22k image19k image

Kagi Frequently Asked Question


Question:

Register for the Macintosh Configuration.

Answer:

This document describes what you need to configure the register program for your software and how to do it. Once we have you signed up, you can configure the Register application and distribute it with your software.


Getting Started


You need to gather several items before you can configure Register for the Macintosh.

Register for the Macintosh


The most recent Register for the Macintosh can be downloaded from the global FTP sites where Peter Lewis maintains collections of his most recent software. For faster downloads, use a site that is in or near your continent.

Resource Editor


The two Macintosh resource editors that I am aware of are Resourcer and ResEdit. Resourcer is a commercial editor that is available through APDA and probably various other sources. ResEdit is free and is on most Apple Developer CDs and most likely on Apple FTP sites.

Your Unique Two Character Identifier


All Kagi clients are given a unique two character identifier. This identifier is used when configuring the Register program. If you are signed up with Kagi and you have forgotten your two character identifier, contact admin@kagi.com to obtain it.

Your Email Addresses


Many versions of your program will reside on servers, CD ROMs, floppies, and personal hard drives for years. When someone comes across an older version of your software and wishes to contact you, it is entirely possible that since the time that you released that specific version, your email address has changed. So that users can contact you even when your real email address changes, all Kagi clients are given an email address at kagi.com that forwards to their current active email address. It is useful to include this email address and possibly your current email address(es) into the Register program in the hopes that at least one of these addresses will be valid several years in the future.

Program Names and Pricing


Of course, if you are selling something you need to know it's name and how much you are charging.

Current Currency Exchange Rates


Register allows people to pay using cash. The conversion rates are adjusted infrequently by Kagi to correspond to the current exchange rates. Because the exchange rates are fixed in the register program and actual exchange rates fluxuate, the rates in the Register program are increased so that in general regardless of fluxuations, the amount paid in another currency should be equal to or greater than the equivalent in US Dollars. It's best to use the most recent exchange rates embedded in the exchange rate resource file.


Register Configuration Options


Register for the Macintosh has many configuration options. In the most basic configuration, Register contains a list of software, each with a per unit price, site license and world-wide license price. There are many other ways to configure Register.
You can have Register:

In addition, there are versions of Register that have been translated into different languages. These are available from the sites listed above.


Configuring Register


Step 1: Use the latest Currency Exchange Rate Data


In the Finder, select the Register program and in the File Menu, select Get Info. If the exchange rate resource file was modified after the Modified date of Register, you will want to use the CTRY resource from the Kagi FTP site.

Open the Register program and the exchange rate resource file with your resource editor. Copy the CTRY resource from the exchange rate resource file. Paste into the Register program. The new version of CTRY should replace the older version of CTRY in Register. Save your changes to Register.

Step 2: Change the Postal Address


You would be surprised at how often people just send money in an envelope with no form or even a note detailing what software they are purchasing. As a backup for the times when people just send money, I have an alternative way of identifying who the money should go to. In your read me files and in the Register programthey are instructed to send payments to a specific postal address. The address has the format of:
Kagi
1442-A Walnut Street #392-XX
Berkeley, California 94709-1405
USA

The XX is replaced by your two character identifier. No matter how casual they are about not including the form or telling us what they are purchasing, they are almost always exact about the postal address. Those last two characters after the #392- tells us who should receive the funds.

Open the TEXT resource ID=300. Change the two character identifier after #392- to your two character identifier. Close the TEXT resource ID=300 and save your changes.

Step 3: Change the Email Address


TEXT resource ID=310 contains text that is appended to the output from the Register program. It informs users that they should send the form to Kagi and that if they have any questions about the software they should send those questions to you. Modify the text to include your name and your email address(es). If you decide to include your current email address, you might want to put it before your @kagi.com email address. Leave the last two trailing returns in the text so that the text that follows in the output is separated by a blank line.

Step 4: Configure Program Information & Prices


The PROG resource has the following organization
*****

Name: Program Name


The program name should fit within the Register window. Open the Register program once it is configured to make sure that the interface can correctly display the program name.
The program name should contain only 7 bit ASCII characters. Do not use characters that are accessed with the option key, other languages use these characters (accents, trademark, etc) as escape characters and various emailers will munge all the text after one of these characters in undecipherable ways.

