concept is a bad idea or that the concept is good but he needs to improve the GUI ? Would you not think it would be good for a novice who has no experience in software? Just wants something plug and play?

Not saying the concept is bad idea. It needs to evolve in the GUI and the backend. It really needs to be built in compliance with Apples Human Interface Guidelines (for the mac version, no such guidelines exist for windows unfortunately).

Hello all,

In response to the post about the GUI. I agree with you somewhat. I am currently redesigning the GUI to be a bit more clear. This is the FIRST I have heard of any complaints about the layout. I have a open forum on growassistant.com that asks for suggestions and feature requests, I have received none regarding the GUI.

I'll read up on Apples HIG and see what I can do.

Regarding the plant Data, I guess I'm not sure what you mean here? what more data manipulation is needed? This seems pretty cut and dry to me.

unlike you I am not a User Interface Engineer, I'm a patient who decided to take a program I designed for myself and make it available to others. In my professional life I'm a Sip Engineer so I don't get to work on this 10 hours a day.

You undoubtedly also know that this is not a self written program but a Runtime based on Filemaker (explained very clearly on my website) therefore I am somewhat restricted in what I can do in the GUI.

And in response to your final comment. Openoffice is free, Microsoft office isn't, People still buy Office even though there is a "free" version, and they do so for their own good reasons.

Thank you so much for you thoughts, I'm always open to hear more constructive criticism.

I hope no one takes offense to my comments, I normally don't post on forums, but several people are asking questions here so I thought I would make a exception.

Peace and love

Why don't you make your program free of charge for other patients?

for the same reason you don't work for free. I have to make a living somehow. I'm sorry if anyone views this negatively.

i dont think there is anything wrong with making money bro! rock on. and if anyone is scared of someone using your great creation as evidence against them, than maybe they should move to a state or country where they can grow and smoke legally. and if they already do, maybe they should start growing some better shit that doesn't make them so paranoid.

i don't think that people realize how much time and effort goes into creating a program

often times you also have 2 totally different kind of people as well, 1 handling the coding backend data access etc. components, and someone else handling the user interface, it is very rare that you get a single guy that is amazing at both, generally speaking it seems that most folks fall into 1 or the other category and not both...of course there are exceptions, i have worked with an amazing web programmer that's been doing it since java in the 90s and this guys is really kick ass at interface design as well, he's the only one that really excelled at both, i've been working with programmers on various levels for about 9 years and he is the only 1!

anyways, not to get all cool story bro with my long story

it is the programmer's prerogative to charge or not to charge, they made it, it's up to them or the company that hired them, not to the end user

if you don't like that, there are plenty of free (as in beer) tools out there so you can make your own, and then make it open source and give it away, you can then move on to other things like arguing over bsd, gpl, mit licensing for your open source project, it really can be fun to create your own tools and it is a great learning experience! once you do this, you'll quickly begin to understand the amount of work and effort put in, you may find yourself actually paying for some software after that experience, who knows...

me...mine is super basic in an excel spreadsheet, it would be trivial to move it into something like filemaker but i prefer to not be bound to filemaker, the excel spreadsheet can easily get loaded into google docs which then makes it portable and accessible from all of my devices at once without need for any special software...seeing this gives me a lot of ideas on things to add to mine, my plant tracker is very very simplistic at this point, it is very evident that grow assistant has had a lot of thought put into it

think about growing your herb.

it's fun to give it away for free, i wouldn't blame a guy at all for wanting a bit of $ or something in return for it though

brandon. said:

Why don't you make your program free of charge for other patients?

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crazy idea here, but go with me on it for just a split second:

why don't YOU make YOUR program free of charge for other patients?

all the tools are out there to help make this happen man, for FREE, the only thing it will cost you is your time!

thanks for taking the time to make it ... from what i see of the program its money very well spent. would it be possible to make a version that could actully control greenhouse functions easily ? if not the super complex function maybe some of the simple ones.

one question does the pro version allow for entry of multiple plants easier like in a batch type of form ? auto generate plant id numbers to just keep going up ? i plan on purchasing this no doubt . ive been playing with it for 20 min and im hooked lol Fuck yea !!!!!!! if your willing to to listen and take into account ideas well ill throw sum your way as i play with it. the batch data entry function would be a nice touch. instead of entering in 25 or 100 individual plant ids on your own if the program just gave it an assigned id number.

geekyg said:

Very interesting post Smokey. If I had to calculate the time I've put into this software over the last 3 years I would probably stop developing!

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well man, last time we contracted a real developer/programmer it was 100~120$/hour for their time, that was a pretty decent deal too!

cheapest i've seen contracted filemaker database work done ~60$/hour

70$ for the pro level software isn't that bad at all, most will be content withe personal version which is only half as much

maybe i'm trippin' though, here is where my perspective is coming from:
let's see, each time i buy a mac at work for a new designer, i drop about 1600$ for adobe creative suite pro cs4...that isn't that much really, we have used special patternmaking software that is thousands of dollars and only does patternmaking...our erp software is 250$ for each additional user license, 70 licenses, that's not even including the initial setup of the system which starts at 10,000 (not including any hardware, just the server software)...our video editing department, just to connect to the san you need a 4gb fibre card which is about 600$, as well as a 1000$ xsan2 license, not to mention we need to drop another 1000$ for the video editing software itself, let's not forget plugins!

yeah, development is not a free process
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Sweet Find +rep

smokefrogg said:

crazy idea here, but go with me on it for just a split second:

why don't YOU make YOUR program free of charge for other patients?

all the tools are out there to help make this happen man, for FREE, the only thing it will cost you is your time!

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I'm doing just that right now, I have an open source project on codeplex called herb.iQ. I should have a useable version ready by this weekend.

lol, nice advertisement for your software on anthers thread there Lucifer....

I don't have a issue with this except when I did it on your thread you got all pissed about it.... funny

To each their own though. Good luck with your project!

Hope all enjoy the software. I am working on a (ad supported) free version that should come out in the next few weeks.

i still don't see how this makes it more practical to keep record than just recording your grow records yourself, personally i used old school paper and pen, works flawlessly, takes less time to write down than starting my comp lol i have a small notebook where i write the nutes i add everytime with the date, and the clones i have etc... if i had 50 strains and 1000 plants then maybe it can help otherwise it seems useless. waste of time, effort, and money IMO

one useful software i thought of was one that is used to start all timers, top the res, and web cam to track the plant progress. i actually thought it through, you can automate ALL your grow room with only a simple old parallel port and a software, but then again, it requires a room to be big enough to be practical, a comp requires power to run constantly, would add to the bill, not what a small hobby grower would need.

I used to use the paid version of that program. Its alright but has a lot of short comings. If you are growing in dirt this program works pretty well. But if you're growing in hydro i'd rather use HerbIQ which is free. Personally I use neither, I use grow buddy for my android phone. I just started using it, but I like it. Its very overly simple, but I like having it on my phone .

I would be interested why you don't think the Grow Assistant is suited well for hydro? If not we can always make changes to suit your needs.

Also, the Grow Assistant works on the iPad and iPhone.