A plea for Design & Print

[Tveloso]

Mario, you mentioned in this bug report:

https://www.photools.com/community/index.php?topic=8774.0

...that you have pondered possibly removing Design & Print from IMatch.

I for one would be quite sad if you were to make that decision.

I agree that printing is not such a necessary function these days...in fact, I myself actually make an effort to not commit "anything" to paper.  When I "print" something, I'm almost always going to a PDF.  But that's not true for photos.  There, I do periodically actually print...and I use Design & Print to do so.

I can imagine that maintaining the Design & Print module with all the enhancements you make to IMatch is quite a bit of work, and I would of course understand if you do find the need to remove it.  But I would be sad to see it go.

I wonder if there might actually be more users like me in your user base?...  You also said in that post: "How many of the users not allowing telemetry are using D&P?  I don't know."  I wonder if that could be a more significant number than what you see from telemetry.

Anyway, just my two cents...thanks for listening.

PS.
Have you made the determination as to what percentage of the users that have upgraded to IMatch 2019 have elected to send telemetry data?

[bonsai]

But I would be sad to see it go.

+

[Mario]

I'm just one person and my resources are limited. I have to concentrate on support and features which bring the most benefit to the majority of the user base.

Telemetry, for the first time, allows me to actually see how IMatch users are using IMatch.
Which features are used most often. How often? By how many users? Which features have been used by only a handful of users over the past 3 months? Which features have never been used? Which apps are used regularly, which occasionally or never?

Telemetry is only available since a late IMatch 2018 version. All users with a previous version do not provide data. We only have about 3 months data at this time.
Not all IMatch users have enabled telemetry. But even with a few hundred participating users it produces very useful data.
Many IMatch users are still on version 5 (!) or 2017. No telemetry data from these users at all. But they still may use IMatch daily.

So, while telemetry explains a lot, it by far does not explain everything.
The users in this community are probably the 'heavy' users and don't necessarily represent  the majority of the user base.
I guess that a large share of the users allowing telemetry also participates more or less actively in this community.
This might create a filter bubble, so to speak. I don't know a thing about the majority of the user base, sadly...

I'm still in the data collection phase, but some findings made me re-evaluate some 'niche' features and how to proceed with them.

A feature that is final and does not cause 'work' in form of support requests, bug fixes, feature requests may live for a long time, even if it is used only by a handful of users.
Features which are used by only a handful of users but require a lot of maintenance and are thus 'expensive' will be re-evaluated at some point.

Of course there are features in IMatch which users need only once or rarely. But then they are really needed.
Other features are used for dealing with specific problems or to handle certain situations. They may be rarely used. Or only by some users.
There are 'seasonal' features which have their peak use over holidays or during typical vacation time. Printing is probably one of those...

I'm not saying that I will drop Design & Print next month. It's fairly stable, I like it and it works great. Can do a lot more than other specialized tools out there!
But I will think twice before I invest a week or a month to implement new features. I have some on my to-do list. But I'm not sure it will be worth the effort.

I have some massive new features planned for IMatch 2020 will which be useful for the majority of users. These have priority and will keep me really busy.

[Aubrey]

I have some massive new features planned for IMatch 2020 will which be useful for the majority of users. These have priority and will keep me really busy.

I can't imagine what kind of new features... Imatch is already feature rich.

But I can't help thinking of Steve Jobs comment... Something along the lines

People don't know what they want until you show it to them.

[Mario]

People don't know what they want until you show it to them.

Indeed.
But quite many of Apple's famed simplicity stems from leaving things out and dumbing down.
Reducing the feature set of applications to simplify things. Less features mean less buttons and thus make the applications easier to use and look simpler.
Not a bad thing, but what if you are one of the users who needs and demands more?

I always try to make IMatch faster, easier to use and to add useful new features people really like.
Faster to handle the ever-growing collections. Easier because users like simple. New features to incorporate changes in technology and how users work with photography.

I listen closely to what users say here in the community, at dpreview and on other photographer's sites. Sometimes even a small enhancement or change can make many users happy (just look at the release notes of the past couple of months). Sometimes a new feature takes months to develop. And sometimes I have to wait until the technology exists I need to make something happen.

Now we have it, in the form of the embedded web server in IMatch, IMWS and all the tight integration with modern web technology. This not only allows me to develop (and change) things faster, but also to create new features which were impossible before. Just wait 

Not to mention the awesome enhancements shipped with the current IMatch Anywhere version. Where you can actually edit metadata in your web browser, from your iPad or tablet. While still using the full power of IMatch and ExifTool in the background... This kind of technology is usually only available in high-priced corporate DAM products. Not available for cheap in IMatch Anywhere