V10

[Darren B]

What do you mean?

Think he means the cumulative cover paid between version releases.

YEP exactly what i ment, the amount i pay every year in support that i dont use but get free upgrades which are around every two years, so to me its an exspense i could possibly do without especially as the next release is lacking in features

[cbarling]

Having returned from a weeks holiday I would now like to throw my two pence worth in.

While the v10 feature list may seem relatively small for a major release they are some of the most requested features. Real Time Sock is requested time and time again, to get this into the product was a major development. It will also have the added feature of automatically downloading orders, something that can benefit everyone.

Regarding the release cycle, it is our policy to try to get a major release out every 12 months. This hasn't happened for a number of reasons with v9 / v10 including the effort dedicated to maintenance releases and new features (such as multithreaded and compressed upload). We are committed to quality and wanted to get v9 as good as we possibly could.

There are, however, a few additional points worth making.

We hope to include a few other small improvements from the wishlist.

We also have a few items on the back burner, including actively talking to a number or partners to provide best of breed features and enhancements (such as the recent Third Man integration).

I also think that it’s worth standing back and looking at just what has moved forward in the last few years.

With Actinic, there is now a tightly coupled payment solution that for many merchants can save significant time on every order processed. This enables you to easily meet PCI DSS requirements for both web and phone orders, while complying with other rules like 3D Secure which will prevent people putting their phone orders through their web store. World class anti-fraud features are included free, and as well as saving time, many merchants can save money as well.

With the EPOS integration, most merchants who also have a shop can manage their stock and products across all three channels – web, phone and store. Nobody else does this at the sort of price point that you can get an integrated system from Actinic.

Actinic is a true multi-user system. With Business Plus and Enterprise, data is locked to prevent two people updating the same data at the same time. If you look at alternative products, open up two browser sessions at once and change the same thing. You will find that one set of changes is lost, and no warning is given.

And, of course, there’s the design flexibility introduced with v8. Every single character of CSS and HTML that renders in the browser can be edited. Very few other systems can say that.

Finally, I think that it’s worth thinking about the new checkout. We have done a lot of research on what the optimum checkout is – and this will be available for all users. In fact, the existing checkout isn’t too bad. I have just been doing some shopping on the web and there are some truly horrible sites out there. With v10, we will undoubtedly be jumping ahead.

Actinic has always had a policy of vigorous innovation, which has focused in the last few years on addressing some of the major challenges like PCI DSS, moving to a multi-user architecture and going multi-channel. As we have negotiated these big changes, there has been an apparent slowing down. That shouldn't be taken as an indicator of the future.

Chris

[chris ashdown]

A holiday, What is one of those Chris?

[wesleythorne]

as a user of actinic payments i can say after a few initial bugs it is working very well now. Especially with the 3rd man.
The offline ordering is nicely integrated with actinic payments.
In fact the back end of actinic is indeed very good and much better than a lot of other software in the same price point.

I think actinic should now be putting all efforts into the customer facing front end. This will mean having to have some sort of online database link to provide functions like customer accounts, order histoy, wish lists etc,

wes

[pinbrook]

Thanks Chris, your input is always highly valued.

I think I am somewhat underwhlemed by the potential v10 because i dont use Actinic payments, dont use stock control, dont plan to use google checkout.

Thus there isn't anything there for me.... thats you've released yet.

I tend to use my own shopping behaviour as a guide to the features i consider ought to be included, and for me at the mo reviews are the real biggie.

I must admit after having taken a step back that real time stock control is something that i tend to use as a shopper, BUT.... hopefully there is a quick way of creating products and entering stock with combinations - teeshirts/colours/sizes - NOT the conflaluted hidden products and triple input method.

please dont tell me i have to wait 2 years for reviews, as probably by that time reviews will be history and something else wil lbe the new black.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

I think actinic should now be putting all efforts into the customer facing front end. This will mean having to have some sort of online database link to provide functions like customer accounts, order histoy, wish lists etc

I would agree with this completely, although the improved checkout will be a long overdue improvement to the front end.

I also think that it’s worth standing back and looking at just what has moved forward in the last few years.

I would agree that V9 is a big improvement to V7 and several useful features have been added but this doesn't change the fact that competitors packages now boast several features that are currently lacking in Actinic and will still be absent until at least V11 which seems a very long time in the future.

By the time Actinic catches up and online accounts and product reviews, etc are included, the opposition will have added several more must have features which Actinic users will be crying out for.

[wesleythorne]

its important to remember that no software is going to be bug free, its how quick it is addressed and tested that counts.

looking at the competition, yes there are some nice features, but they also lack a decent back end to deal with the orders. I have not found one other programme with as decent a back end system as actinic or intergrated as well for off line payments in this price bracket.

Of cause each store owner has to way up the costs them selfs
Actinic please bring the front end of the store up to scratch and into the modern arena. I would say its a great product with lots of benefits but is highly at risk of becoming old and tired if things dont move on quickly.

We want to carry on using the product but it has to stand up to the competition.

[NicolaUK]

YEP exactly what i ment, the amount i pay every year in support that i dont use but get free upgrades which are around every two years, so to me its an exspense i could possibly do without especially as the next release is lacking in features

Right, understood

I guess I'm in the same boat as you, have used support once since I can remember.

I'm very happy about the stock control, would love to see online accounts and have no interest in Google checkout.

[Froogle]

From your reply below we've managed to integrate all the features apart from

stock control
single use vouchers

I'm still on version 7 and won't upgrade until actinic improves A LOT

For a product to be on it's 10'th revision and still not have stock control is crazy in my opinion.

As pointed out there are many other carts available. I've stuck with actinic because I've invested a lot of work in SEO and worry if I change this will be wasted.

I pray every day for a complete actinic product and would happily pay big bucks for it.

I would expect to see the beta sometime after christmas.


I agree that v10 really needs to be a big leap forward and will have to offer far more than just real-time stock control, google checkout out and an improved checkout. I would much rather see the launch delayed by 6 months or more to get several extra features included.

To compete with the best packages around I would be hoping to see:

Product Reviews (withour the need for external plugins)

Full online accounts with order status, order history, etc

Improved reporting to include more advanced sales statistics, so you can easily compare week on week sales, etc without the need to export to external packages to analyse sales figures.

Stock control of product choices without having to create hidden products.

The ability to apply some of the most popular knowledgebase hacks with a tickbox, eg. product images to show in the basket should be a simple tick box somewhere and not require mods.

I would also like to the product images that can be shown in the checkout to reflect the actual selected product permutation, as is available in other packages.


I am sticking with Actinic in the hope that V10 is going to be something amazing although in the back of my mind I think we might end up with something less inspiring in which case it will be make your mind up time for many including me.


EDIT: Forgot to add: Single Use Vouchers would be another nice addition

[chris ashdown]

What happened to

B_Online has just replied to a thread you have subscribed to entitled - V10 - in the Any Other Business forum of Actinic Community.

This thread is located at:
http://community.actinic.com/showthr...5&goto=newpost

why was it removed

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

He appears now to be banned.

http://community.actinic.com/member.php?u=1216

[dave_finlayson]

Having read the email of his post this seems harsh although I probably don't blame Actinic, if it was this reason he was banned anyway.

[Benjamin Dyer]

I am now locking this thread.

V10 is entering the final phases of development and we will be soon asking for alpha testers. If you are interested in taking part and discovering how the new features work for yourself please get in contact or watch for the new threads on the community.