Is it just me...

[george]

...or do Actinic seem to have gone backwards since the launch v9?

[acompton]

Backwards in what way?
- bug levels
- support
- only accepting payment in shekels?

[george]

Just the whole package really. v9 wasnt the release that many predicted or even expected in my opinion. (the main bit being moto that didnt work properly for many... duh)

Not much being said about v10, well, nothing public anyway.

Some long term Actinic users now looking elsewhere.

Actinic lose some important staff members.

Just the general vibe I get thats all.

[leehack]

I understand what you mean George, it's probably just a perception though because the main selling points (as I see them) have all had problems in V9. When the best features have all had problems, I think your mind naturally overshadows things and goes back to the last version and compares. A fully functioning V9 is a good step forward in Actinic terms IMO.

The PR is the main problem - as we had with V8 also. The problems always seem to overshadow the new features. That's a shame, cos they switch you off to a version prematurely. I myself want V10 now, i'm done with V9, it has taken too long to get it working right IMO. There needs to be a wow factor soon and what we call a wow. We all need a lift, things seem seem pretty unhappy and a bit lack lustre at the moment. Negative vibe is around for sure, it will settle down i guess as most things do.

[pinbrook]

given al lthe cr** we've taken with v8 and 9 i'd like to see a bug free version of 9 before we even consider 10. The trouble is the more complex actinic becomes the buggier it will be.

Oh and if i stay in fantasyland i'd like all the new features promised for 10 to be incorporated into 9 as i am fed up with the constant upgrading.

Lets vote for more user testing on EVERY release for the foreseeable future (and less patches).

Personally i'm giving v9 a miss and returning to my policy of alternate versions for my preferred upgrade path (or even every 3rd as v7 seems to still be live and kicking)

[leehack]

Personally i'm giving v9 a miss and returning to my policy of alternate versions for my preferred upgrade path (or even every 3rd as v7 seems to still be live and kicking)

I never used to agree with you on this, but I think I might do now. You have to be bonkers to jump in at first release nowadays, however if noone jumps in, then the problems will not be found as soon or as often, so the whole process gets drawn out anyway. The pioneers (aka guinea pigs) are needed in the process, pay the guinea pigs i say. If noone jumps in when first released, look at the release to be a year old before you can jump in, that far down the line you can make an argument for waiting for the next version. Viscious circle.

[Steve G Griggs]

Back to the idea of live testing in the real world, to actually USE the new releases in a real business environment.
I'm not sure you would get many guinea pigs tho' -who could (or would) afford to run a business that way with lost time to bugs and waiting for tech support to fix bugs (and consequent loss of orders & business).
Personally I really cant see an easy way out apart from a team of people employed as testers who are computer literate, but not Actinic staff who try to run dummy shops, and act as dummy shoppers- but then as Actinic customers we would (obviously) have to pay for that in the long run.

[pinbrook]

I never used to agree with you on this, but I think I might do now. You have to be bonkers to jump in at first release nowadays, however if noone jumps in, then the problems will not be found as soon or as often, so the whole process gets drawn out anyway. The pioneers (aka guinea pigs) are needed in the process, pay the guinea pigs i say. If noone jumps in when first released, look at the release to be a year old before you can jump in, that far down the line you can make an argument for waiting for the next version. Viscious circle.

Yup agreed, but you can separate upgrades and new sites.

Often a new site can be developed in a new version sucessfully. I'm striving for utopia where more stuff comes to light during testing, thus reducing this painful period where fee paying customers get to be unwitting unpaid guinea pigs.

I've bee nsayingthe same thing since v8 - the software needs more rigourous testing in the field before its released

[animal dreams]

More testing is defintiely required and not by the software developers (or people too close to them) because they always test how they designed it rather than how others expect to use it in my experience.

I deliberately waited for release 3 of V9 thinking that most of the bugs would be ironed out. Not the case! Introducing new functionality late into a software cycle is asking for problems. Adding new functionality increases the testing cycle so the quick fixes required for significant bugs gets extended to the point where customers are full of frustration and the increasing pressure on the development team to get the release out leads to inevitable short cuts. IMO waiting 7-8 months to get fixes for some signficant issues is unacceptable.

Actinic is in the difficult position of being behind on functionality in some areas, but most of all now it needs a stable product which delivers on the promised functional spec. Don't give us more poorly tested functionality and expect us to keep waiting and paying. PLEASE!!!

[pnagames]

i was excited when actinic hosted the user event a few months back. it promised a new way forward and a drastic improvement from actinic in terms of communications.

i havent seen that drastic improvement.

Actinic really need to sort out themselves. Staff leave all the time (its the normal these days). this cannot be an excuse for anything.

one of the most succesfull gaming companies that i have ever seen (and i doubt that i will see a more succesfull company) interacts with the customers very often, has a huge forum, 99% of their staff are seen on the forum participating in discussion or explaining why things are in one way and not the other, listens to customers requests for new features (not necesarily all of them will make it to the next version) etc...

the result of this is them having the uk no1 pc game during the christmas selling period for the last 5-6 years easily (it usually stays no1 for at least 5 weeks as well). and this is besides their success in many other countries across the globe

i would love actinic to try and emulate them

[cbarling]

There's always a difficult balance between conflicting demands.

We looked at v9 and felt that the upload was unacceptably slow for too many people. So we made the massive change to sort out this one problem, but the changes did introduce some additional issues.

It was a development to an existing release, provided free of charge. You could argue (and some did inside Actinic) that we should have put this into v10. However, if we had, some people would have vehemently argued that they shouldn't need to pay to sort out an existing problem. There's always some people happy and some not so, whichever line you take.

v9.0.3 sorted out a lot of problems, but left some others not solved. It also introduced some very irritating crashes. v9.0.4 is a much smaller piece of work, with the focus being 90-95% of the effort on pure bug fixing (the rest was putting The Third Man into Actinic Payments). While it won't sort out everything, I think that it will feel like a massive improvement as a lot of commonly experienced bugs are fixed.

Please volunteer to beta test it, this will really help to move things forward.

Beta testing isn't a substitute for internal testing and other field testing that we will be arranging, hopefully with some of the people who have commented in this thread. But it is still a big help.

Chris

[cbarling]

With respect to communications, we have two of Actinic's three directors (Ben Dyer and myself) moderately active on the forum. We've started a monthly posting on developments in Actinic News. We've held one face to face general user event and promised another this year.

Of course, there's always more that can be done, so I guess we need to keep working at this?

With respect to staff turnover, I agree that there is always turnover, and it's no excuse. Some of our changes, including Ben's arrival, have been to try to address issues. I can see these changes having a positive impact, and I expect that to continue.

Chris

[Goz]

Sorry Chris - what is Actinic News?

[NRasool]

Sorry Chris - what is Actinic News?

Hey Goz, its http://community.actinic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=26, but there is only 1 posting in there which is March, and think you have already seen it

[JGLIGHTING]

Here is the link to Actinic News