First I want to thank everybody who has been reading my blog. Even though PainlessSVN has not been "officially" released, I did put it up for the public. I'm giving a discount for my blog readers. Please use "blogearlybirdaug2008", without the quotes to get $30 off the regular price. This will last until September 5, 2008, midnight Mountain Standard Time (UTC-7).
The official release is September 6th, 2008.
My last living grandma just had a stroke. Her right side is paralyzed, and she's having a hard time talking. She is 87, and we don't know if she's going to make it. My mom flew down to Puerto Rico to be with her. I haven't been back there since we moved to the Western US back in 1982.
I last saw her about about a couple years ago, when she came up to visit my parents in New Mexico. I make a habit of calling her about once a month. I didn't get to call her this month before this happened. 
She's the first family member that I feel close to that has been in harm's way like this. I wish I could fly down to Puerto Rico and be with her in case she doesn't make it. I don't have any extra money, so I'm stuck here in Utah. The hardest thing to take is knowning that I'm one of her favorite grandkids and that I probably won't be there for her.
Life is not bad most of the time, but at times like this, it surely sucks!
This has got to be the easiest thing I've ever done with Inno Setup!
I was looking for how to show the license/EULA text right at the beginning of the install process. Here's all you need to add to your Inno Setup script:
[Setup]
LicenseFile=PathToYourLicenseFile
WOW! That was easy!
So here are the things that I want to tackle on the next release of PainlessSVN:
- The ability to change repository types, ie from BDB to FSFS
- A Subversion property dialog, or at least a list for each object that has them
- Import dump files
- Import repositories on different servers or repository directories
- Finish the sub commands for the svnadmin command
Now for the release after that I want to tackle:
- Hook script editing
- Better handling of repositories on shared drives
- A wizard to walk through setup the first time PainlessSVN is run
- Handling of Realms
- Handling of Path-Based security
Also in the works are the Standard and Portable (runs from USB drive) versions of PainlessSVN.
I just got done creating the final install package. On a lark, I went and installed it on my Windows 2008 Server 64-bit. It works!
I got the integration between ActivePurchase and the Infralution license generating system working now. It took most of the weekend, but that was because this was my first time doing something like this. It will probably take no more than an hour for the next product I need to integrate.
I'm writing a big HOWTO article, that will take people through the steps to make this work. This will have both screenshots and code. I started writing it, but it will take a little while to get it done. I have 2 loose ends with PainlessSVN itself, then I'm turning my attention to fixing up some pages in this site.
I already put up the download trial and buy buttons, but you'll only see them if you are logged in. I will be putting in a couple discount codes. So if you want to buy PainlessSVN at a discounted price, you'll need to watch this blog. Create an account, and you may see some other goodies.
MMC 3.0 has a horrid About box mechanism. You have to put the information in an external dll. This dll needs to be a regular C++ dll, that only contains the resources. This about box looks pretty horrible even after jumping through all these hoops. The information in the dialog is hard coded. Here's what it looks like:
I thought this was a big no-no, so I decided to add my own about box. This will let me communicate more information to the customers, without all the hassle. Here's what the custom about box looks like:
I'm quite happy with the results. Kudos to anybody who understands that last phrase in the license key text. HINT: It's not Spanish. 
I've been coding quite a bit in the last few days. I finally got the licensing bit from Infralution working correctly. I had to create a custom license generator for Infralution that would work for both the application and as part of ActivePurchase.
It took me a while to figure out that I couldn't just use the source code classes from the licensing system. It was expecting a specific signature from an assembly. Once I added a reference to this assembly, then the custom Infralution key generator started working perfectly. All in all, I spent less time than what I had scheduled in my FogBugz (free version) case. What can I say? I'm a horrible estimator! 
I decided to use a new PayPal account for the payment processor. I was previously using my personal PayPal account, but decided to make my life easier and got me a PayPal Business account. I just verified all the bits, so this is ready to go.
My last bit of work now, is to create a custom step in ActivePurchase that will generate the key, then email it to the customer. Thankfully, I have experience writing modules for DotNetNuke, and I had already translated a VB.NET custom step sample provided by Will to C#. So, I'm not going in totally blind.
It looks like I'm going to make my early September release after all. Maybe even September 6.