The program name should not contain your version number. An amazing number of people will hesitate to register your program with a specific version number because they will assume that they are registering just that version and no other. A version number causes them to wonder what the latest version is and they will not register until they are sure that they are registering the latest version. For many people, if they have any hesitation they decide to register some other day (which might never come) when they have more time to figure it all out.

The program name as shown in the register program is what Kagi uses to parse the email that is received and to allocate the funds.


Author: Author Name


This is optional and you can include any text you like here, or none at all. It is displayed next to the program and you should see how the interface displays this when you are finished configuring the Register program.

Code: Program Abbreviation for bar code output


This should be a four character code where the first two characters are your unique two character identifier. Yes there are some abbreviations that are more than 4 characters, please just use four characters. The only place where these four characters are used is when the payer prints the form and the information is converted into bar code. The bar code data is abbreviated as much as possible to conserve space. Each line of bar code contains only 22 characters of data. If your program names are long and someone pays for several of them at once, the program names alone could consume a large portion of the printed page and the more bar code there is, the greater the chance for errors. Thus, the bar code converts your long program names into four characters which doesn't needlessly consume space on the printed page or increase chances for error.

The second use for the bar code is to identify new programs as you bring them online. When you release a new version of Register with your new program included, and we receive a payment for it, the two character identifier tells us whom to assign the payment. As long as you keep the last two characters unique, we can quickly integrate new programs into the processing system without you needing to tell us.


Special: Text for a special payment option


If you enter text into the Special field, the Register program will place a checkbox in the program listing. When the user selects this checkbox, alternate pricing will be used. Common uses for this check box are for academic discounts or for postal delivery of a manual or a disk. Be sure to see how the Register interface displays this text.

Flags: Required Address(es)


These bits determine whether postal and email addresses are required when the person selects this program. The Register program will put (required) next to the address if they select a program that requires that address. If the user has not entered an address, when they attempt to output the data from the Register program, they will receive an alert requesting the information.

Flags are used to set address requirements on a program by program basis. There are only four flags at this time:
$00000000 = email optional, postal optional
$00000001 = email required, postal optional
$00000002 = email optional, postal required
$00000003 = email required, postal required

Please note that when someone selects Postcard Receipt in the Register interface, postal is required.


Each Count:


The number of pricing variations based upon quantity. This is not directly modifiable but instead varies based upon the pricing configuration.

Pricing Configuration Examples:


1) *****
Cost:
Single License Price in integer USD amounts for any quantity equal or greater than the minimum in Min Qty.

Min Qty: The quantity for single user licenses that triggers the use of the Cost entered above.

2) ***** Optional
If you want the single user price to vary with quantity, copy and paste the set of single user price data and vary the price and minimum quantity to meet your needs. The minimum quantity of each successive set of single user prices should increase. For example if you want the following price structure:

Single User License Prices:
Qty Price
1-9 $20
10-49 $15
50+ $12
Site License = $400
World Wide License = $1600

You would have price sets configured as:

1) *****
Cost: 20
Min Qty: 0
2) *****
Cost: 15
Min Qty: 10
3) *****
Cost: 12
Min Qty: 50

4) *****
Site: 400
World: 1600

Be sure to mention the pricing variation based upon quantity in your read me file so that payers know that the single user price as calculated and displayed by the Register program will vary.

Following the single user pricing is the pricing for a Site License and for World-Wide Licenses. The data set for these must be present but if you do not wish to advertise these as payment options, just enter 0 as the price. When set to zero these payment options are not diplayed to the user.

Alternate pricing to be used when the Special text checkbox is selected follows the first Site/World data set. The alternate pricing should be an exact duplicate of the entire program pricing set with the prices changed to reflect the alternate pricing. For example, in the above example, if academic users receive a $5 discount and the Site License fee is reduced to half, and the World-Wide license is not an option, the price data set would look like:

1) *****
Cost: 20
Min Qty: 0
2) *****
Cost: 15
Min Qty: 10
3) *****
Cost: 12
Min Qty: 50

4) *****
Site: 400
World: 1600
1) *****
Cost: 15
Min Qty: 0
2) *****
Cost: 10
Min Qty: 10
3) *****
Cost: 7
Min Qty: 50

4) *****
Site: 200
World: 0

Step 5: Configure Default Scroll


When you have more than three programs, Register allows you to scroll the list of programs to be able to view them. By default Register will show the top three programs in the list unless you set the default scroll to a program deeper in the list. If you set a default scroll, when Register is opened, it will scroll the list to that program.

