HST+ Lookup feature permanently disabled. What do do?

[Tracy]

I am really disappointed that the HST+ lookup feature is permanently disabled.  I was on their forums and saw that they have decided not to put any more resources into HST+ and to focus solely on HST Online.  I think it is rather dishonest of them to suddenly announce that they will suspend support for a product only after they have a problem that they don't want to fix.  I am reluctant to give them money for HST Online, because clearly they will only support it until they have a problem that is too much trouble to fix.  It seems to me that they ought to be giving us HST+ users a break on HST Online since the lookup feature was the big draw for so many.

 

Anyway, what are you all doing?  I can't decide whether I want to 

• just put up with manually entering new books, but keeping what I already have for child #2;
• start over with a different program;
• Try HST Online.  

 

[boscopup]

The lookup feature going away has absolutely nothing to do with not supporting HST+ after HST Online came around. The lookup feature is an Amazon issue. They were using a free Amazon service that Amazon stopped allowing. They would have to pay for a service to allow it again. All the current free services have lookup limits, last time I researched this (about 6 months ago while writing a personal program that needed an ISBN lookup). Does HST Online have a lookup feature?

 

HST+ is a very stable program. It hasn't needed updates in a long time. I happily continue to use it. For entering resources, I just type the name and don't worry about it. The lookup feature was nice, but it's not absolutely necessary that I keep all that data for my own homeschool (your needs might be different).

[Delighted3]

IMO, Homeschool Tracker sold an amazing product at a very reasonable price with awesome customer for many years.  In the world of technology today, you cannot support a product forever.  From their website "Over the course of 11 years, HST+ has been updated 97 times with new features and support for updated operating systems"  I think that is incredible for a product that only cost around $40 to begin with.

I know it is disappointing that they have moved to a new format, but I don't think it is at all dishonest.  They are offering another great product with excellent customer support.   There are other cheaper products out there, but if you are used to HST+ and like it, I would definitely give the online version a try.

Joy

[JudoMom]

I was a faithful HST+ user and pusher. I asked a report/agenda question last year and was told they were done supporting it and I should try online. I hated it. The format is different, and it was not user friendly at all.

[Tenaj]

I'd move over to the online format if I were you and if you like the HST+ format.  I'm completely opposite from JudoMom above (no offense :) ) . . . I find the online format much more user friendly than the plus format.  The one thing I don't like is that there aren't as many report formats with online as there are with plus but it sounds like they will be working on that after the busy new homeschool season is past this year.

[Tidbits of Learning]

I think it has to do more with $$.  The new online format increases their $$$ yearly while HST+ does not.  Why put $$ into something that you will not continue to make money on anymore.  

[Samiam]

I just went to the online version last month after having used the + version for the past six years. I didn't necessarily want to, I wanted something prettier, something online and something that did all that HST+ did. None of the other online ones do, and most are more expensive. They are prettier but don't do all that HST does. In the end, I did the jump to the online version. I found it's been a quick learning curve (in relation to how long it took me to understand HST+ originally). Within a few day, I'm had the online version down. It's fundamentally the same, just a few different things.

[idnib]

Does the online have the lookup? 

[SevenDaisies]

If you mean the ability to lookup Items by ISBN, yes it does.

 

I think many companies are moving to this model because of the recurring revenue. I never used HST+, but other companies do the same thing. Windows only supports so many versions, as does Intuit with Quicken. Either you upgrade to a new version or use the product as is. They are going to put their resources where the money is and they can only support so many versions. I was very mad about Quicken, but I got over it and did get a better product. I don't know if the same is true for HST Online yet because I never used + and I know some complained that online did not have as many features as +.

[FairProspects]

I'm not even sure what the lookup feature is and I don't think I've ever used it. I like all the different features with HST+ and I will just keep using it.

[boscopup]

I finally got around to looking at HST Online. It looks good. I'll stick with HST+ for now, but if it stops working at some point (like when I upgrade to the Windows version that comes after 8... that should be a decent OS again - I'm using 7 now), I'd be fine with switching to the online version. It looks like it has the same features now (a lot of the bad reviews are from 2012 when it first came out and probably wasn't solid yet).

 

The ISBN feature was handy, but it isn't a deal breaker for me. All I need is the title of the resource, so I just type it in now and don't bother with the other fields.

 

Reading more on their forums, part of the reason why they aren't supporting HST+ is the software used to build it. I think at this point, they would probably have to rewrite it in different software in order to add features. So they did... making it online. I don't think they had nefarious money grubbing plans. As Windows and Mac versions progress, sometimes old software gets outdated and can't be made to run on a new OS without a complete rewrite. And HST+ is a BEAST, so I can only imagine rewriting that. :lol: