Back about 6 weeks ago, I said that I’d have a final decision about what direction we’d be going with WorkingArtist in a few days.  Well, you know, to be honest, I’m still thinking about that.  There are so many options, and so many risks as well as opportunities, that this isn’t going to be a straightforward decision.  The one thing I can tell you is that I won’t be moving WorkingArtist to the Filemaker platform anytime soon.  At the risk of starting a holy war with the Filemaker fans out there, I’m just not sure that it’s mature enough to do the things that I’d like to be able to do with the WorkingArtist product line.  It’s kind of a nebulous decision because I can’t point to one particular thing that bothers me about it; I’m just not that comfortable with it as a platform and that’ll have to do for now.

I remain just as committed as ever to providing a version of WorkingArtist that will run without the need of “helper applications” on the Mac and possibly Linux. I’m just not sure yet what’s the right way to do it.  This is a *humongous*, gigantic change, so I want to err on the side of caution and take as much time as I need to select the right platform going forward.

So, here’s the plan.

I have a growing list of enhancements that I want to add to WorkingArtist.  To get that out the door in a timely manner, WorkingArtist will remain on the current development platform, although I’ll be moving it to the most recent version of that platform, which will allow us to do some new things in and of itself.  So, WA4 will remain a Windows product for now, with the usual ability to run on a Mac with the assistance of other software.

Once that’s out the door, we’re going to continue and complete work on a new product for the management of art fairs that I’ve been discussing with a local arts group for some time.  That will be a web-based application that will allow you to  sign up online, as well as communicate images for judging, etc.  There will be a web-based back end as well for handling back office activities.  There will be a direct link between WorkingArtist and this new system to ease the ability for our artists to sign up and coordinate the tasks needed to participate in an art fair.

We have 2 more “varieties” of WorkingArtist on the drawing board as well, and I need to make a final decision on the development platform of the future before we start actually building those.

So, for those of you who would like to have WorkingArtist on a Mac, and for those loyal users who have gone the extra steps to be able to use WA on the Mac, I have to ask you to remain patient.  We’ll get there, I promise.

We’ll talk again soon.  Enjoy Spring!

Well, I’ve been hard at work working on the next version of WorkingArtist, which will be WA4.  You might have seen in a previous post that I want to have WorkingArtist available for the Mac market without having to purchase additional 3rd party software.  I said then that that was going to be a large project.  It’s turned out to be even larger, and more painful, than I thought.  So, just for a moment, join me here in software development land.

WorkingArtist is currently built on top of Microsoft Access, a database development system that has been around for a long, long time.  It does many things very well.  One of the things it doesn’t do very well is run on the Mac operating system.  Well, actually, it’s not that it doesn’t do it very well, it’s that it doesn’t do it at all (at least, not without some help).  So, in order to have WorkingArtist available on the Mac “natively”, that is, without something like Parallels, we have to completely rewrite WA on a new development platform.

I’ve been looking very closely at a product called Filemaker, which is the most popular database program on the Mac, just as Access is the most popular database program on Windows.  It’s a nice looking program. The problem is, until a couple of years ago, it really couldn’t match Access in capabilities, and even tho the newest versions of Filemaker are getting better and better, it still doesn’t, in my mind, match up with what Access can do, looking at it from a developer’s standpoint.  So, in order to move WorkingArtist to something like Filemaker, I not only have to learn Filemaker, I have to learn all of the creative tricks that developer’s have come up with in order to match what Access has done for years.  Now, not all developers will agree with this assessment, especially Filemaker folks, and that’s fine.

There are other development platforms out there, and I’m taking a look at those as we speak.  There’s another way to solve this as well.  On the drawing board right now is a web-based version of WorkingArtist.  Anyone with a browser will be able to use it, whether it’s on Windows, a Mac, Linux, or what have you.  So, we could continue to have the “desktop” version of WorkingArtist be dedicated to the Windows platform, and have the web version for “the world at large”.  The newest versions of Microsoft Access have tools that should make a transition to a web version fairly painless, as these things go, anyway, and that might be the fastest way to get there.

