The beta version of PageFour 1.2 was released yesterday evening to little fanfare. There were no fireworks at Hampton Court Palace, no champagne in ridiculously tall glasses, but there was plenty of satisfaction. I just love releasing things on time.

Unlike the previous beta run, this testing phase is by invitation only. One of the lessons I learned a couple of months ago, was that for every ten people happy to download your beta software, only one will take the time to look at it in detail and offer serious advice or criticism. The strongest and most productive feedback I received on version 1.1 came from only four people.

I’m going to own up now and say that there is one bug in this beta version. The bug is insignificant and has no effect on any work being done. It is purely cosmetic, and I hope no one finds it. I hope no one finds it because it’s going to be a bugger to fix. I’m determined to fix it, even though the writers of the third party component responsible are swearing blind it’s a Windows bug.

I don’t believe them, which means next week is going to be fun.

When it’s a folder.

The first release of PageFour suffered a minor identity crisis. It was trying too hard to fit into its target market. The product was aimed from the start at the writing community, and all its features were written with that community in mind. In line with this, the terminology adopted by the user interface followed a ‘novel’ theme, with chapters and pages predominant.

The problem with this was that the chapter and page format just did not fit. From the start, it all felt slightly off, but it wasn’t until some of the early PageFour users became vocal in their confusion that I really sat down and thought about it.

When you start writing onto a blank page, over time that page becomes a chapter. You may have old and new versions of this chapter, as well as notes and character summaries, but the final chapter will be written on one page in PageFour. The pages within chapters format was just plain wrong.

The upcoming release of version 1.2 has allowed me to address this confusion by removing any reference to chapters in the user interface.

From day one, the most important element to the PageFour design was that it imposed no restrictions on the way a writer worked. I wanted to avoid what I saw as the major pitfalls of other writing software: the rigid compartmentalising of the writing process - character summaries here, plot outlines there, linked in just such a way, each chapter in a certain place, etc.

PageFour was to be wide open; capable of being adapted by any writer to the way they chose to write. Put your plot outline wherever you wish; build your character summaries in any way you choose; manage your chapters in your own unique way: as different pages and versions within one folder, as a simple main page with notes alongside - whatever works for you.

The revised naming conventions, coupled with the new Multiple Notebook feature make all this possible. Version 1.2 of PageFour consists of any number of Notebooks defined by the user. These Notebooks contain folders, again defined by the user, and each folder contains pages.

It really is that simple. A folder can contain a chapter; it can contain a series of character sketches; it can contain an entire novel. It can contain whatever you want it to contain.

The simplest solutions really are the best.

Paul Graham, in his book Hackers and Painters, wrote:

To make something good, you have to be thinking, “wow, this is really great,” not “what a piece of shit; these fools will love it.”

Many years ago, my day job consisted of working on a piece of software for the business market that I considered to be a piece of shit. Now, this is not the best opinion to have of the product you spend forty hours a week working on, and it would be true to say that holding that view did not help me add anything really great to the design of the product.

To design well, you must passionately believe that what you are working on is really great, and that even if it never sells a million copies, or even a single one, it is still really great.

Four months ago I went part time at my current nine to five to work on my own ideas. PageFour began life as a personal project, born out of my own frustrations with MS Word. I wanted to design a word processor that placed the emphasis on words; a word processor that made life easier for creative writers; a word processor without a single piece of business oriented functionality. I wanted to design a word processor for the way I worked.

I’m writing this in PageFour now, and I think it’s really great.

Since I began working in earnest on something I felt passionate about, my working day has gotten easier, my designs are better, and the new ideas that have been absent for the past year have started to flow again. I have a list of projects I can’t wait to start work on next year, and every one of them has the makings of a great project.

When I rolled out the first beta version of PageFour over two months ago, I was convinced that the only changes I would need to make before releasing the full product would be a few minor bug fixes. I could not have been more wrong.

Like so many software designers before me, I made the fatal mistake of assuming I knew what was best. I assumed that because I had decided particular features were important, my potential market would feel the same; that because I felt something was acceptable in its current form, everyone else would agree; that because I worked in a certain way, so too would the thousands of writers out there who I was writing PageFour for.

In retrospect, I can see how my first beta release was more about testing the idea behind the product, than testing the product itself.

I’ll be honest - it threw me just a little at first. But I took it on the chin, went back to the drawing board, and made many of the major structural changes that were suggested. The end result was a first release that was far superior to the version I had planned.

An idea in isolation is just an idea - it needs refining before it can become anything substantial. Developing an idea into a product for use by other people cannot succeed without the input and knowledge of those people.

Version 1.2 of PageFour is due for release in four weeks. It contains many of the suggested enhancements from the previous beta run not yet incorporated; enhancements that mark a significant improvement in the product.

The beta version of 1.2 will be released next weekend. This time around, I can’t wait for the feedback.

Today was a good day. PageFour received its first review on download.com, and I’m proud to say it was worth 5 stars. So, a special thanks to my new client who took the time to write and post such complimentary words.

