I’m getting a little tired of working around the holes and bugs in 37signals’ Backpack API. My app is dependent on it. They screw it up and I’m in trouble. Not a good thing. Lately, they have seemed to have dropped the ball. There are some holes in the API (can’t get divider titles, can’t get position information on existing page links, no thumbnail image URLs, no Writeboard URLs) that cause PackRat to have some rather annoying blemishes that I’m sure users aren’t happy with and cost me sales. Posting on their API forums doesn’t get a response.
I’m wondering what people think of a PackRat that works like it does now, but isn’t dependent on Backpack for its data. We start out by importing all of Backpack’s data into PackRat which we essentially already do. From then on you just use it on your desktop to organize your life and keep track of your information. I would be free to improve it without the constraints of the Backpack data model or a Web-based UI. Or is the ability to access your data from any web browser the main reason you use Backpack (and hence PackRat) and losing this ability would render PackRat unnecessary for you?