Templot Club Archive 2007-2020
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posted: 24 Jan 2008 22:31 from: Martin Wynne
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Dear all, One of life's many mysteries is why the Templot download is so much smaller than most other program downloads. It's only around 1.5MB. I've found that most other program downloads are typically 5 or 10 times larger than that. For software which seems not significantly more complex than Templot. With nearly everyone now on broadband, downloading Templot takes only a second or two, and sometimes it is so fast that you are not entirely sure that it has actually worked!  The small size also gives the impression that it must be a fairly simple program -- anyone judging these matters on a megabyte-per-dollar basis must be none too impressed.  So I'm pondering whether there might be a case for bulking it up with some blank space to make the download look a bit meatier and take longer. It seems a daft thing to do, and unfair to anyone still on dial-up, but I'm wondering if other software gets up to such tricks? Anyone know? At one time the smallness of a file was a selling point, but in the broadband age is that still true? Or if not that, just what is it that makes other program downloads so much bigger than Templot?  regards, Martin. |
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posted: 24 Jan 2008 23:22 from: Jim Guthrie
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Martin Wynne wrote: Dear all,Martin, It's probably the development packages that developers use these days which include about every option and function under the sun in the compiled .exe file. I use Delphi to do my programming and a comparatively simple program with very straightforward graphics comes in at around 400K. It is possible to get the program much smaller by going in and hacking all the libraries of functions that will be loaded. I know that in the original version of Delphi, a basic "Hello World" program was about 250K but if you did a lot of hacking you could get it down to 10K. I suspect that you have done all your own Windows handling and have programmed in the minimum necessary to make Templot work, hence your measly 1.5M. Jim. |
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posted: 24 Jan 2008 23:44 from: Paul Boyd
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Years ago I worked for a company that made parallel-processing supercomputers. These were plain black boxes that performed miracles in terms of sheer processing power, for their day. Then they wanted to sell to the American market. "But it's got no lights!" So the next generation had lots of flashing lights and scrolling displays and it sold quite well, despite these lights performing no real useful function. So yes, I reckon people buy things not based on their actual function, but based on how much function the item apparently has. With software, if it's a huge download it must be a super-duper program, mustn't it? And if it's only a tiddly 1.5Mb, well that must be a little bit of shareware someone's cobbled up Based on Templot, I wonder if it's true that the smaller the download, the more powerful the program? Today I downloaded SP3 for Windows XP. 330Mb.... (Oh, please don't bulk Templot up just for the sake of it!!) |
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posted: 25 Jan 2008 01:17 from: James Dickie
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Martin Wynne wrote: One of life's many mysteries is why the Templot download is so much smaller than most other program downloads.Hi Martin, User documentation and online help files can take up a huge amount of space in downloads. I manage a range of software products to fund my Templot habit and I know that beta versions going out with no docs/help/PDFs can be a fraction of the size of the final, all singing and dancing version. So, you might get there with Templot ... eventually  Until then, keep up the good work. Cheers, James |
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posted: 25 Jan 2008 03:37 from: Martin Wynne
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Many thanks for the comments. Hi Paul, So yes, I reckon people buy things not based on their actual function, but based on how much function the item apparently has. With software, if it's a huge download it must be a super-duper program, mustn't it? And if it's only a tiddly 1.5Mb, well that must be a little bit of shareware someone's cobbled upExactly. That's what set me thinking. I don't think I can seriously insert a lot of empty space , but it might be useful to include a short bit of beginner's video. But then how to keep those on dial-up happy?Hi James, User documentation and online help files can take up a huge amount of space in downloads.I think you may be right. The Templot Companion docs on the web site are currently about 20MB total. That's mostly graphics, so wouldn't compress much. If I included all that in the download, it would certainly make it bigger. If I included all the videos too, that would be another 200MB! Version 091b does contain an HTML rendering engine and a lot of HTML Help texts, but not much in the way of graphics (yet). I'm not going near CHM with the buggy MS viewer and all the recent extra security restrictions. In any event, web-based Help seems to be the way forward. Hi Jim, It's probably the development packages that developers use these days which include about every option and function under the sun in the compiled .exe file. I use Delphi to do my programming and a comparatively simple program with very straightforward graphics comes in at around 400K. It is possible to get the program much smaller by going in and hacking all the libraries of functions that will be loaded.I also use Delphi for Templot. But I haven't done any special hacking to get the size down. Mostly where I've optimised it has been for speed rather than file size. I just create the forms, write the code, and compile. It's currently coming in at about 3.5MB for the executable, which zips down to about 1.5MB for the download. regards, Martin. |
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posted: 25 Jan 2008 05:47 from: John Lewis
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Martin Wynne wrote: The small size also gives the impression that it must be a fairly simple program -- anyone judging these matters on a megabyte-per-dollar basis must be none too impressed.Hi Martin If you must make it bigger, why not include some of your instructional videos? John |
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posted: 25 Jan 2008 18:15 from: JohnM
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Would it not be possible to have two versions, broad & dial? John M |
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