How do I recommend software in my answers?

Question

I have a piece of software that I would like to recommend as a solution to problems. I'm trying to avoid answering with "link only" answers, and so I need help on how I can answer valid questions with software that I know will help the OP.

We do not advocate users asking for software recommendations. However, there are times that an answer will recommend a piece of software. These are the answers we're addressing here.

If you're looking to ask a question that may involve recommending software or tools, please first read "How do I ask a question that may require recommending software?".

Answer 1

Here are some general rules that should be followed.

Follow this general outline:

^{BOLD items are required.}

1. Title of the product with a link to the download/main page.
2. Quote the site's product summary.
3. Add any pictures that are relevant to the question.
4. If it's not installed using a normal installation file, or package manager, then give instructions on how to install.
5. Give a brief overview of HOW to use the product OR in cases where it's too long, link to the product's manual pages.
6. Give any personalized information to the OP regarding how the recommendation solves his/her question.
7. Specify any system requirements, e.g. Only works on Windows, Linux, OSX, or bootable media.

Things NOT to DO:

• Post only a link to the site.
• Recommend software that you haven't used personally (there MAY be rare occasions where this is valid, but you MUST let the OP know this).
• Answer questions that are simply asking "What's the best XX software" or "I need something that does XX."

An example answer should look like this:

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I believe that Notepad++ should be able to do the things that you're looking for. Here's an overview from their own site:

Notepad++ is a free (as in "free speech" and also as in "free beer") source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Running in the MS Windows environment, its use is governed by GPL License.

It has the following relevant features:

• Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding
• User Defined Syntax Highlighting and Folding
• PCRE (Perl Compatible Regular Expression) Search/Replace
• Document Map
• Auto-completion
• Multi-Document (Tab interface)
• Multi-View
• WYSIWYG (Printing)
• Zoom in and zoom out
• Multi-Language environment supported
• Bookmark
• Macro recording and playback

There is online help, including a user manual and a community site. It's also compatible with a large number of languages. I personally use it on a daily basis.

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P.S. If you are affiliated with the product you are recommending, you must disclose your affiliation in your answer. Answers that seem like unsolicited advertisements will be flagged as spam and deleted, and could possibly cause you to lose 100 reputation. Our advertising rates are reasonable; contact our ad sales team for more information. We also offer free community promotion ads in which you can post a product you like (but are not affiliated with), have it promoted by the community through voting, and have it featured on the main site with enough promotion. For more information, look for the latest meta post tagged community-ads.

Answer 2

The existing wiki answer has great discussion and comments, but I believe the embedded example conflicts with current site standards. The example would be a response to a request for a software list, which would be off-topic (it is a long general description of features and benefits that is not specific to the question and does not provide an actual solution to anything).

I would like to offer a different example that would apply to an on-topic, "How do I solve XYZ" question. The following example would be an answer to a question about how to replace part of a URL in an XML file:

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I believe that NotePad++ should be able to do the things that you're looking for. Notepad++ is a free source code editor and Notepad replacement. It has great documentation, and support on the SourceForge forums. It's also compatible with a large number of languages. I personally use it on an everyday basis

To use it to solve your problem of replacing part of a URL in an XML file, you can use the syntax word1.*.word2 to replace anything between two words, like so:

Answer 3

If you want to GIVE a recommendation, follow the excellent guidelines that are posted in the wiki answer above.

If you want to ASK for a recommendation, I would recommend (lol) posting your question on the Software Recommendations stack.

There is also a Hardware Recommendations stack.

Answer 4

Dictatorial rules kill progress

After a series of bad PC problems (in 2 weeks my laptop and my desktop both badly crashed, no reboot, no simple recovery - just the sort of things that routinely happen "by chance" to ancient French survivors and other people of my sort), so I googled for my good old utility named IIRC "Pixel Measurer":

• Google "pixel measurer"
• which among others returned Is there a tool to measure pixels on a screen [closed]
• which in turn sent me to How do I ask a question that may require recommending software? and this How do I recommend software in my answers? page.

No need to say, this page's unbelievable strong stances against freedom of expression, innovation, or any sort of progress or evolution, makes quite clear that nothing helpful can be expected from this site. I regret now to not have taken seriously the previous experiences of this.

Oh, I know, this message is NOT "in line" with The Party, so I may very well get (verbally at least) lynched, or even censured, or even worse, banned.

Versailles, Tue 12 May 2015 11:50:00 +0200