It fills the gap between Integrity and Scrutiny.
I'm very proud of Integrity. It's cost much blood, sweat and tears (well maybe not blood but definitely the other two). After 8 years it has a very good reputation and a huge number of users.
It's a big plus if any product looks clean and simple. If you have such a product, it's difficult to keep it that way. As a developer you have a steady stream of requests for more features, buttons, options, dialogs. I can tell you that if you simply respond to every request, you end up with a monstrosity that's complex and confusing (I'm talking from experience... one of my other apps, not Integrity).
Many of the Integrity enhancement requests went beyond link checking. "If it's holding lots of data about my pages, why shouldn't it be able to export an xml sitemap? Highlight some SEO problems? Validate the html as it goes along?"
Only a short way down this slippery slope I realised that I couldn't simply call it "The best free link checker for Mac" any more. It became "Well, it checks your links, and it does this, that and the other too".
That's when Scrutiny was born. Integrity was pared back to fit its simple tagline and Scrutiny became the app that did so much more.
As a credible competitor for commercial apps like Screaming Frog (and to help ensure its credibility as a competitor) Scrutiny's price has risen appropriately.
When you make developing into a full-time job, getting paid is very difficult. Charging even a very small amount for an app kills interest in it. Moving Integrity from free to just a pound reduced downloads from thousands to a handful. That's incredibly disappointing.
The facility for making donations has always existed. Some folks have been very generous, for which I'm very grateful, but those lovely, altruistic people are unfortunately few and far between.
So the renumeration for the time that's gone into Integrity and its ongoing support and development
has to come from converting people to a paid app. It's a very big step for users to move from a free app to one (however well-justified) costing $95.
So this is where Integrity Plus comes in. It offers some heavily-requested features (multiple sites, xml sitemap). And hopefully without affecting the simplicity of the interface. All for a relatively modest amount (currently set at $8).
Don't forget that as I write this, the New Year Scrutiny 50% offer is still running.
A comparison of the features of all three apps is here.
The new Integrity Plus is here
Shiela signing out. Nanu Nanu.
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