OpenEdge Application Rollout

For the demo, you might want to look into Arcade.

Legal issues depend on the kind of licensing.  Some people are casual and trusting and some people are paranoid and restrictive.  You get to choose.

Marketing materials is a discipline in itself.  Sounds like this is something you have whipped up in the expectation of their being a market without clear market research or connections.  That may not have been the best move.  Good to have some prospects identified before you start and involve them in the development so that you know that you are developing what they want to buy.  If the urge to develop this came from acquaintence with the industry, start by following your connections.  To start, personal connections and direct interaction are going to be more relevant than any flashy booklet of screen shots.

Think about establishing a web site and creating the site and printed materials which illustrate a kind of "progressive disclosure".   I.e., think about a home page and a flyer that are one page, flashy, not very crowded, that conveys the basic idea of what you have and what is special about it ... just enough to get someone who might be interested to know that they want to know more.  Second level, less flash, more content, focus on bullet points about what makes your product different than any competition or from what one would expect just from knowing what it was and the industry it  serves.  Stick to functional issues, not technical ones.  Third level, detailed specs on the one hand and screenshots on the other.  By the time someone gets that far they should be half sold.  They should at least have developed enough motivation to care about what they see.  If you do a trade show, hand out the flyer, have the bullets on the backdrop, and have specs and screenshots at the back available for someone you talk to that seems genuinely interested.

Thanks Thomas.

I'll look into Arcade.

Sounds like this is something you have whipped up in the expectation of their being a market 

I developed the application (for a client) about 3 years ago using Progress GUI. Many years prior to doing so, my client had developed a POS application with a technical partner (long since gone)  with the intention of reselling it (UNIX /  CHUI). I entered the picture about 5 years ago. I supporting the app for a while and when my client was moving his business to a new location we agreed I would completely rewrite the app and together would resell it. On a ready or not bases it went live with the store opening (10 XP stations \ RH server). For various reasons I am now solo with this project.

So, it really is not just me with wishful thinking. There are many credentialed others with hopes and dreams.

To start, personal connections and direct interaction are going to be more relevant than any flashy booklet of screen shots.

I agree. I'm working a couple of local prospects.

Think about establishing a web site and creating the site and printed materials which illustrate a kind of "progressive disclosure".

Very helpful. Thanks

I am glad there is a more grounded base than I was speculating.  I think this is key to any but a mass market application ... i.e., regard the product as being in beta until you install enough of them to no longer having to change it for each new customer.  That may be forever!   But, it is a challenge to your design skills to incorporate all the variations into core product so that you are not creating islands of customization.

danielStafford wrote:
I have completed the development (V 1.0) of an industry specific Point of Sale application. It is an OpenEdge GUI for .NET application (OE 10.2A04, Infragistics, MVP, OERA).
I would be thankful for some suggestions / tips on how best to package it for download and installation at a customer site (.zip, .exe), 

AutoEdge uses a product called InnoSetup to create its installations, which is a free Windows-based installer. The base download is "just" a compiler, but there are a number of 3rd-party tools which add a UI for creating the install script (see the 3rd-party page http://www.jrsoftware.org/is3rdparty.php for more). There's also a forms (wizard pages) designer called ISFD (InnoSetup Forms Designer) which allows you to graphically build the wizard pages; however, I've had difficulty finding it online lately.

I haven't used it as for installing/registering my own assemblies - and you look like you're using the 10.2B04 UltraControls, so you won't have this issue either - but I understand it can do that too. You can also add your own scripting/code - in a Pascal variant - which makes it super-powerful. For instance, we use the scripting to install AppServers into the AdminServer, tailor DB startup scripts and more.

Can't recommend it enough. Oh, and javascript:; ships its own installer files, so you can see how it works.

-- peter

Added comments about installing assemblies.

Thanks Peter. I'll check it out.

- Dan

I kept your advice in mind while working on the web site.

I'm not even half complete and get a response already from the sites contact form asking for price information (no qualifying info provided).

Please see http://www.gunshopsoftware.com/

I do seem to be at a competetive disadvantage in that I cannot offer a demo download, and pricing of course is a whole conversation in itself.

I was thinking about creating a page with "Partners in Progress" and other marketing information (Infragistics / List & Label), and writing about the technicals regarding the database, separation of concerns, GUI for .NET, etc.

What do you think about the client install approach where I take control via GoToMyPc or some other remote control product for doing the install and any ongoing support?

My appreciation in advance for site critique, and any and all advice.

Please see http://www.gunshopsoftware.com/

Just a minor thing, but some people care about this: The screenshot should have a custom Form icon, not .NET's standard "I haven't had time to change it yet" and "so I also don't care too much about the other details".

Thanks Mike.

I do care about the details and so will spend the time recreating my screen shots / uploading them.