Acatalog - Changing name.

[leehack]

From looking back over the years, every time a version of Actinic is released, this same conversation occurs, with slightly different flavours, when a release is packed full of new features, people complain that issues like inclusive tax haven't been resolved, when that sort of issue is resolved, people complain that there aren't enough wizzy new features. It's a no win situation. (and there will always be someone along to complain about the price as well).

I quite like V9, I've been working with it for a while now and it's subtly addictive, a lot of the new features are not that obvious and I think that are being missed (multiple order completion or the configurable order tab for example), the new look and feel does make it much easier to use. I dislike going back to work on my live V8 sites now, they feel quite clunky.

I'd have put my house on a positive spin from your corner Jan but that's fair enough. My main problem with what you say is that you have never said anything bad about the software, so i don't see a rounded or neutral opinion. This is of course to be expected with your history and i would be the same in the same situation. Positive is great, but CD & CB have been more critical of the software in the past than you.

Actinic bods seems to diving into the trenches, that is not needed at all, all that is being said is it was one big feature or one 'wow' short of something really successful. It's an OK release, after the past 18 months, we needed a 'wow'. As i have already self proclaimed, i am cynical, but i have really tried to look positively on this, it's an OK release, 3 months too early and one feature light for me. VAT + GC, or VAT + checkout is what it needed to do, just for the shear discussion and wow factor. It's easy to forget what a turbulent 18 months it has been.

Like you i also get a good feel in the software, i seem to be clicking more than ever, but that might be because of the preview tab which is a nice feature. They came close with this release IMO, which is a big improvement.

I am interested in what non-web designers and non-actinic people think of it, these are the people whose opinions really count IMO.

[Darren B]

The main thing is for me, as far as I can see, is that its going to be at least what, eighteen months until the next main release?

G i could not agree more, last night i took a tour of the internet at eccomerce packages and i was amazed to see what these are offering, as i have said i love actinic becuase i can take it anywere and work on it, i dont need an internet connection until i am happy to upload

But Jan i am concerned that you dont find one negative point from this release, sorry this is not v9 this is an improvemnt on the what we had not a major release. As stated by the big cheese most of the time was spent fixing VAT, note i said fixing VAT not adding VAT, you mention multiple order completion, jees this is what should have been in the 1st release that had order completion. It again is a fix/improvement not a new feature.

You are right though Jan this topic always comes up with different flavours. and as they say you cant please all the people all of the time but lets say from the people posting here who run succesfull businesses and those that run businesses from making add ons i think it says they have a clue about what people want and what actinic should be doing.

Head and sand spring to mind at this point

D

[Jan]

But Jan i am concerned that you dont find one negative point from this release ...

I don't recall saying that anywhere, I took an active part in the alpha and beta testing with Actinic, and sent in a long list of issues - 80% of which were resolved before the public beta. (The other 20% were wish list items)

Head and sand spring to mind at this point

I don't think so. I'm allowed to have my opinion just as much as you are. The big thing in V9 for me is the MOTO form and Actinic payments. I've been waiting to get rid of Protx for months now, I don't want Google checkout, I would have liked a slicker checkout but it's not going to kill my business to not have it.

It's not just Actinic that I'm positive about by the way, it's most things really, it makes me happier to see the good in things that the bad and I prefer being happy to being miserable. :-)

Regards,

[Darren B]

I don't recall saying that anywhere, I took an active part in the alpha and beta testing with Actinic, and sent in a long list of issues - 80% of which were resolved before the public beta.

I did to Jan and i broke it many times and sent in many bugs, and the postcode one is being fixed which came to light in the beta.

I don't think so. I'm allowed to have my opinion just as much as you are.