Recently, I’ve been asking myself if, by putting so much effort into creating a Mac-friendly version of WA, I’m slowing down the development of new enhancements that could be of use to all of my artists already using the system.  Is a Mac-friendly version worth the effort? I have no idea how big the potential market for WorkingArtist is on the Mac.  We’ve had a handful of requests over the years, and there’s always that nebulous comment about “artists really like the Mac”.   I think digital graphic artists like the Mac; whether the rest of the arts community does is open to discussion.  The fact of the matter is, most folks buy Windows-based PCs.

So, where am I right now, you might ask? Well, I think that the prospects of moving WorkingArtist to the Mac via Filemaker are dwindling fast.  I have a few other options that I’m walking through right now.  But, unless something pops up that allows me to move forward pretty quickly, what I’ll probably do is keep WA on Access and provide a web-based version for everyone else.  That would meet my main goal of having WorkingArtist available to the Mac market without having to buy any 3rd party software, and would allow us to get more enhancements into the next version of WA.  I already have a pretty long list of enhancements that are going to be in the new release.

I’ll have that decision made in a few days.  Regardless, there will be a new version of WorkingArtist coming out, and we have new products being worked on as well, all being done with the intent of helping our artists enhance their business prospects.  I’ll talk more about those new products soon.

Have a nice day, everybody.

Hi, and Happy New Year to you all.

In the coming weeks, we’re going to be adding to our communications capabilities with our customers and friends. Among those additions will be some updates to the WorkingArtist Website.

We’re going to change the look and feel a bit to freshen it up.  We’re going to be replacing the WorkingArtist Forum with a new tool.  The Forum is only lightly used, and I’d rather that we had a tool that helped to build the WorkingArtist community.  Once I have that in place, we’ll close down the Forum area of the website.  Of course, all of our current support tools remain in place and open for your use.  We are dedicated to making WorkingArtist the best tool you can have for managing your business, and that includes our support efforts as well.  We’re going to review all of the Knowledgebase Articles as well.  Some are getting a bit aged, and those will be removed, while others will be updated to reflect current knowledge.

More news to come. We’re continuing our work on WorkingArtist4, and we’ll have more news for you on that topic in the coming weeks.

Have a safe and happy New Year, and may the coming year bring us all a better economy in which to support our businesses.

Ron Gafron

WorkingArtist

Hi all,

Well, it’s been awhile.  Best laid plans and all that. I started this blog to keep you all up to date on what’s been going on with WorkingArtist. Turns out, the work on WorkingArtist took up so much time that I ended up not having time to tell you about the work being done on WorkingArtist.  In the meantime, all sort of freaks and weirdos starting dumping things onto the blog comments.  Wasn’t very pretty, unless you’re impressed by Viagra ads.  But, finally, I’ve worked out a schedule that will let me do a better job of keeping things up to date here.  Just spent a couple of hours cleaning up all the cr*p that had been dumped here.  Now, I’d like to tell you about….

WorkingArtist4!

Kathryn Townsend, the original developer of WorkingArtist, had actually started working on WA4 some time ago.  When Kathryn turned the company over to me, WA4 came along with it.  I could have released it as is, and that would have been a pretty cool update. But, no! I can’t just leave well enough alone, so I’m back in development mode, doing some significant work on WA4.

The biggest news, I suppose, is that WA4 will be available for Windows and the Mac.  So, for all of you who occasionally ask if there will be a Mac version of WA, the answer is yes.  Now, this is a pretty big job, so it’s going to take a little while to get it all done. Right now, I’m planning on releasing WA4 for both Windows and the Mac late in the spring of next year, but I’m not going to let it escape into the wild until I’m happy with it.  I’ve got a pretty sizable list of new features that are being added, and I’ll be talking them over the next few months as I get to work on them.  In the meantime, I’ll have some news for you on other work that’s being done.

I hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving, and will have a wonderful holiday season.

Ron