I have to say, this took me by surprise. Over the past few weeks much work has gone into implementing the new features for version 1.2. These were features that had been left out of the first release of the product; features that I assumed were necessary to turn PageFour from a reasonable first attempt into a solid product with no obvious shortcomings. I made the decision to hold off on any marketing push until after the release of version 1.2, as this was to be the first version of PageFour I was fully happy with.

So I must confess that I had no expectations of rave reviews at this early stage. Hopefully it will prove to be the first of many.

Let’s say you have a brilliant idea. You absolutely love it, think it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, and are firmly convinced that it will revolutionise the way people think about XYZ - not to mention the fortune it is sure to make you. But before you spend any time doing in depth market research - or simply bypass this critical step and start designing - you decide to run your idea past a few other people.

Now, this is the smart thing to do - all the books say so!

Just how valid are the responses you get? When I was starting work on version one of PageFour, I ran the idea past a number of people - some I’d known for a long time, some I’d never met or even spoke to, and some were anonymous fonts of ‘free’ advice on internet discussion boards.

The responses I received fell into three categories:

“That’s a fantastic idea. Go for it! Life is short.”

Of all the feedback I received, 95% fell into categories one or two, with a roughly even split between them.

Sitting back and listening to the carpe diem crowd can be uplifting for about five minutes. You feel vindicated, energised and convinced that you’ve really got something here. Then you start to wonder. The guy sitting opposite you, spewing forth on the joys he had starting his first company twenty years ago, wishing he were young again, is the same guy who ran his own company into the ground by jumping on every band-wagon that passed him by, and by accepting every new idea presented to him by a suit with an MBA as if it were the holy grail. Channel partners anyone?

Just how valid is “That’s a fantastic idea,” as a solid assessment of a business plan?

Now, negative feedback can be really constructive. You have the opportunity to hear from people with all sorts of experience on what may be wrong with your product or idea, what pitfalls lie before you, how company B tried the same thing only to discover that the market really wanted something else. But so much of this criticism comes in the form of aggressive slap-downs, rather than anything you can really use. You can just picture the same people who respond to you in this way moving on to flame and troll their way across the internet, happy in their anonymity, free to wallow in their own uninspiring tired lives.

The third response is the only one that matters. It doesn’t matter how many people think your idea is fantastic, or how many people think it’s the dumbest thing they’ve ever heard. These are probably the same people who were sure the dot com bubble would never burst, or that this whole internet thing was just a fad anyway.

In the early stages, every idea has a hundred and one things wrong with it. A second or third version of a product may have nothing in common with the original idea apart from the name, and sometimes not even that. Real, honest, constructive criticism should help you identify some of these areas; should help you to move from your initial idea to something that might resemble a product, or at the very least help you identify the areas that may cause problems as you move forward.

If you are lucky enough to find someone who offers you this kind of advice, get down on your knees and worship them. Beg to be their apprentice. Call them Yoda if you have to, but listen to every word they say.

When I released PageFour, I broke the cardinal rule. I ‘d written a piece of software that I wanted to write, not a piece of software that the market wanted me to write.

How did this come about? Over the past six months I’ve read book after book on how to get a startup off the ground, visited every web-site I could find offering free advice to the emerging businessman, waded my way through one monotonous blog after another describing the trials and tribulations of one new software startup after another.

And everywhere I looked the message was the same: do the market research! You need to know that people are willing to buy your product before you design it; you need to know that they need and want your product; you need to know that by creating this new product you are fixing a problem or easing someone’s pain.

So I can’t claim that I didn’t know what I was doing. I listened to all the advice and like so many before me I convinced myself that yes, the market is there. It’s there because I want it to be there; it’s there because I’m part of the potential market and I use and love PageFour. Of course, saying it’s there because it’s there sounds just a little too schoolyard.

Is there a market for PageFour?

I believe there is. Granted, I may not be giving Microsoft a run for their money any time soon, but you don’t have to be the biggest and most successful company in the world to still be successful. You only have to be the best to a small number of people.

I designed PageFour for a very specific kind of user: writers. Remember typewriters? They allowed you to type words onto paper. They were used in offices, at universities, and by aspiring writers all over the world. No matter who the user was, the purpose of the tool was the same: to put words on paper.

Now we have computer software that duplicates the functionality of the typewriter - it allows you to put words on paper. But it does a whole lot more than that too: it lets you create tables and graphs, embed images into your pages, attach watermarks, insert macros and all sorts of other things that I don’t understand, all of which are great for business users who want to do some or many of these things.

But what if all you want to do is what you did with a typewriter ten years ago - put words on paper? As any writer will tell you, this is what it all comes down to - words matter; anything else is just fluff around the edges.

So PageFour gives you all the functionality of the larger word processors that writers want, and none of the business extras that the corporate world seems to love so much. The dictionary and thesaurus, the text and paragraph formatting, the snapshots and archiving, even the password protection are all there. But the tables and graphs, the macros and formulas, the menus within menus within menus, are nowhere to be found.

Everything is designed and written for writers. So yes, I believe PageFour is a commercial product and that there is a market for it in a Microsoft centric world.