v9.0.3 Public Beta

[chris ashdown]

Lee

New features are for new releases of version, what we signed up for is version 9 and we should have had the bugs sorted out months ago,new features should apply to V10

We brought V9 on what is says on the tin and that is all most of us have ever wanted and expected, we also hope that our wish list is incorporated in some future version.

[RuralWeb]

New features are for new releases of version, what we signed up for is version 9 and we should have had the bugs sorted out months ago,new features should apply to V10

I totally agree with you chris - the faster upload features etc should have been kept for V10 IMO. Having said that I have no real problems with V9.0.2 so Im in no rush

[leehack]

New features are for new releases of version, what we signed up for is version 9 and we should have had the bugs sorted out months ago,new features should apply to V10

We brought V9 on what is says on the tin and that is all most of us have ever wanted and expected, we also hope that our wish list is incorporated in some future version.

This is why it's so hard to please Chris, i think the above is crap, but i understand where you are coming from. We tend to have versions for 18 months, what you are saying is that they should release a version and develop it nil for 18 months, just bug fix? That simply is not sensible or viable IMO. With that approach you could have great features piling up in the store room, not publicly being tested and therefore even more new things all being released at once with a new major version. That is a crackers idea and would be 10 x worse than we have now.

The features of 903, should have IMO been the icing on the cake or the 'wow' factor on V9, no way should this have ever been held for V10, versions need value. Where they have messed up is that 903 should have been the initial V9 release without question IMO. Imagine 903 is the first V9 you get to see.

The bugs in V9 have been a real issue, but don't let them blinker you into thinking nothing new should ever be added, remember although we label them new features, they are addressing speed issues and speed limits for larger sites. That should go to market at the very, very first opportunity.

Opinions are so diverse though, Mal finds 902 OK, yet Actinic have 180 odd fixes listed on their site in 903. People's use of this software is so diverse, i think at best you can only ever please 50-60% of users.

[RuralWeb]

Agile design ie adding new features as you go is great when you have users on a subscription service and you push stuff out at regular intervals but when you want people to pay to upgrade then you need to have sufficient new features to force them to upgrade. As jo has always said its only really worth upgrading actinic every two versions as there is generally not enough to make it worthwhile and this was certainly true with V9. The only real reason I have upgraded clients is if they want to full use Actinic Payments

For many people V10 will be the time they upgrade IMO

[Benjamin Dyer]

The conversation regarding bug fixing v's new features is an interesting one.

I am a little loathed to get into a detailed discussion on the community regarding our processes and our decision making wrt exactly what goes into a release. I will just reiterate that I am happy to talk to anyone, just get in contact.

Actions always speak louder than words and I think its fair to say we are making a very conscious effort to listen and act on the feedback. The community is obviously part of this drive to understand our customers better as is the recent conference and the planned user conference for '09.

We have a hugely diverse range of customers and it is an interesting balancing act to make sure we listen to everyone.

However, one comment. A major complaint was the amount of time it takes to upload site content. We listened and decided to act by changing the way uploads are handled by using multi-threading, compressing and even giving the merchant the ability to just upload a single page. Now because of this we are seeing a significant increase in performance. You could call these new features, issue resolution, bug fixing, whatever, either way you get it in v9.

We are listening, we are acting, we are opening up, I think my recent post count reflects that.

[leehack]

Agile design ie adding new features as you go is great when you have users on a subscription service and you push stuff out at regular intervals but when you want people to pay to upgrade then you need to have sufficient new features to force them to upgrade. As jo has always said its only really worth upgrading actinic every two versions as there is generally not enough to make it worthwhile and this was certainly true with V9. The only real reason I have upgraded clients is if they want to full use Actinic Payments

For many people V10 will be the time they upgrade IMO

The double version jump has some merit and I certainly agree with that. However if V9 started off as 903 will be, I think that argument would not be right. Time versus features debate I guess. It's a real tough balance.

[RuralWeb]

However if V9 started off as 903 will be, I think that argument would not be right. Time versus features debate I guess. It's a real tough balance

I agree - if V9 had hit the ground running with the faster upload, Actinic Payments etc then it would have been a block buster and everyone would have upgraded.

