Joomla Themes 2016
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- Yes
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- 70%
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- No
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- 30%
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- Don't care.
- No votes
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- Terp
- Elite Rocketeer
- Posts: 1720
- Thanks: 23
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Okay, so I had to post ONE more post just to back-up my post; I don't like to toss anything out there without substantiating it.
"We create the designs WE want, not the wants of fussy clients."
All in fun, guys.
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- Ryan M Pierson
- Sr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 243
- Thanks: 164
- Technical Writer
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Terp wrote:
Okay, so I had to post ONE more post just to back-up my post; I don't like to toss anything out there without substantiating it.
If your reason for leaving now (and posting frequently about it) is a quote from a job posting nearly a decade ago before most of our team even joined RocketTheme, then I'm very sorry.
I think the fact that myself and other members of our team are spending our weekends and off hours reading your feedback and responding to it should count for more than a quote from an ancient job posting. - Ryan Matthew Pierson / Technical Writer / Buda, TX USA
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- Don Romano
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 25
- Thanks: 2
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So... I mentioned this in a different thread. I'm one of those "hobbiest" people who can figure fundamental things out to don't make my life developing web sites. I support 3 - 5 web sites for local nonprofits.
An idea to retain Rocketthem customers but also to improve customer satisfaction is to admit that this is more of a Gantry template club vs. Joomla vs. Wordpress vs. Grav. Let us have a membership that allows us to use templates from any of the platforms but limit the number of 'licenses' that we have. Perhaps this would really attract new members as well.
Caveat... as a hobbiest I am not willing to pay for a premium for this flexibility but I would happily 'return' a dozen or so deployment licenses that I have that I will never use for being a long-time customer. That's also a different flavor of membership licensing... targeting us 'nonprofessionals' who don't deliver a lot of web sites. You may have a better business model in the end.
I think Joomla has a place and if I can get my head around Gantry a bit more I will continue to use it for high content sites that benefit from it. But I would like to try Wordpress and Grav (even in its infancy) is a great approach for small/simple web sites.
Honestly... I just resubscribed again because I have a web site under construction to upgrade from an old version of Joomla and I'm too far along to consider switching at this time. But in a year my plan is to explore other options and I seriously hope that one of those options is to stay with RocketTheme (where I've really enjoyed my experience over time) if they can package a membership that fits me better.
Thanks,
Don -
The following users have thanked you: Hartmut Schwab
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- Ryan M Pierson
- Sr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 243
- Thanks: 164
- Technical Writer
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Don Romano wrote:
Caveat... as a hobbiest I am not willing to pay for a premium for this flexibility but I would happily 'return' a dozen or so deployment licenses that I have that I will never use for being a long-time customer.
Let me start by saying I'm speaking my own opinion here, and not that of Andy or any other member of the team. These are some of the initial issues we faced when similar suggestions have been brought up in the past:
This is a reasonable idea, and one that we have discussed in length repeatedly over the past several years. There are some hurdles - especially when you propose that we do this without charging any more than we do now for a single platform.
In essence, you would be receiving roughly triple the access and support for the same amount you're paying now for access and support to a single platform. We would love to be able to give that to you!
There are a few things that doing this would mean, such as staffing more support folks that are experienced with a given platform to meet the influx of demand for support. All while cutting what we take in by ~66% overnight. Even with less licenses on your end, our support doesn't begin at a live site. It begins during development and our members are free to develop with any and all of our templates at a given time.
Not all of our current Joomla moderators are versed in WordPress or Grav. Likewise, we have moderators that are much more equipped to support WordPress at its current membership level, but would be overwhelmed if a large percentage of our Joomla members started submitting WordPress support requests. You see the inherent problem here. We would have to hire more while making less - or at the very least add this additional support to our development team's workload which slows down production even further.
For owners of pirate sites (which are unfortunately a constant issue) the solution you're proposing would be a gold mine. They can download all of our templates, add their malicious bits, and distribute them to the masses for one small fee. Those downloaders then contact us demanding support for their website that is giving its visitors malware - in addition to not receiving regular security updates.
At the end of the day, once we were to switch over everyone to an all-platform plan, there would be a surge of people emailing and asking us to create single-platform plans at a discount. We're already selling at near cost as it is.
However, we will totally discuss your idea. I've linked to your comment in our channel and it will receive discussion. Thank you very much for your suggestion. - Last Edit: 7 years 3 months ago by Ryan M Pierson.
- Ryan Matthew Pierson / Technical Writer / Buda, TX USA
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- Don Romano
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 25
- Thanks: 2
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I greatly appreciate your thoughtful response. The two only additional comments I might provide for us 'low volume but desiring flexibility' customers:
1) When I said I was not willing to pay a premium I did not mean I would not be willing to pay a bit more for the flexibility. I, personally, don't make money for my work (just sayin') but I consider it a 'donation' to the nonprofits. I don't know what the magic number might be... but for me it would have to be under $100/annual.
2) I accept that having the expertise in house to answer the questions is very important but expensive to the business. Perhaps one of the options to an 'overall' membership might be to limit support tickets to 5 per customer for the year unless the issue was due to a bug. Or even to have support be based on community answers in a forum (i.e. I could see what others asked and the answers) but any personal/custom support would be ala carte.
In any case, I do appreciate the challenges of running a business and the fact that I am not be your targeted audience. I've just gotten used to the 'freedom' of having a RocketTheme membership even though I do not use it much but now that I need to start to look at alternative technologies over time I am hoping that it can adapt a bit to fit a bit better.
