Hi everyone,
Ever since we released Hero Lab for Windows three years ago, people have requested a version that runs natively on Mac OS. Hero Lab works great under Boot Camp, Parallels, Virtual PC, etc, but Mac users (quite reasonably) want to run Hero Lab on their native operating system, without having to reboot or buy a Windows license.
We're actively investigating a number of porting options, and some are simply too costly to consider for a company our size. However, there is one option that we are seriously considering, and we need to better gauge the demand before we go ahead with it.
If you are a Mac user, and you don't own Hero Lab yet, would you purchase the product if a native Mac version were available?
Please note that the following restrictions would apply:
1) The application would likely only run under "Tiger" and later versions (OS X 10.4 and later), not earlier versions.
2) The application would look and behave exactly the same as it does under Windows, with the exception of things like the main menu. The user interface would not be rewritten for the mac.
3) All features would work on Mac OS exactly as they do on Windows. There would be no functionality difference between the Mac and Windows versions. Hero Lab currently supports Mutants & Masterminds, Pathfinder, the d20 System, World of Darkness (Vampire & Changeling), 4th edition, Cortex System, and Savage Worlds - all of these game systems would be available within the Mac version.
Given these conditions, would you purchase Hero Lab if you haven't already done so?
If you're a Mac user who's interested in using Hero Lab, now's your chance to show it. Please let us know if you'd buy Hero Lab if it was available for the Mac.
I am certainly intrigued. I admit I've been feeling snubbed by WotC and their durned PC only Digital Initiative.
It is the sort of product I would be interested in, and it being Windows-only would be a dealbreaker unless it was extraordinary in some way that isn't immediately apparent. If it was just running in a WINE bottle, I would not be interested in it.
It will be something very similar to just "running in a WINE bottle". May I ask why that would be a dealbreaker to you?
Thanks for your comments, everyone. Keep them coming :)
Er... this is going to sound non-compu-literate of me, I fear, but what does running a program in a WINE bottle entail?
And does it go best with white or red wine?
What if I prefer strawberry daiquiris? Would it be Strawberry compatible as well as Apple?
Yep, for the same price as the Windows version, I would be interested!
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It is the sort of product I would be interested in, and it being Windows-only would be a dealbreaker unless it was extraordinary in some way that isn't immediately apparent. If it was just running in a WINE bottle, I would not be interested in it.
I'm in agreement here, if it ran native I would be interested.
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I assume WINE either stands for "Windows Emulator" or is the sound Mac users make when they can't get all the cool stuff that doesn't run on OSX...
Well actually,
The name 'Wine' derives from the recursive acronym Wine Is Not an Emulator. While the name sometimes appears in the forms "WINE" and "wine", the project developers have agreed to standardize on the form "Wine".[2]
But po-tato pa-tato it mostly does the job of running windows software on macs. It is getting made somewhat obsolete with virtualization, and it is always in an arms race as windows moves forward, Wine has to race to catch up.
If you're a Mac user who's interested in using Hero Lab, now's your chance to show it. Please let us know if you'd buy Hero Lab if it was available for the Mac.
I've never heard of Hero Lab until now, but it sounds intriguing.
If it ran natively on OSX, I'd love to give it a try.I have a PC, but it's not as much fun to use as my Macbook Pro, so I don't purchase PC software anymore. I'm also not a very technical person, so programs like Bootcamp are beyond me. So I would definitely need a native version.
The application would likely only run under "Tiger" (OS X 10.4), not earlier versions.
"Only" on Tiger? Since Leopard and Snow Leopard are the latest OSX, it seems logical to make it compatible with these as well.
Surely that's what you meant.
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If you can iron out all of the little display related bugs that often come along with solutions like WINE then yes.
I'm sure Colen has seen my posts on ENworld. :)
I'd be interested in a native release, but I've found Wine to be too unstable for most apps. Granted, I haven't used it in the last 18 months or so as previous experience turned me off.
