I also liked original Scanastudio, and had have bought ScanaQUAD because i liked that software and because ScanaQUAD had triggering.
Then I realized that it doesn't work with old software, and that new software is not written yet. That was 2 years ago, and in meantime, like you said, triggering was reduced to almost none compared to what was promised at the time of purchase, and software is so simplistic that it is sad.
I understand that the newest version of ScanaStudio is supposed to be scriptable. Didn't check it yet. And yes, as far as I recall, the improved triggering was partly done in V2 which stayed in Beta for years until it was replaced by V3 with more limited triggering. Still, to be fair, the triggering of most USB LAs is even more limited. The serial protocol triggering is somewhat unique (but again unfortunately not implemented in a generic way to actually use it for any protocol). Agreed, you can actually create some (!) complex triggers also in DSView but it's a GUI nightmare and you need to plan it on paper before even starting to program the trigger.
I was active on forum, and some user interface decision were made based on my input..
The original forum was one of the reasons I bought the ScanaPlus.
I basically gave up on them when Mr. Kamal decided to kill of forum to shut up negative feedback. Instead of developing their basic software to be at least as capable as old one they killed off, they spent two years developing wanky pen scope that nobody cares about....
Talking about going extra mile to ignore users and truth...
Maybe it's too long ago but I can't remember a terrific fight there. Yeah, people were nagging about releases and the team kept up making promises and became silent when they were not kept. But nothing totally unusual.
Also before the forum was completely shut off, there was this abomination of a forum where you could ask questions which then were posted in one chaotic thread where you couldn't find it your own post half an hour later. About the same thing that NXP did with their forums a bit later.
And then after 2-3 years, software is still in it's infancy...
Again, I wouldn't say so and all I usually need is working in V3. I actually think the GUI is fast and intuitive compared to others. I'm a bit disappointed though that triggering is worse than in V2 and development is generally very slow. But my main gripe with my ScanaPlus is that I think its input circuitry is not optimal and due to its lack of (USB) data consistency checks, it can display total garbage signals now and then if it's overwhelmed by picked up noise.
Regarding slow development: the same is true for DsView. Actually, it's even worse. Some years ago, they introduced the dark design without any possibility to change colors. But I need a light background colors to use screenshots in reports.
I complained about that in the forum until it was closed down. Now, several years later, they finally added an option to switch back to light mode, but they did only exactly that. You still can't define your colors. All signals are gray by default and while you can change (only!) the signal colors manually, this change is not persistent. Hell, you can't even really store/restore a full setup in DSView. E.g. if you store a measurement and load it later, the "device" is changed, so you can't do any new measurements with this setup. Now
this is missing basic functionality. And there is actually little to no progress in the DsView SW in the last five years. The only big improvement during its whole development was the speed-up of the Python protocol decoders which happened when the forum still existed. Since then, the development stalled.
I had high hopes for them, but they keep on doing things that are not in benefit of users.
In order for me to respect them again they would need to :
- return multistage triggering
- make U/I that is more informative and uses was screen estate that is there
- write detailed documentation on object model for Scripting
- drop prices.
The way they are now, I wouldn't recommend their products to anyone...
I'm actually puzzled that they still exists. Few shops sell their products. Since they took so long to come up with the SP209, they didn't have a replacement for the ScanaPlus for several years. Instead, as you said, they developed that stupid scope pen thing that nobody ever wanted. And they wasted years developing that USB synchronizing absurdity for the ScanaQuad. It's not surprising that they had to raise the prices. They've just shut down their online store btw. Let's see if the SP209 can save them but I'm honestly skeptical.