Jan to comment on head and sand was not directed at you it was directed at actinic, you were one of the people i was talking about making a business out of add ons e.t.c

As for smoother checkout, unfortunatelty Jan i loose customers from the current one, not many i add but that is not the point, some can not even work out how to add a delivery address, something i have put on my project list to redisign the pages and make it more obvious, what did i get though a graphic so you know what page your on, oh was that not already done. Another easy fix, add an image to each checkout page, oh hang on and they did not need to think about it because fergus has already told them how to do it.

sorry Jan Cherry picking what was already there

D

[Jan]

Jan to comment on head and sand was not directed at you it was directed at actinic

Oh sorry Darren, I'm the happy paranoid one :-)

Regards,

[Darren B]

Oh sorry Darren, I'm the happy paranoid one :-)

Regards,

Jan i have pills to do that, i'll share them if you like

[cdicken]

Thanks very much for your thoughts everyone - there's some great stuff here. I'm going to let CB deal with the points you raise in detail (he's out of the office today) but I just wanted to mention something about

don't forget the speed of uploading the website needs a severe overhaul and must be high on any fix list

We've taken on board all the criticisms on that score, and the performance issues are next on our hit list. We've got some ideas for improvements which should really speed things up.

[pnagames]

with V9 in Beta now i can say i am slightly dissapointed.

we put on hold our upgrade from V7 to V8 primarily because i knew v9 was on its way.

and to be honest i am not that exited about upgrading at the moment.

the VAT fix is good but we could get around it. it was a bit more work but hey ho. now the fact that Actinic put so many hours for fixing this INHO is unbelievable. i would have thought that changing the way actinic works for this would have taken lesser time.

as Lee mentioned above if actinic wants to call this a major release they need at least 2 more Big things sorted (IMHO). for me checkout revamp and online database for customers accounts.

looking at the new features as Lee put them earlier

* Site wizard (maybe good)
* Some new wider themes so they don't get nagged at by people like me to drop 800 wide support (not much use)
* Offline ordering (useless to us as we dont use it. the current one would be more than enough as well)
* Google Analytics (havent looked at it yet so cannot comment)
* Correct VAT pricing (good but not end of the world)
* Post code checking (again not essential for us)
* Product options creator (not important to us)

i havent looked at other packages and i wont for the forseeable future. but eventually if actinic is not being able to provide us with the features that we need (and are essential for an ecommerce site these days) then alternative solution will be sought.

[Stereo Steve]

I suppose from a designer point of view, it's not a major update. But, as any software bod should know, big changes often bring big problems.

From a laymans point of view, the move from 7 to 8 was pretty fraught with all the bugs and workarounds and the need to be constantly upgrading layouts to the next release. Well worth it in the end but I would not like to see that kind of wholesale change again in the near future. V8 got the desktop structure nearly right, just a bit clunky. But the concept was intuitive and good. V9 improves the basic (basic as in non techy) user experience 100% in my opinion. The speed of adding products, making and previewing changes takes away one of the painful parts of v8. So, I'm chuffed with that. I'm chuffed with the VAT situation, the analytics and also the new templates which are well designed.

Yes, we want a new checkout but maybe that would have been a bridge too far this time. Much better that they get VAT sorted properly. Yes, the checkout looks clunky but our site still converts well. Maybe we lose a few sales through it but I doubt it's many.

There are plenty of other packages out there to design and publish an ecommerce site but every time I research the market, I come back to Actinic. For me, the amount of third party developers doing such great work is a huge bonus. Yes, Actinic could be made into an all singing, all dancing package but then we'd be bitching about it costing 20 grand.

For me, I cannot wait to start using v9 in anger, it's going to save me a heap of time and that means money.

[Ginnys Attic]

i took a tour of the internet at eccomerce packages and i was amazed to see what these are offering, as i have said i love actinic becuase i can take it anywere and work on it, i dont need an internet connection until i am happy to upload

I agree, I have also recently spent much time looking at various ecommerce solutions and agree it is amazing what they are offering. I'm not amazed that features are available, I'm amazed they are available within a FREE ecommerce solution and not a paid for solution such as Actinic.