This is especially useful when you want to configure one Register for all your programs. Set the default scroll to the specific program Register is bundled with and when the user opens Register to pay for that program, it will be immediately visible.

To set the default scroll, enter the bar code abbreviation for the desired program into the field in the SCRL resource.


Your READ ME file

At a minimum your READ ME file should cover these topics.

explain your pricing
explain how to use the Register application
provide the email, postal, and fax addresses for payment
provide your addresses for program questions
explain the various payment methods
indicate the turn around time for various forms of payment

Feel free to modify the following to suit your preferences:

Sample Read Me Text


My Program has the following pricing.
1- 10 single user licenses, $20 per user
11+ single user licenses, $15 per user
A Site License costs $400 (roughly equal to 27 users) and covers all locations for your organization within a 160 kilometer radius of your site (100 miles). One big advantage of a Site License is that you do not need to keep track of how many people at your site are using the software.
A World-Wide License costs $1600 and it covers all locations for your organization on the planet earth.

Paying for My Program is fairly simple. Open the Register program that accompanies My Program. Enter your name, your email address, and the number of single user licenses you desire for each program you wish to purchase (or Site or Word-Wide licenses). Save or Copy or Print the data from the Register program and send the data and payment to Kagi. More specifics on the Register program to follow. Kagi handles my payment processing.

If paying with Credit Card or First Virtual, you can email or fax the data to Kagi. Their email address is sales@kagi.com and their fax number is +1 510 652-6589. You can either Copy the data from Register and paste into the body of an email message or you can Save the
data to a file and you can attach that file to an email message. There is no need to compress the data file, it's already pretty small. If you have a fax modem, just Print the data to the Kagi fax number.

Payments sent via email are processed within 3 to 4 days. You will receive an email acknowledgement when it is processed. Payments sent via fax take up to 10 days and if you provide a correct internet email address you will receive an email acknowledgement.

If you are paying with Cash or USD Check you should print the data using the Register application and send it to the address shown on the form, which is:

Kagi
1442-A Walnut Street #392-XX
Berkeley, California 94709-1405
USA

Be sure to change the XX to your two character identifier.
You can pay with a wide variety of cash from different countries but at present if you pay via check, it must be a check drawn in US Dollars. Kagi cannot accept checks in other currencies, the conversion rate for non-USD checks is around USD 15 per check and that is just not practical.
If you have a purchasing department, you can enter all the data into the Register program and then select Invoice as your payment method. Print three copies of the form and send it to your accounts payable people. You might want to highlight the line that mentions that they must include a copy of the form with their payment.
Kagi can not invoice your company, you need to act on my behalf and generate the invoice and handle all the paperwork on your end.
Please do not fax or email payment forms that indicate Cash, Check or Invoice as the payment method. As far as we know, there is still no technology to transfer physical objects via fax or email and without the payment, the form cannot be processed.
Payments send via postal mail take time to reach Kagi and then up to 10 days for processing. Again, if you include a correct email address, you will hear from Kagi when the form is processed.
Protection
My Program has a protection scheme and when you pay, we tell you how to indicate to My Program that you have paid the registration fee. If you do not have an email address, please enter your complete postal address and please remember, we do not know what country you live in so please enter that into the postal address also.
Assuming that Kagi provides the user with the registration code:
If you do not have an email address you should consider selecting the Postcard Receipt so that Kagi can inform you of your registration code. Kagi transmits the registration codes via email and paid postcard receipt only.
Blah Blah Blah
I'm certain one of you can do a better job of all the read me information and I'd be happy to substitute your version for the above sample.


Final Checklist


Obtain two character identifier and @kagi.com email from Kagi
Use the most recent currency conversion rates
Add your two character identifier to postal address in Register
Add your email addresses to the text output of Register
Print sample payment forms to make sure everything looks OK
Make sure none of the program text exceeds the length that is displayable
Try all the special options, verify everything works as you desire
Configure default scroll for each combination of register and your program
Explain as much as possible in the read me file
Bundle your software, read me and register together by compacting them
Have someone else test drive your bundle of software as a double check
Put your software onto servers


Send your suggested modifications to this document to <kee@kagi.com>.

Kee Nethery

Modification Date: Wednesday, April 16, 1997


Previous, Next, FAQ Table of Contents, FAQ Feedback
Kagi
1442-A Walnut Street #392
Berkeley, CA 94709-1405
USA
kagi@kagi.com
fax +1 510 652 6589