I would love to use Hero Lab, but I'm not thrilled about this approach. If there were a demo available, I'd try it. I'd put myself in the "80% buy" group if it works well and without the typical glitches, and the "0% buy" group otherwise. (Yeah, I have a low tolerance for application failure! ;))
I guess that a full cross-platform version using QT would be too much rework on your parts?
I had a short discussion with (him? someone else?) on ENworld. The application is written in C++ (very cool!) using a Windows-only GUI (not so cool).
If the GUI layer were well-separated from the application itself then a port to Qt might not be too terrible. Except that his staff (2 programmers) likely aren't familiar with Qt. And while I can't speak to the background of his programmers, many of the Windows programmers I meet grew up on VB and their experience isn't conducive to writing "well-structured" code. (I teach corporate programming classes; stuff like C++ and Java as well as OOA&D.)
If they were going to port it to anything, I expect wxWidgets would be the framework too use. The Qt "signal/slot" paradigm is very powerful but most other frameworks wouldn't translate easily, I think.
I am interested.
Sannos
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I guess that a full cross-platform version using QT would be too much rework on your parts?I had a short discussion with (him? someone else?) on ENworld. The application is written in C++ (very cool!) using a Windows-only GUI (not so cool).
If the GUI layer were well-separated from the application itself then a port to Qt might not be too terrible. Except that his staff (2 programmers) likely aren't familiar with Qt. And while I can't speak to the background of his programmers, many of the Windows programmers I meet grew up on VB and their experience isn't conducive to writing "well-structured" code. (I teach corporate programming classes; stuff like C++ and Java as well as OOA&D.)
If they were going to port it to anything, I expect wxWidgets would be the framework too use. The Qt "signal/slot" paradigm is very powerful but most other frameworks wouldn't translate easily, I think.
Yep, it all depends on the design. WX is good - I played with that the last-but-one time I needed to do some cross-platform GUI stuff. It's probably a moot point - even if they could port the GUI to a new widget set that was cross-platform, maintaining it would be a problem unless they had an expert on staff. Plus it links their future windows support to a third-party.
I should have mentioned above - happy to provide testing support and bug reports on the Mac platform.
The application would likely only run under "Tiger" (OS X 10.4), not earlier versions."Only" on Tiger? Since Leopard and Snow Leopard are the latest OSX, it seems logical to make it compatible with these as well.
Surely that's what you meant.
Yes, I'm sorry. That should have read "Tiger and later", including Leopard and Snow Leopard.
If you can iron out all of the little display related bugs that often come along with solutions like WINE then yes.
I guess that a full cross-platform version using QT would be too much rework on your parts?
Unfortunately yes. Only some of the components would need to be rewritten, but that would still be a major chunk of work - we estimate it would take at least 6 months to make it happen, during which we aren't improving the product for our existing customers. :(
I had a short discussion with (him? someone else?) on ENworld. The application is written in C++ (very cool!) using a Windows-only GUI (not so cool).
If the GUI layer were well-separated from the application itself then a port to Qt might not be too terrible. Except that his staff (2 programmers) likely aren't familiar with Qt. And while I can't speak to the background of his programmers, many of the Windows programmers I meet grew up on VB and their experience isn't conducive to writing "well-structured" code. (I teach corporate programming classes; stuff like C++ and Java as well as OOA&D.)
Actually, the reason that it would take "only" 6 months to rewrite is because the code is already well-structured. :( Hero Lab is built as a number of modules, 80% of which are platform-neutral. It's the 20% that aren't that would need to be rewritten for the mac, which would still take up a significant chunk of time.
The Hero Lab codebase dates back 10 years, and reuses a lot of code that was written for our other products, Army Builder and Card Vault - there's a lot that would need to be ported over to a new operating system.
