This is such an interesting thread that I'd just love to put my $.02 in. My name is Steve Behrns and I'm the guy that actually wrote the KiXscripts Editor. I'd hate to see poor ol' Bob (my partner in crime) get blamed for issues that should rightfully be placed at my feet.

It seems that the main question here is "Why pay for something I can get for free?"

Unfortunately, I agree with everything that has been said on this topic (I really like to argue). However, every point here has at least some validity.

Notepad does exist on every machine but you can't really argue that you get the same feature set from it that you do from a dedicated script editor. Some of you diehard Kixtart scripters may see absolutely no value added over notepad. We did not write this editor for you.

When Bob and I discussed taking this project on our goal was simply to provide the kix community with a tool that would make kixtart scripting easier, and in however small a way, decrease the time necessary to produce scripts. All of the features and functions in the editor are geared exclusively toward the kix community. Someone knocked the editor on the fact that it didn't do other languages like Javascript, HTML, VB, C/C++, etc. It would take about 5 minutes to add syntax highlighting and intellisense for these languages as well. But, IMHO, the editor holds a lot more value than syntax highlighting and intellisense, which is why these languages haven't been included--our focus is kix.

Instead of listing what features I think are important I'll just leave it to you to decide if we've succeeded. Now, onto the money issue...

I'll paraphrase Shawn's argument (if I misrepresent your point please forgive me) to say that since Ruud has spent endless hours on a tool like this and charges nothing (until the careware of the latest version) that other tools that take advantage of his work should follow in the spirit of his work.

Ideologically, I agree with that. KiXscripts Editor is a trivial product compared to what Ruud has done with kix itself. However, we all have different passions and different motivations. We are not going to get rich off of this product. But if users are willing to pay for this product then that indicates to us that we're actually providing something of real value to the kix community. And for me, that's what gets me going.

On another note, most people (present company excluded ) don't do a lot of kix scripting at home for fun. Most people, in
my experience, use it at work to automate processes, etc. Getting their company to buy a product as inexpensive as this one is not really an issue for most people.

I'll post a new reply to MCA specifically regarding the critique of the editor itself as this is getting TOO LONG...sorry about that and thanks for your time.

Regards,

Steven Behrns
kixscripts.com