Thanks again for the response,
Don
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- Martin Hansen
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 34
- Thanks: 7
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Ryan M Pierson wrote:
What would you like to see? Do you have any themes or features that you want us to create? Are there any specific styles that you think should be present in an upcoming template?
Joomla remains our primrary development platform. We continue to update our themes and extensions regularly (yes, even the Gantry 4 ones). What we need to know is what you'd like to see us create. Feel free to share ideas. Is there a design scheme you would like to see us incorporate into our own? Is there a feature that you've been dying to see us implement?
Tell us here, and we'll add it to our list.
Yes, there is. An e-commerce template with component specific styling for Joomla extensions, such as Hikashop.
You supply us with great templates, but they are too generic. Versla is one example. I would love to use it but it lacks styling for Hikashop (or other Joomla e-commerce extensions).
Obviously component specific styling would require extra work on your part whenever the component is updated, but is it not possible to offer this as a paid service? Or develop a style pack that can be added to any of your Joomla templates? As it is now you seem to avoid any component specific styling. It makes sense if you consider workload and transition to Wordpress and Grav. But it weakens the template in relation to Joomla. The value of Joomla is in the templates, and the value of the templates is in the extensions and components.
As it is now many of your templates requires custom work to fit extensions such as Hikashop, which is not within reach unless you are a professional developer. And that is what you are - professional developers.
I am not asking you do offer styling for any and all components, but for the major ones related to Joomla e-commerce.
I think it would greatly improve the value and relevance of Rockettheme - and of Joomla.
Martin
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- Ryan M Pierson
- Sr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 243
- Thanks: 164
- Technical Writer
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Martin Hansen wrote:
Yes, there is. An e-commerce template with component specific styling for Joomla extensions, such as Hikashop.
Thank you for the suggestion! I've passed it along to the team. - Ryan Matthew Pierson / Technical Writer / Buda, TX USA
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- Don Romano
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 25
- Thanks: 2
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Just to chime in since this is an active thread... three 'types' of themes with components/modules/particles (whatever thins are called) that work well with them:
1) Community organizations/clubs: Youth Center, Senior Center, Nonprofit organization, clubs. Useful features are integration with MailChimp or some other mail service, fundraising (integration with PayPal and others), calendars, event listings, sign up forms for activities, 'home page' with latest updates (Front page), etc.
2) Political web sites - i.e. local politics like school committee, mayor, board of selectman, city council, etc. Features include sign up sheets, donations, integration with email, calendar for events, etc.
3) This may exist but small business web site, not necessarily an e-Commerce web site. Just a brochure site. But with a more simple home page such as a more narrow banner across the top rather than something that uses the entire page. I know that Grav may be best for this but sometimes people still want some of the features such as automatic unpublishing of articles, etc. (not sure that is a feature of Grav).
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- Ryan M Pierson
- Sr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 243
- Thanks: 164
- Technical Writer
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Don Romano wrote:
1) Community organizations/clubs: Youth Center, Senior Center, Nonprofit organization, clubs. Useful features are integration with MailChimp or some other mail service, fundraising (integration with PayPal and others), calendars, event listings, sign up forms for activities, 'home page' with latest updates (Front page), etc.
Great idea!
Don Romano wrote:2) Political web sites - i.e. local politics like school committee, mayor, board of selectman, city council, etc. Features include sign up sheets, donations, integration with email, calendar for events, etc.
Nice!
Don Romano wrote:3) This may exist but small business web site, not necessarily an e-Commerce web site. Just a brochure site. But with a more simple home page such as a more narrow banner across the top rather than something that uses the entire page.
We do have a few templates in the past 12 months that fit the bill for what you're describing. Citadel is good - especially if you want to have a video at the top of the home page behind the banner text.
Protean, Topaz, and Antares also classify as small business brochure-style templates. You can find smaller banners across the top than the one in the home page of the demo by exploring the demo's example pages (blog, portfolio, etc.).
Is there a particular style or example you'd like us to take a look at you've seen around the Web? We don't copy, but if there is a general look and feel you'd like us to explore we'd certainly like to see it.
Don Romano wrote:I know that Grav may be best for this but sometimes people still want some of the features such as automatic unpublishing of articles, etc. (not sure that is a feature of Grav).
It is a feature of Grav! Grav handles blogging and frequent page/article updates like a boss. It is a bit like a much more modular version of WordPress than some other flat-file CMS out there. At its base it handles content, but it is built to be added on to like a transformer so it has the features you need, and nothing you don't.
Great suggestions! - Ryan Matthew Pierson / Technical Writer / Buda, TX USA
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- hsojhsoj
- Sr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 158
- Thanks: 3
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All my clients ever care about is SEO. I can make all the design changes to the new gantry 5 templates without much effort, but then I submit my site to google and they grad it about an F+. Then I have to go purchase tools that make it score better, that is the pain.
In a perfect world I would love the ability to magically use the Gantry particles, and the joomla modules, from within the template area, and then magically export out my short 20 page sites into flat files that would load at the speed of light. As long as we are dreaming right?
Then I could use that tool instead of move hundreds of joomla sites to wordpress.
BTW how is everyone updating all of their client's sites. It's no big deal with a dozen, but what if you have a thousand?
I have been writing scripts for Selenium but i am sure there is a better way right?
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