Well I've been looking for an alternative to the clunky yet decent pcgen forever. I'm interested.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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As a Hero Lab customer who bought the original d20 dataset (and now the Pathfinder dataset as well), I would gladly buy a native Mac version of the program. It's a huge pain to restart into Boot Camp when I'm preparing my sessions, especially since most of my other D&D prep work is done on the Mac side.
I'm fine with a WINE bottle, *provided* that it is stable and functional. I wouldn't want to have to futz with emulation settings in order to get it working, but if you roll that into an installer, it sounds like a workable solution.
Thanks for a great product, and keep up the good work!
PS - Any chance we'll see the PC-playable races from the Pathfinder Bestiary in an upcoming update? I use a lot of classed humanoids as bad guys in my games, and it's *so* much faster to stat them up using Hero Lab than to build them with pen and paper!
I don't know much about Hero Lab.
Like many of the users above, I'd be worried about half-measures. Maccies are really tuned in to UI concerns, and they are a lot less patient than other users when it comes to things that don't work the way they expected.
Honestly, I'd be looking for a 100% native solution first, since I don't have any loyalty to your software, but I do like things "just so" with my mac apps.
PS - Any chance we'll see the PC-playable races from the Pathfinder Bestiary in an upcoming update? I use a lot of classed humanoids as bad guys in my games, and it's *so* much faster to stat them up using Hero Lab than to build them with pen and paper!
From the notes for a previous release:
# Added all the races listed on pg. 406 as alternative races for PCs (Aasimar, Goblin, Hobgoblin, Kobold, Merfolk, Mite, Orc, Tengu, Tiefling).
# Added all the races listed on pg. 406 as NPC races (Boggard, Bugbear, Dark Creeper, Drow, Duergar, Gnoll, Lizardfolk, Morlock, Svirfneblin, along with the Dark Stalker and Drow Noble).
Is that what you're after? If so they're already included. :)
Unfortunately yes. Only some of the components would need to be rewritten, but that would still be a major chunk of work - we estimate it would take at least 6 months to make it happen, during which we aren't improving the product for our existing customers. :(If you can iron out all of the little display related bugs that often come along with solutions like WINE then yes.
I guess that a full cross-platform version using QT would be too much rework on your parts?
Hmmm...
So PC users will receive cutting edge software while Mac users will get stuck with "hand-me-down" products and make-shift workarounds?If Mac and PC users pay the same amount of money for the program, Mac users should receive equal quality.
Personally, I'm not inclined to spend money on something half-baked.
I'll wait a few years until you've have the chance to rewrite the program for Mac.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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PS - Any chance we'll see the PC-playable races from the Pathfinder Bestiary in an upcoming update? I use a lot of classed humanoids as bad guys in my games, and it's *so* much faster to stat them up using Hero Lab than to build them with pen and paper!From the notes for a previous release:
# Added all the races listed on pg. 406 as alternative races for PCs (Aasimar, Goblin, Hobgoblin, Kobold, Merfolk, Mite, Orc, Tengu, Tiefling).
# Added all the races listed on pg. 406 as NPC races (Boggard, Bugbear, Dark Creeper, Drow, Duergar, Gnoll, Lizardfolk, Morlock, Svirfneblin, along with the Dark Stalker and Drow Noble).Is that what you're after? If so they're already included. :)
Wow, I hadn't noticed that yet! You guys are really on the ball to be rolling out the releases so fast! :D
Thanks!
My wife raves about her PC version, but I haven't really paid all that much attention before now, as it wasn't available for me. I would be interested enough to strongly consider it.
For people like LazarX concerned about the application looking too "windows-like", here's a screenshot of a Pathfinder character:
http://wolflair.com/hero_lab/images/pth_classes.png
Hero Lab uses its own stylized interface, not native windows controls, so it shouldn't really "feel like" a windows application. (For the mac port, the menu bar would appear at the top of the screen like all mac applications.)
For people who are concerned about the GUI being too "windows-ish", does that reassure you? If there are any mac users who have had experience of Hero Lab on PC or running in a virtual machine, I'd be interested in hearing your opinions on this.
