Great to see some positive thoughts share about 5.7. I agree, though I've been unable to put into words exactly what is better. There is a lot to like. I just can't comment much on interface because I most code with it, and in that sense well it's always been good. I like the namespacing! I like being able to quickly find the API docs by pasting in the namespace to google or the API search.

There really is nothing you can't do with C5 if you understand what objects to work with and how they interact. I just added a BlockType Set for our Razor Commerce package. Now when you make a package with many blocks you can organize them in your own BlockType Set.

Making packages that add things to composer is challenging but achievable. Which opens up the door to more packages shipping PageTypes with preset composer layouts rather than often using their own objects for editing. That makes it more akin to WP where most plugins use the edit post interface rather than invent their own.

For me as a programmer, C5 makes me happy and makes me feel I can create whatever I want. I just wish there was more adoption so the marketplace was more lucrative and more financial upside for mastering C5 compared to WP/Drupal. Hopefully as 5.7 catches on that will start to become more reality.

For me as a designer I find 5.7 very frustrating, I no longer recommend C5 to my designer colleagues:(

Sad to hear that!
Could you eventually be more detailled in your criticism? What exactly is worse than in c5.6?
You know, the core (and other) developers are dependent on your feedback. So please, share your expierience, your thoughts, your propositions on how it could be better!
I'm sure that others and me personnaly would be happy to hear about.

Hey, don't get me wrong I'm sure it's a brilliant CMS, it's probably me, I had 5.6 (and earlier) working in minutes and raving about it to my friends almost immediately, but with 5.7 I was still struggling after a couple of hours. I would't presume that I could suggest how to make it better or fix it cos I think you guys know better than me. As for updating my skills, I'm a designer not a coder, the last thing I want to update is coding skills (which are virtually none existent by comparison to some of you guys). All I need is to design a template in Foundation stick in a few C5 block placeholders maybe add a bit of custom jquery for a nice menu and I'm away with the mixer.

I do think it's me, I prefer the simple and straight forward so I can focus on the design. But I doubt I'm a typical C5 user.

Update; I recently started designing and building apps with Appery.com. I registered for the trial and was connecting to a remote database within a morning, within a week I was writing API's to manage a remote stock database. I hack my way through javascript and I know a little SQL, but what I do know a lot about is how things should work and I understand how people want to interact with something. It has to be simple and easily understood. It works for Apple.

Concrete5 definitely needs a lot of attention in the UX (or however you want to call it) department if it ever hopes to go mainstream. But as I see it that's not the current focus of the people actively developing it (who are developers after all ;). Maybe there will be a shift once the code base is more stable. And there's always the possibility to voice your concerns (like you did) and provide some constructive criticism.

Thanks for the positive feedback – that's nice to hear.