Re: Introducing GrabText app and financing problem

  • From: "qubit" <lauraeaves@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 19:31:38 -0500

I just wondered if the license would make it free for everyone or just the 
person who paid the $699.
--le

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tyler Littlefield" <tyler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 7:29 PM
Subject: Re: Introducing GrabText app and financing problem


I think he wants people to contribute so that the software will be free 
rather than requiring a license.
Thanks,
Tyler Littlefield
http://tds-solutions.net
Twitter: sorressean

On Mar 26, 2010, at 6:27 PM, qubit wrote:

> Jamal, are you suggesting that individuals pay $699 for a developers
> license? or are you asking people to send in contributions toward one 
> person
> getting the developers license?
> If one person buys the $699 license, does that make it possible for 
> multiple
> persons to access the source? or is that restricted?
> Sorry, just trying to iron out the terms.
> TIA
> --le
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Jamal Mazrui" <empower@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: <ProgrammingBlind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <Program-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Friday, March 26, 2010 5:33 PM
> Subject: Introducing GrabText app and financing problem
>
>
> Now available at
> http://EmpowermentZone.com/gtsetup.exe
>
> Thanks go to Donald Marang for getting me interested in the topic of
> screen OCR.  My searches did not find a satisfactory free solution (Google
> Tesseract, for example, does poorly on screen images).  I did find and
> compare several commercial OCR libraries.  Typically, an individual
> license costs in the hundreds of dollars, and a developer license in the
> thousands -- often, with royalties charged for each distributed program.
>
> I did find what seems like a worthwhile solution:  Text Grab SDK by
> Renovation Software.  Based on this library, GrabText can conveniently
> extract and gather text from almost any application windows.  An
> individual license for the COM server library is $29 and a single
> developer license is $699.  If you want to consider contributing to a way
> of making GrabText freely available, read about the financing issue in the
> initial documentation, pasted below.
>
> Source code is in the GrabText.cs file in the GrabText program folder.
>
> Jamal
>
> [Initial documentation]
>
> GrabText
> Beta 0.6
> March 26, 2010
> Copyright 2010 by Jamal Mazrui
> GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)
>
> Description
>
> GrabText is a command-line utility and dialog interface for grabbing text
> from the screen.  The command-line syntax is
>
> GrabText.exe SourceArea TargetOutput UserName LicenseKey
>
> The first parameter specifies the area of the screen to serve as the
> source of text.  The choices are ActiveWindow, FocusControl, CaretClip,
> MouseClip, EveryArea, and PickWindow.  Capitalization does not matter.
> ActiveWindow is the most common choice, referring to the top-level window
> that is currently active.  FocusControl refers to the control within that
> window that has focus.  CaretClip or MouseClip refer to the string of text
> at the caret or mouse position, respectively.  EveryArea combines the
> previous four areas into a longer string.  PickWindow presents a list of
> top-level windows from which to choose.
>
> The second parameter specifies what to do with the text:  Voice (say it),
> MessageBox (display in a standard message box), Clipboard (append to the
> clipboard), or File (append to a file).  The Voice, Clipboard, and File
> options are On by default.  The default file name is GrabTextOutput.txt,
> stored in the GrabText data directory, which is located at
> %AppData%\GrabText
>
> A configuration file, GrabText.ini, is also stored there.  If a parameter
> is not specified on the command line, its value is retrieved from the
> configuration file, if present.
>
> The UserName and LicenseKey parameters are needed because GrabText depends
> on a commercial programming library called Text Grab SDK (software
> development kit), available from the web site
> http://renovation-software.com
>
> At the time of this writing, a single license costs $29.  The trial
> version, distributed with GrabText, lasts for two weeks.  Rather than
> buying an individual license, consider contributing to the cost of a
> developer license for the author of GrabText.  This costs $699.  It would
> enable GrabText to be fully and freely functional for any user.  Note that
> GrabText, itself, is open source, and no compensation is sought for its
> use.  If anyone is able to set up a PayPal or equivalent site to be
> transparent about any money collection effort, please say so.
>
> The default hotkey for invoking GrabText is Alt+Control+F8.  This may be
> changed by modifying properties of the GrabText shortcut on the Windows
> desktop.
>
> The installer, gtsetup.exe, creates a GrabText program group in the
> Windows Start Menu, with options for launching the program, uninstalling
> it, or reading this ddocumentation.   The default program folder is
> C:\Program Files\GrabText
>
> GrabText needs to be invoked with a global hotkey so you can extract from
> the current application window.  Once launched, the program remains in
> memory until you explicitly terminate it.  Subsequent invocations of the
> GrabText hotkey activate the current program in memory rather than loading
> additional copies.
>
> There is another desktop shortcut called GrabTextOptions.  By default, it
> uses the same hotkey with a Shift added:  Alt+Control+Shift+F8.  It may be
> invoked either with its hotkey or from the desktop.  This invokes a dialog
> with configuration options and utilities.  The UserName and LicenseKey may
> be specified.  You may change settings for the screen area or output type.
> You may inspect or clear the clipboard.  You may pick an output file, open
> it, remove it, or browse the GrabText data folder.  You may restore
> default settings, or present this documentation in your web browser.  You
> may quit running GrabText.  All controls of the dialog have unique
> Alt+Letter combinations -- except for the Cancel button, which is
> activated directly with the Escape key.
>
> I welcome feedback, which helps GrabText improve over time.
>
> Jamal Mazrui
> jamal@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
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