RocketTheme Version 2.0 - Part 3

Written by Andy Miller Thursday, 20 November 2008 00:00

In this third installment of the RTv2 development story we'll jump around a bit and provide a few updates on progress so far, and what's left to do. Also i'll explain about a few changes to how the club works, specifically the signup process and price changes. I'll be going over some design changes we've made and show some screenshots of things you can expect in the new site. Good stuff!

Club Stuff

RocketTheme has been working on the new RTv2 site for many months now, in fact work on the club code started one and a half years ago, so you can understand how much work is involved in creating a complex site like RocketTheme. To make matters worse, we not only have to worry about building a new site that is solid, fast, easy-to-use etc, we have the problem of migration. The task of migrating thousands of existing users from a completely different version of Joomla, club code, and forum software cannot be under emphasized. I've worked extensively with the phpBB3 team on their SMF migration script specifically to enable RocketTheme's migration to phpBB3.

We wrote several custom scripts to move the Joomla portion plus their membership and expiration information to the new RokClub-based system. Also there are scripts to migrate some of our log files over so we can go back and examine old transactions from the new system. We are also moving to a whole new payment system using PayPal Pro Payments to handle credit cards. This is not regular PayPal but a service that PayPal purchased from Verisign and it allow us to accept major credit cards right on the RocketTheme website. So no more leaving and jumping off to 2Checkout to process. Also the regular PayPal payment process is more streamlined as we move away from the old IPN system to the new Paypal Express system. This is more robust and reliable than the old system and these two changes should provide a more enjoyable experience for the end user.

The next major change in the signup process is how accounts are created. In the existing RocketTheme website, you basically choose your membership, get shuffled off to 2Checkout or PayPal to make the payment, then get sent back to RocketTheme. During the payment process, 2Checkout or PayPal, send us your payment information and we create an account based on this information received. We then send you an email with the account information. It works, but is not the ideal solution. In RTv2, with the new payment process systems, we've revamped this process:

As you can see you now have the ability to register yourself with your own user-chosen username, email etc. Unfortunately this will only be available for new members as existing members will be migrated with their existing usernames. You can however easily change your contact details, email, address, etc in our new "Account Details Section". Once you've signed up for a club membership, or if you are an existing club member, you will experience a more streamlined RocketTheme site that's split up into discrete color-coded sections for the club you are a member of. For example, there are separate top-level menu tabs for Joomla and for phpBB3, orange for Joomla, and a blue for phpBB3.

The next important thing that we've added to RTv2 is the idea of entitlements. Entitlements have been around for a while, but we've just not given them a name. An Entitlement is effectively a domain usage of a template or theme. Every subscription term for each club has a certain amount of entitlements or domains associated with it. We use the honor system so it's up to our members to keep track of how many templates they are using. If you are using more than your entitlements allow, you should purchase more entitlements. Purchasing more entitlements doesn't extend your club expiration, it merely increases the number of entitlements you have allocated. Also this allows us to check on your entitlements if the need arises. Because we didn't really track these before, migrated RocketTheme members may have an incorrect value of entitlements when they login to RTv2. If that is the case, please just contact support and we'll get it sorted out for you. Another feature of the "My Subscriptions" page is that you will be able to see all your new transactions in a log format. This makes it easier for you as the member, and also us, to help solve any signup/payment issues.

Now, the prices :) As you may or may not know we've had the same pricing structure for RocketTheme since we started the club. That means it's been $50 for 3 months, and $75 for 1 year. Since then things have changed, we have many more templates, the templates are much more feature-rich, with many more styles. We have more tutorials, extra bonus and lab templates, etc. Basically you are getting about 10 times as much for your money now than you did 3 years ago. Therefore we are adjusting our prices to adjust for these extra features and also for inflation etc. The new Joomla Club prices are as follows:

Joomla Club Prices

The main differences is that we are introducing more options. We are keeping the popular $50 option but now this is 60 days rather than 3 months. Also we are adding a 6 month option at our previous $75 price point, and the new one year price is $90. We have decided not to do the Commercial plan as a 1 year Joomla Club membership plus 3 more entitlements is a better deal. The Pro Joomla club is being renamed to the Developer Joomla Template Club and prices have been adjusted there also. We've not finalized the phpBB3 prices, but they will be similar to the Joomla ones. We did quite a bit of research with our competitors and also similar businesses in other fields and we feel these prices are still highly competitive and a fantastic value for money.

Redesign

Regarding the redesign, this is actually the 3rd redesign we've done, it's just the other two never saw the light of day :) The new site will be much more 'fun' with much more useful information including FAQs and Help areas. Also we'll be moving this blog into the new site, as well as eventually the rest of the RocketWerx site. We have put a lot of time into streamlining the whole template browsing process using some nice mootools powered effects to create a clean interface but one that is packed full of information. Below is a series of screenshots outlining this area of the site. Please note this content is far from final and it's actually out of date as we've not updated it with our more recent templates yet.

Here you can see a sample of the Available Templates page:

Here you can see a sample of the a specific templates page:

OK, that's it until next time, cheers.