Hey HN! I made How to Convert. Here's the problem I had and the solution I thought of:
Problem
When you search "How to convert PNG to ICO" on Google, you get a bunch of shady looking "free" results that send your data to unknown servers. The same is true for almost any conversion you are trying to do.
So what do I want? I want something I can trust completely. AKA locally running, doesn't send my files or data anywhere and built by an independent developer building in public.
Solution
How to Convert
Privacy-first: Files stay on your device and it works offline.
Wide compatibility: Works with nearly any file type in an all-in-one app. If your file type is not yet supported, submit an issue to get it added!
Unlimited use: One purchase, infinite access.
Runs anywhere: Runs on Mac, Windows, Linux or the Web.
[0] https://file-converter.io/
It looks like a great project, but I can imagine it is hard for the maintainer to have time to add these features without any financial compensation. I'm not in a good financial place to make How to Convert open source yet, so am hoping users paying the current $7.5 will help support it's development.
It's a one time fee that gives you the project forever.
On another note it would be great if you could change how you display those 2077 conversions in your website, I find it really awkward to look at them by scrolling and if my mouse get out of the popup it disappear.
If you can do something "similar" to FileConverter where you can see all of them (at least a lot) on one screen, it helps with doing CTRL + F and searching your file format. :)
GL with the startup man
Wouldn't it be a good idea that you make a normal website to convert file format like any others, but the online service serve as an ad for your offline conversion app ?
First I read your terms of service. It takes a minute to read. There is not hard to understand lawyer speak it is clear and straight forward no hidden "if you use our program you shall owe us your first born child" language.
Second I love that it is just a one time purchase. The reason I like this is because I screwed up a couple years back. I was needing to do something and found a site that could do it and it had a limited free to try but the free didn't do exactly what I needed so it offered a very cheap like $3 use of the program and at no point informed me of the terms of the website or suggest anything other then the $3 payment for a month access. Well I used it to help a girlfriend of the time out and then forgot I even used it. I have hundreds of purchases a month on my credit card and don't always scrutinize my statement and at the time had a lot on my plate and did not notice the site was charging me something like $50 a month. I did not realize for about 3 months that it was charging me. I used the site literally one time. I felt like I was robbed. So you offering a 1 time payment makes this program very appealing.
I hope you do well. I hope you don't ever get greedy and try and milk the users who initially supported you. Good luck.
I'm glad you picked up on those - I don't like reading long terms of service (hey apple!) and I think those kinds of subscriptions are downright predatory. I've cancelled my bank card twice now because I'm scared theres a subscription that'll take out a chunk of my next pay check.
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Most online converters will only work with black and white images where you can use the change from black to white to detect the outlines. I have seen some new AI models that can trace over the pixel image too.
Please give me the Image Magick command to convert a PNG to ICO
>
``` convert input.png -define icon:auto-resize=256,128,64,48,32,16 output.ico ```
...
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