How to set a trial period for run application?

Scripting Forums AppleScriptObjC and Xcode
#1

Hi all,

How to set a trial period or any other things to protect the application against unauthorized use?

Thanks

#2

This depends on how robust you want it to be.

The most simplistic way would be through the use of a plist to record the date of installation or expiration date:

To log the date:

set nowDateRaw to (current date)
set expirationPeriod to 60 * 60 * 24 * 30 -- (30 days)
set nowDate to (nowDateRaw + expirationPeriod) as text
do shell script "defaults write ~/Library/Preferences/com.acme.datetext.plist nowDate -string " & quoted form of nowDate

to get the date and check:

set expireDateRaw to do shell script "defaults read ~/Library/Preferences/com.acme.datetext.plist nowDate"
set expireDate to date expireDateRaw

if expireDate is less than (current date) then
	log "Expired"
else
	log "not expired"
end if

You may wish to consider other locations

#3

Whatever you do, the best you can hope for is to discourage casual copying. Even with access to Objective-C or C, you can’t stop a determined pirate. Better to spend your energies looking after legitimate users.

#4

Basically I agree with Shane.

There is a open source Objective-C framework called AquaticPrime which provides a more sophisticated copy protection including a trial period option.

Please read this article: http://www.tempel.org/UsingAquaticPrime/
It describes the pros and cons of software protection in general and the usage of AquaticPrime in particular.