Blog: WhizFolders, Articles and tips

We have reduced the entry level and upgrade prices for WhizFolders editions from January 22, 2010. We were able to achieve that by reducing the free upgrade (or maintenance) period to 1 year. To see the new prices, please visit the Buy Now page of WhizFolders.

The customers who made the full or upgrade purchases before January 22, 2010 will get free upgrades for two years from the date of their purchase, as promised at the time of their purchase.

This price reduction was done on the request of many users who suggested a lower entry level price with reduced maintenance period. They didn’t see a value in the 2-year free upgrade period.

The self-support web site support.whizfolders.com was down for a few hours today. The problem has now been fixed. If you were unable to login today, please try a login again. We apologize for the inconvenience.

A new version of WhizFolders is about to be released. The pre-release version 6.3.4.2 is now available in the paid user support area.

A summary of all the new features in version 6.3 so far are described at:
http://whizfolders.com/whizfolders63.aspx

For those of you, already using the Beta 6.3 version, the exact changes in this version are documented at:

• Version 6.3.4.2
• Version 6.3.4

WhizFolders 6.3 is now available in the paid user support area for beta testing. We expect this beta duration to be very short because most of the new features have been well tested for the past few months during alpha testing.

Please see a list of new features at http://whizfolders.com/whizfolders63.aspx.

If you are considering a purchase, please note that you can enter the paid user support area immediately after your purchase to get the above version. There is no waiting.

We were too busy in the Alpha development to try the new Windows 7. But finally, we were able release a new alpha version for testing today (see the previous blog post). Soon after that, I had a chance to install Windows 7.

I am happy to announce that WhizFolders 6.1 (released last year) works fine on Windows 7. This was expected as WhizFolders was redesigned for Windows Vista long back. In principle, any program that works on Windows Vista should work on Windows 7.

Our other product ShowSize (showsize.com) also works fine on Windows 7.

I’m happy to announce that a new Alpha version of WhizFolders 6.2.6.2 is now available in the self-service support web site for the paid users (support.whizfolders.com). It is available in both Deluxe and Pro editions. In case you don’t know, an Alpha version means, we constantly add new features to it based on your feedback. The new features are tested by us as before release and then they are tested by those who suggested them. The idea is to improve the product faster than would be possible in a formal beta release.

I think version 6.2 is now in the last stages of Alpha testing and a Beta will start next week. Then no new features would be added. Only bug fixes will be made depending on the bugs reported by the users.

The new features and fixes in the Alpha version are not documented in its help file. Instead, they are maintained on the following web page of release notes:
http://notices.avnitech.com/whizfoldersalpha.aspx

The main window of WhizFolders Alpha also has a “Release Notes” button at the bottom that opens the above web page. There are numerous improvements and fixes. In the coming week, I will try to describe the major new features on this blog in the “new features” area.

I’m happy to release the Beta version of WhizFolders Search Filter. If you install this filter, you will be able to search for text in WhizFolder documents from Windows Desktop Search (WDS). Note that WDS needs to be installed on Windows XP but comes built-in with Windows Vista.

Download the Filter: Please CLICK HERE to download the installer for WhizFolders Search Filter and run it to install. It installs in the same folder where your WhizFolders product is installed. Also, if you want to uninstall the filter without disturbing your WhizFolders product, you can do that with the Control Panel’s add/remove programs.

I have tested this filter on WDS 3.01 on Windows XP and WDS 4 on Windows Vista. If you see any problems, please write to us. You can always uninstall the filter by using the Control Panel’s add/remove programs.

A few things to note on the filter operation:

• All the text in the topic names, topic text and keywords is provided to WDS for indexing.
• Hidden topics are skipped. Note that the hidden topic feature is only available in the Deluxe edition of WhizFolders.
• Password protected WhizFolder documents are skipped.

Well, after my last post on the WhizFolders desktop search filter, I discovered a bug. The filter worked properly for “searching in the file contents” in non-indexed locations on Windows Vista. But it failed to work in indexed locations. This was unacceptable.

I have been researching this bug for last few days. Finally, after much research, I have fixed it. It turns out that the filter will need to use a temporary folder on Vista that you will set up during its installation.

I know many of you are waiting for the next Alpha release of WhizFolders. But I’m determined to release this filter first. I guess, it will need a few more rounds of testing. If all goes well, I will release it tomorrow. Thank you for your patience.

Whew! Making that search filter turned out to be quite complex. The good news is that it is finally working in all our tests. I am going to formally release it for beta testing on Monday, 1st June.

To summarize, when you install this filter, Windows Desktop Search will be able to include the text (title, content and keywords) from your WhizFolder documents in its search index.

I will make another announcement here when this filter is actually released for beta testing in our user support area.

The Alpha release of WhizFolders Deluxe (in testing) seems to be quite stable. No bugs have been reported so far. Meanwhile, I have been busy researching and prioritizing the list of new features that can be added to the Alpha without changing the file format of the WhizFolders file. Starting from next week, you will see a rapid progress in Alpha development. I hope to start the week with the release of Windows Search integration so that you can search for text within WhizFolder documents from Windows Search. Many users have asked for it, and this is the first thing to finish on my priority list. After that, a new Alpha will be released for both the Deluxe and Pro editions. Please watch this blog.

Have a nice weekend!