Products reviews - The Norm
Google Checkout - The Norm
Single products per page - The Norm
Customer login, check order history, order status and maintain address's etc - The Norm
Recommend to a friend - The Norm
Multiple pages for sections (Eg: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3 etc) - The Norm
Global and Per category best seller lists - The Norm

The list goes on and on......

What we the shop owners have to consider here is what our customers expect from a ecommerce site such as the ability to login and check previous orders, current order status, update an address or add a shipping address, pay using Google Checkout and even the ability to review products all of which are the norm and have been for many many many years and that is why i find it amazing that Actinic have not come up with a solution to add such functionality for the customers of there customers.

For us the Actinic shop owners we have to consider if customer interaction, functionality and ease of use of our sites is more important than the windows based interface for creating and maintaining our sites and then make a decision accordingly.

Option A: Hit and Hope Actinic address requests for features from there customers.
Option B: Take the plunge and use a solution that does offer all the features required out of the box and for FREE!

It's a bit like if any other software had not updated with the times, such as if Microsoft hadn't updated Windows Media player to play mp3's people would simply use a product that does and for me this is where Actinic are getting it wrong and falling further and further behind and if they don'y make some radical decissions and improvements soon could end up like the dinosaurs "Extinct".

[Darren B]

I just wanted to mention something aboutWe've taken on board all the criticisms on that score, and the performance issues are next on our hit list. We've got some ideas for improvements which should really speed things up.

Chris is that V9 release or update or are we talking V10 here.

Sorry stuff the upload speed sort the check out out, we have been banging on about it for years unless you can actually find the time to fix both, but going on the VAT resolution i doubt just MO and there are people here dying to fix the upload speed

D

[cdicken]

Chris is that V9 release or update or are we talking V10 here.

It will be early on in v9's lifetime.

[Mike Hughes]

I am interested in what non-web designers and non-actinic people think of it, these are the people whose opinions really count IMO.

I like V9. The VAT handling has been a major issue for me and my number one priority for getting fixed for some time now.

I also like the offline ordering handling. Some of the new functionality I wanted such as offline order price adjustments (for sales on ebay, etc) was added in V8.5 (although I never saw this mentioned in any documentation) and in this way actinic is maybe doing itself an injustice.

Actinic seem to run two streams of development. One stream working on the major changes for a new version release and another stream working on enhancements within a version. V8 had multiple releases and enhancements, some of which included new features such as improved shipping, paypal pro, offline price changes, etc.

What seems to happen though, is that the new version then gets released as a 'bare bones' system in an attempt to get it released quickly (both to get it out to the users and so that the 'enhancement' team can start working on it).

So this 'bare bones' system then looks a bit boring at first because it just includes the basic functionality of the new release and not the whizzy things that can be added to it later.

Maybe this is partly the cause of the disappointment some folks are feeling about V9. I don't know, but I would say the important thing is to think about what V9 might look like after a few update releases, rather than immediately start focusing on V10 and how far away that might be.

Of course, this is all conjecture on my part as I don't know Actinic's development strategy or release plans, but it does seem to make sense. Those of you who know me will know that I like Actinic as a company and I like what their software does for me, so my thoughts on this may well be more positive than others.

Mike

[Edit] Ah, I see Chris has already started talking about V9 enhancements.

[Darren B]

Mike its nice to actually here from someone that has been using it for a while, you are a seasoned memeber of the forum and im glad you felt the need to voice your opion in the positive light of day.

For noobs the software will dazzle and your right actinic have done in the past what you describe and add on stuff, ad yes it kinda kills the release.

I do remember with V8 release some members saying they would never alpha and beta test again, but i also know these have been alpha and beta testing, i recon that tells you people do like the software adn i can never see a mass exodious, maybe actinic know this too, maybe finances are a restriction who knows. but all in all i still stand by my statement this was not a V9 release.

D

[RuralWeb]

it is amazing what they are offering

It is - BUT one thing you have all forgotten is how much better Actinic is at getting good SERPs - its all very well having a site that can do all these other things but if you cannot get good results then its a waste of time IMO.