LazarX: Unfortunately we wouldn't be able to use the native printing / PDF output with the solution we're looking at (you would still be able to print, of course). The application would include its own way to generate PDF files.
Thanks for your feedback, everyone.
Hmmm...
So PC users will receive cutting edge software while Mac users will get stuck with "hand-me-down" products and make-shift workarounds?If Mac and PC users pay the same amount of money for the program, Mac users should receive equal quality.
Personally, I'm not inclined to spend money on something half-baked.
I'll wait a few years until you've have the chance to rewrite the program for Mac.
This is not at all accurate. Let me expand on what I wrote earlier:
If we were to sit down and rewrite Hero Lab for the mac, this would take at least six months, possibly more. During this time, we would be spending all our time working on the mac version, not the PC version.
However, once we did that, the mac version would be released in parallel with the PC version. It would be just as "cutting edge" as the PC version - new game systems would be released for both at the same time, and new features would be available for both at the same time.
We wouldn't release something "half-baked" on the PC or the Mac, because that isn't the sort of thing that makes for popular software. :)
Hopefully this clarifies matters.
Also, the windows fonts look icky, but that's not a dealbreaker. It'd be nice to have the better anti-aliasing that macs offer.
I've considered buying it but ultimately decided against it. I run lots of Windows applications in VMware, so it doesn't really matter to me whether or not something is MacOS native. If I break down and buy it for Windows this week (for instance) and then next week you come out with a Mac version, will there be an upgrade path available to me? A nominal fee would seem reasonable for this.
We wouldn't release something "half-baked" on the PC or the Mac, because that isn't the sort of thing that makes for popular software. :)
Hopefully this clarifies matters.
At least you've got good ethics and business-sense, unlike some other developers out there...
If you had a native Mac version, I'd buy it.
Three of us in my group are Mac users, and I know at least two of us would get it as we've discussed this before.
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My specific concerns, to echo and reinforce other comments read earlier in the thread are that the basic editing functions should be available via the proper Command-key chords and that, most importantly, printing must work well. Excellent print output is one of the user experience delights of running a Mac, and this is definitely the kind of app where printing capability is key.
My recommendation is that you do it, even with the WINE bottle, in order to have a Mac offering available. Then, you can use the percentage of income you normally feed back into R&D from the Mac sales to fund development of Mac native versions of your UI components so that you can ultimately later "upgrade" your Mac client base to a fully native version.
Further, if you were smart about how you built the Mac-specific UI components, it's possible that you could come out the other side of the process with the ability to also sell an iPhone version. Being able to have all of my characters in my pocket at all times would be perfect, especially if I also had a desktop version available that worked on the same data sets. From my set of gaming friends, a couple dozen of them have iPhones, whether or not they use Macs, and almost all of them would buy that version in a hasted second.
Anyway, presuming it works well and prints nicely, I'd certainly buy a Mac desktop version. Thanks!
If I break down and buy it for Windows this week (for instance) and then next week you come out with a Mac version, will there be an upgrade path available to me? A nominal fee would seem reasonable for this.
Providing a means for migrating from Windows to Mac is definitely something we'd provide. I can't speak to the details at this point, since we're still figuring everything out on our end. However, a nominal fee to switch over is a perfectly reasonable expectation, and I can't envision any reason why that wouldn't be possible to orchestrate on our end.
If you're not using the Macintosh printing routines, I'm not sure how you're going to manage printer support. On Windows you do use native Windows drivers. You should at least be using CUPS printing calls. If it helps don't think of it so much as Macintosh, but a flavor of UNIX that you're working with.
The WINE approach encapsulates all the Windows printing and maps it to appropriate output for the Mac. So the port would not provide the software with direct access to the native Mac printing capabilities - only those that were mapped. That being said, printing will definitely be provided. It's just special things like the Mac's built-in PDF support that become problematic. So we'd need to provide an alternate PDF output solution, just like we already do on the Windows side.