The Lurker

Stupid Edition

One of the pieces of software supplied with my DVD burner is called "Ulead DVD Workshop SE". For those unfamiliar with the term, "SE" is short for "there's no fucking way you're getting the full product for what they're paying us".

I was toying with the menu creation screen. When you create a string of text and want to turn it into a selectable menu item, you need to choose the two colours it uses to highlight the text when it is selected, and the colour it briefly displays the text in when the user chooses the item. Because the software only offers three pairs of colours, I decided to choose my own.

A window popped up, informing me that this feature was not available in this edition of the software. I simply cannot begin to understand why they thought this feature was worth the effort of removing from their product. Surely they don't expect people to think, "hmm, I don't think I want to use light blue and orange menu colours any more"—and yes, that is one of the three combinations available—"so I'm going to buy the full version"?

Shaking my head, I hit the OK button and resigned myself to using grey and white, the one generally useful choice of the three. I was a little surprised to see a colour picker window appear. I chose a couple of hideous colours, but I couldn't actually use them — the feature isn't available in this version. But there's a wonderful demonstration version of their colour picker!

Excuse me while I reach for my credit card.

Related topics: Rants Microsoft Windows