Submission Questions and Answers

I've registered Website Submission Shareware. Now how do I enter my registration code

You will get a full registered version download url when payment is done, all you need to do is download and install the full version.

What is a PAD file, and how do I create one?

PAD stands for "Portable Application Description"; it is a standard developed by the Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP) in 1999. It is being adopted by more and more shareware archives, and we have found it to be a useful way to store your application descriptions in Website Submission Shareware. Many archives require that you submit a PAD file to them, but for those that don't, we use the information in your PAD file to fill in their submission form fields. At this time, Website Submission Shareware is not able to create a PAD file for you, however there are several freeware PAD editors available. We recommend the use of PADGen, developed by the ASP with a lot of help from us.

What does "Listed URL" mean?

This is the web page address of your program's listing on a site. The easiest way to fill in the Listing URL is to do a search for your program and if you find it navigate to it. Once you are there, right-clicking to popup context menu and select "Set listed url to current URL".

How do I sort by column in the Project/Site Submission Control grid?

You can sort on any column by clicking on the column heading. Clicking it once will sort in ascending order -- clicking again will sort in descending order.

Should I create a new project whenever I release a new version?

While this is possible we don't recommend it. If you make any changes to your PAD file Website Submission Shareware will pick up on them automatically as long as the PAD file path is the same. This way you will be able to easily keep track of which version is listed with each site and only submit to those sites who are out-of-date. You can use filters to list only the sites you need to submit to. You will also preserve any information stored from prior versions in your submission notes, number of downloads, ratings, etc. If you do choose to add a new project, make sure you name it differently in the PAD file or Website Submission Shareware will have problems and probably complain.

Why does Website Submission Shareware say it's unable to load/parse my PAD file?

It is probably because you don't have any encoding specified in your PAD file. We recommend you use "UTF-8" encoding if you have any multibyte characters in your descriptions.. To change the setting in PADGen, select "File/Options", make sure "Include Encoding" is checked and select "UTF-8" in the "Encoding" field. Rebuild your PAD file(s) and they should load just fine into Website Submission Shareware. "UTF-8" encoding is a good general purpose encoding, which will work fine whether you need it or not.

There are some sites that I don't want to ever bother with in Website Submission Shareware. Is there a way to hide or delete them?

Mouse right-clickingg the site on the grid that in the "Shareware_Sites" table will popup a context menu, select "Move to Black Sites List".

Is it necessary to uninstall an old version of Website Submission Shareware before installing an upgrade to a new version?

No! In fact, it is not recommended at all as it will create extra work for you because Website Submission Shareware will lose some important registry settings and you will have to set up your environment the way you like it again. Please don't do this unless we specifically instruct you to do so if we are working on a support issue with you.

What do the column headings sub_method(pad, form, email, other) mean?

"pad" means that PAD submissions are accepted. Or "form", "email", "other" submission are accepted.

I moved the location of my PAD files on my computer and of course Website Submission Shareware doesn't know where they are now. How can I tell Website Submission Shareware the new locations?

Go in to the "Shareware_Sites" tab Window and click on "pad_locale" field, enter the new location. Press Enter to save the change(s).

Some sites won't accept my PAD file, especially Pauls Picks! I think it has something to do with encoding or something like that. How do I set the proper encoding for my PAD file?

This isn't really a Website Submission Shareware issue, but since all users of Website Submission Shareware are affected by this, we've decided to include some information about it here.

As you know, PAD files use XML to define and differentiate the various fields of information comprising your application description. XML is a text-only, or "low-ASCII" character standard, which means that only readable characters in that range (32-126) can be included in the output. However, it is also designed to accomodate high-ASCII (128-255) characters, as well as multi-byte characters used in languages such as Chinese. To be able to accomodate such characters there are various encoding schemes available which translate any characters in the range outside of single-byte and low-ASCII into something meaningful to the parser.

If you don't use any characters in your PAD fields outside the low-ASCII readable character range then you don't need to specify any encoding for your PAD file. A common encoding standard used on Windows is "Windows-1252", which translates any high-ASCII characters into something a "Windows-1252"-compatible XML parser can understand. The problem with using this is that parsers hosted on Unix/Linux servers often don't understand this type of encoding, which is the case with Pauls Picks. There is another common encoding standard which you can use, if necessary, that will encode both high-ASCII and multi-byte characters, and which is known to any XML parser that has followed the XML standard, and that is called "UTF-8" (the 'U' stands for Unicode).

We recommend that you only use encoding if you need it, but never use "Windows-1252", which unfortunately, happens to be the PADGen default at this time. If you need encoding for high-ASCII characters (such as those in European languages) or multi-byte (for Asian languages) then use "UTF-8".

If you are using PADGen, you can change the encoding used by going in to "File/Options". "UTF-8" is only available as a choice in version 1.6 or later of PADGen. The default choice will be changed in the next version of PADGen, probably to UTF-8. You must change the encoding before you generate your PAD file for it to take effect. You can't just change the encoding directly in the header of your PAD file, unless there are no encoded characters included.

There is a caveat when using UTF-8 in PADGen version 1.6. If you use any multi-byte characters in your descriptions PADGen does not store them correctly in its local files, and therefore does not generate proper encoding when generating the PAD file. This is a major problem that will be fixed in the upcoming release 2 of PADGen, which will be entirely Unicode-compatible. If you don't use multi-byte characters then you have nothing to worry about.

If you use a PAD generator other than PADGen check its documentation for instructions as to how to change the encoding used.

I am new to Website Submission Shareware and I have already submitted my program(s) to a number of sites.What should I do to get started?

This is information Website Submission Shareware doesn't know about, so you will need to enter it by hand into the window that the tab name is your software name.

I moved to a new computer and want to know the best way to move Website Submission Shareware to the new machine.

  1. Copy the data files from the old to the new
    2. or if you have a backup file, unzip it on the new computer to the desired directory. Data files have the following extensions: .db.
  2. Start Website Submission Shareware on the new computer.

How can I add my own sites?

If you are a licensed user you may add as many sites as you wish, or if you are an Lite(evaluation) user you may add 20 sites or get 5 shareware download sites search results. Here are the steps to add a site:

  1. Click on the "Shareware_Sites" tab, or "your software name" tab
  2. Select "Edit/Add Record" from the main menu, or click the "Add Record" toolbar button
  3. enter the site's url to the "id" field withoud "http://" and "www", e.g. download.com
  4. Fill in any known information on the rest of the fields, but especially fill in the "sub_page" field
  5. Press "Enter" when you are done

I've got a question or problem that isn't answered here. Where do I go from here?

Please see the Online Help files. . If that still doesn't do the trick, please contact us and let us know what the problem is. It is very helpful if you include your operating system and Internet Explorer versions, as well as any other information that you think might be relevant, when requesting support. The more information you can provide us the more likely it is we'll be able to provide a rapid resolution or response. Whatever you do, don't just get mad and uninstall the program! Let us share your pain! :)