Its a tough call ben and I would not like to be in your shoes - Im happy with the direction things are going and as always its down individuals to decide on what they want from the software. As far as upload times go again Ive never had huge problems but I know that many sites have so for them 9.0.3 will be big

[nileshpa]

Benjamin,

I do not want to thread on your toes & please note that I am not having a dig at you, your staff or your internal processes. I know its a tough call between bug fixes & new features and do sympathise with you because everyone wants everything now. I do not want to talk about what new features are included in V9.0.3.

We, as users, when we encounter serious problems such as hangups, crashes etc, we would have preferred if Actinic Support said "We know the root cause of this & heres a small single fix to help clear this problem" which would then be included in the next patchset that can come out some 4+ months later.

I actually saw/expected V9.0.3 as a patchset i.e. a collection of x number of fixes produced since the GA release of V9. Some of these little fixes would have solved a lot of users problems sooner & you would have made them quite happy. Conversely, If any of these fixes on the list did not resolve the punters issue, then Its a new bug and I would have expected Actinic to have looked deeper & raised a fix accordingly. This is my simplistic view and I'm sure majority of users would have been more than happy with that kind of response.

Nilesh

[chris ashdown]

Best answer yet

[AndrewF]

Ben, there is nothing more frustrating than doing an in depth bug report only to find out 3 others have done the same. Can we not get some kind of forum or central place where a thread is started per problem and people add their thoughts and issues on that problem. Kind of like a central collation point.

..... be great to know what has been reported and what has not and add your findings to something someone else has found.

Definitely a good idea - would be helpful and save wasting time.

I'm having trouble getting site to link to an external Access Db in V9.0.3
Also I tried to import a site snapshot with data base linked into v903 and encountered a problem.

These might be BETA problems but might be down to me -so it would be good to know if these are issues that have already been found by someone else before spending time investigating and reporting!

I am trying to test a larger site upload - have uploaded a site with approx 18000 products (without product images) and it took only 45 mins (usually takes much longer)!! Very impressive. But can't link to the database to add the images and product data to test upload speed with these added!

Ben said that he was going to think about a system so we can know whats been found already and add to the report/log. Is this in place now?

[dave_finlayson]

vBulletins Project Tools would be good for such a system and would integrate into the forum too. Not sure how easy it is to restrict access too but might be worth looking at.

[AndrewF]

The conversation regarding bug fixing v's new features is an interesting one.

However, one comment. A major complaint was the amount of time it takes to upload site content. We listened and decided to act by changing the way uploads are handled by using multi-threading, compressing and even giving the merchant the ability to just upload a single page. Now because of this we are seeing a significant increase in performance.

We are listening, we are acting, we are opening up, I think my recent post count reflects that.

I agree - you can't please everyone at the same time - I'm one who has really suffered due to long upload times.

I raised this issue as aproblem back in 8.5.2 about the length of time to upload - so thank you for addressing it.
I only hope that it works effectively on v large sites (i'm trying to test it via the Beta) as I cannot live with the slow upload on larger sites and have been investigating alternative solutions to Actinic as a result.

However that I think that Actinic is too secretive about what's in the pipeline and when they can be expected. I can't run a business hoping that the developments I need are on the way - I need to know whats coming!

I have been looking for alternatives to Actinic because I can't live with the upload times - maybe if 9.0.3 works on large sites I needn't have bothered - why couldn't you tell us what improvement was being worked on and when it would arrive?

[malbro]

Hi Darren and others,

If you have any feedback regarding the beta if you could please email v9.beta@actinic.co.uk then we can investigate. Having a dedicated email address just means that we wont miss anything important, its also directed to the correct team.

Thanks!

Hi Ben

I know this has been asked for before but is it possible to let us know what the current list of reported problems is in the current Beta of V9.0.3. Possibly by email to those who have reported bugs so far?

[Jemski]

Hi Guys...

I ran the V9.0.3 update. We use Business+with a 2 user license. After running the update on both machines, on the satelite machine i get the following error message;

"You cannot connect to your local machine with this license!"

This is odd because it's looking for the sites directory on a the other machine.

Any suggestions?

Hi Folk

I realise it is now some time since you posted this but I have just installed v9.05 with a second license and the second license won't connect for the same reason you had "You cannot connect to your local machine with this license!" As with you, the Actinic folder is not on the 'local machine' it is on a different, networked machine where the main licence version has been installed.

This was the only thread I could find relating to this problem. It doesn't look like the network drive workaround was that successful. Did you find a permanent solution or get a response from the Actinic Beta team?