Aldus/Macromedia Freehand
Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?
571–580 of 837 posts
Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?
#572* usable, flash-like animation editing tools for the web. (could work great with the material design guidelines)
This might be what we’re after
https://proandroiddev.com/how-to-flare-a-flutter-app-part-1-...
Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?
#573Back in the late 80s, early 90s, there was an integrated package called "Smart" by SmartWare Inc, which was a competitor to Lotus Symphony (pile of junk) and other 'integrated packages' (i.e. all in one word processing, spreadsheets and database).
Smart was the first system I saw that had the concept of different levels, i.e. you could set the system to be Basic, Standard or Advanced, which would change the menus and complexity of the package accordingly. It was also the first database system I saw that had the option of variable sized data records (remember, this was in the days of dBase III/IV).
But the killer feature of Smart for me was the absolutely powerful macro/scripting language, which let you customise the system to be almost anything you wanted it to be. I wrote a lot of custom 'apps' with it, with the crowning glory being a Constituent Management System for our local government which let member of parliament record data against their constituents and communicate with them (a bit like a CRM) plus plan walk lists when they went out doorknocking and campaigning.
I was sad that Smart never made the marketshare that other lesser featured competitors did, and eventually faded away. Would love to see such an integrated system online these days.
Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?
#574Surprised to see so much longing for Microsoft products on here!
Window 2000 4ever!
Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?
#575Norton Commander. https://bit.ly/2SBnriS Nothing since has ever made me feel so in control of my file system. There have been a few clones, but never quite hit the spot.
I use the clone (Far) on my Mac. It runs pretty well. Also works on Linux https://github.com/elfmz/far2l
Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?
#576Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?
#577Macromedia/Adobe Director
Adobe gobbled up macromedia and went on a product killing spree.
Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?
#578Picasa (desktop app). It hit a sweet spot for me - linux compatible, very easy to do the majority of simple edits (crop, rotate, colour tweaks), and a few other nice features. The only significant failing was that it couldn't handle removable media at all well. Shotwell is the best I've found so far, but it's not quite the right feature balance for me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picasa https://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
Yep, another one for Picasa. I still use it, was able to grab the installer from one of Google's internal home pages,, when they took it down on .com
Love it for quick and easy edit controls. Like the speed and looks. Wish some remaining bugs were fixed.
Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?
#579mondomouse from http://www.atomicbird.com/mondomouse ...
It was a simple, but working and well-done "focus follows mouse" add-on for OSX. It is not maintained and will not work on modern versions of OSX, unfortunately.
AFAICT, there is no option for focus follows mouse on recent OSX, such as El Cap, which I am running.
It appears, however, that High Sierra has an interesting option hidden deep in the accessibility preferences pane that achieves FFM, but I am not running High Sierra anywhere and cannot test that out ...
Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?
#580Electropaint, the SGI IRIX screensaver. And yes, I'd pay for it, iff it were a complete experience - not just the dancing squares/triangles, it would have to include the script recorder/player and the configuration panels built into the original.