What about the plugins?

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  It seems like my point is being missed.
  
  The add-in-s were not written by Red Gate, but by other contributers. To me, the new price is not so bad (i have paid more for tools less valuable), but the principle of taking something away, also from people that have contributed or built on top of the foundations.
  
  I have a conspiracy theory, that it has to do with control. Licensed users are known users. Since RedGate has acquired smartassembly, they would like to have a list of reflector users... or something? Or probably this is a big marketing stunt to get into the papers and then they'll blow it off and say Just kidding, and everyone will know who red-gate is... or something?
  
  Reminds me of Adobe acquiring CoolEditPro (Audition). Simply increased the price. At least they improved some features in the later version. Corel acquired many good packages (Jasc PaintShop Pro, WordPerfect, ULead stuff) but they made a big mess out of the new versions (buggy, bulky, cripple features to make it "easier") I'm always suspicious when a company acquires some software, it's hardly ever a good sign.

  mlsomers February 02, 2011 18:14

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  mlsomers Thanks for your feedback. Are you an add-in author yourself? We have always viewed the add-in authors as a particularly special set of Reflector users. We tried to make an effort to get in touch with every single individual before the announcement to let them know about our plans and to find out how this would affect them. My apologies if we have missed you or any others that we were not aware of.
  
  We have also been discussing how add-ins will fit into the future of Reflector with all of the authors. The sad thing is that less than 10% of current Reflector users even know add-ins exist. The current codeplex page feels a little unloved and there are some really great tools in there amongst the moribund stuff.
  
  After speaking with all of the add-in authors that were interested in maintaining their code for the paid version of Reflector we have come up with the initial idea of a 'Recommended add-ins' page on a whole new Reflector website. You will see more news of this site over the following few weeks.
  
  Again my apologies to any of the add-in authors that we were unaware of or unable to reach.

  Greg.Tillman February 03, 2011 14:21

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  mlsomers i can also assure you that there is no conspiracy theory relating to SmartAssembly although you are right that there may be some cross over of users that would be interested in both products.

  Greg.Tillman February 03, 2011 14:25

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  Greg.Tillman wrote:

  We have also been discussing how add-ins will fit into the future of Reflector with all of the authors. The sad thing is that less than 10% of current Reflector users even know add-ins exist. The current codeplex page feels a little unloved and there are some really great tools in there amongst the moribund stuff.

  
  
  I've always, since day 1, felt add-ins were not as discoverable to Reflector users as they could be.
  
  That is one way Red Gate could add value to users, by making knowledge of and about the available plug-ins easier to come across. Maybe even so far as to automate installation of add-ins from a package repository a la NuGet.

  qstarin February 04, 2011 15:13

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  Greg.Tillman wrote:

  mlsomers i can also assure you that there is no conspiracy theory relating to SmartAssembly although you are right that there may be some cross over of users that would be interested in both products.

  
  You know Greg, since Reflector is now a paid product, it might be worthwhile to consider some type of "Independent Software Vendor" program for those developer who do write add-ins for reflector.
  
  After all, the more developers you have adding to a product reduces the amount of development time for certain features and functionality. The base language reflection is still part of the core app, but the tools that go along with it keep it useful for several audiences.

  JDelekto February 05, 2011 10:18

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  Greg.Tillman Ok, that is kind of a releaf. I have been playing with the plugin interface, but only experimental, nothing usefull has come out of it yet.
  
  This was my greatest concern. Previous contributors should at least get a free upgrade or so for their efforts. (I'd give them a free PRO version if I was RedGate).
  
  Maybe a good idea to start a program "write a usefull plugin to get a free PRO version". Ofcourse that means some extra work filtering out the junk entries.
  
  Cheers,
  Louis

  mlsomers February 07, 2011 05:42

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