An Open Letter to C5 & The Community
Permalink
Dear Franz & the Team,
This post is meant as constructive feedback and not as a whinge, having said that what has prompted this post is a concern and we feel that as a business there a couple of things that would make life considerably easier.
Firstly - C5 is awesome we find that 90% of clients when faced between a choice of C5, Drupal or Wordpress will choose C5 every time this enables our business to offer truly bespoke design with great CMS functionality and due to the brilliant way that a user interacts with C5, training our clients is fantastically simple. We are continuing to have great success with our clients and C5! so thanks and well done guy's.
There are a few issues which could do with being resolved reasonably quickly to make our experience with C5 even better.
Date formatting - In the UK we use the following date formatting - DD/MM/YYYY (in the main however C5 is set to be MM/DD/YYYY to follow the US standard this can and has and continues to cause issues when using inbuilt C5 elements and 3rd party add-ons as our UK client base expect to see the UK standard. Is there the possibility of asking the user at install time to choose their region? and based on the answer of this question the core C5 environment to update to reflect this? there are and seem to be a great many posts on both forum's and specific add-ons pages asking for the method to do this.
There is an understanding in the community that the products origin is in the US and that the date formatting is set this way due to that fact, however your worldwide adoption seems to be growing rapidly and as a business we over only C5 as our CMS platform. Lets make you bigger than the rest?!
Speed - This issue has started to become a real nightmare for us as a company our corporate clients have large sites with lots of content on them and as such the speed of the site becomes uppermost on our radar. The C5 team have done some excellent work in this area with the cache controls however there still seems to be some issues here.
We think and have used and tested this that the post by Phallanx -http://www.concrete5.org/community/forums/chat/concrete-on-steroids... is fantastic and solves the issues we have been experiencing. can we have this code integrated natively into C5 as part of the next release or even as part of the next point release? this seems to be relatively simple and not effect the core operational structure of the C5 code.
Block trials - When building a site for a customer it is usual that they will want a piece of functionality that has already been built by one of the excellent add-on developers in the community. however as a business we would like the ability to build a demonstration which is specific to the client and that uses the custom add-ons that may be required to enable us to get the business. To do this at the moment we have to purchase add-ons and test them and then shelve them if they don’t fit.
Can the C5 team enable developers to build in trial time outs or licensing to allow us to showcase the add-ons to prospective clients? with a view to finding the right one to fit and then purchasing it for the specific customer?
So there it is only a couple of things as promised. Again I would like to re-iterate that C5 and the way it is delivered to us has been a breath of fresh air and we are very much looking forward to using C5 for all of our customers going forward. Franz and the team continue to be a great source of support and platform.
Thanks Concrete5 for enabling and empowering our business.
Best to all
Regards
Justin Erswell
This post is meant as constructive feedback and not as a whinge, having said that what has prompted this post is a concern and we feel that as a business there a couple of things that would make life considerably easier.
Firstly - C5 is awesome we find that 90% of clients when faced between a choice of C5, Drupal or Wordpress will choose C5 every time this enables our business to offer truly bespoke design with great CMS functionality and due to the brilliant way that a user interacts with C5, training our clients is fantastically simple. We are continuing to have great success with our clients and C5! so thanks and well done guy's.
There are a few issues which could do with being resolved reasonably quickly to make our experience with C5 even better.
Date formatting - In the UK we use the following date formatting - DD/MM/YYYY (in the main however C5 is set to be MM/DD/YYYY to follow the US standard this can and has and continues to cause issues when using inbuilt C5 elements and 3rd party add-ons as our UK client base expect to see the UK standard. Is there the possibility of asking the user at install time to choose their region? and based on the answer of this question the core C5 environment to update to reflect this? there are and seem to be a great many posts on both forum's and specific add-ons pages asking for the method to do this.
There is an understanding in the community that the products origin is in the US and that the date formatting is set this way due to that fact, however your worldwide adoption seems to be growing rapidly and as a business we over only C5 as our CMS platform. Lets make you bigger than the rest?!
Speed - This issue has started to become a real nightmare for us as a company our corporate clients have large sites with lots of content on them and as such the speed of the site becomes uppermost on our radar. The C5 team have done some excellent work in this area with the cache controls however there still seems to be some issues here.
We think and have used and tested this that the post by Phallanx -http://www.concrete5.org/community/forums/chat/concrete-on-steroids... is fantastic and solves the issues we have been experiencing. can we have this code integrated natively into C5 as part of the next release or even as part of the next point release? this seems to be relatively simple and not effect the core operational structure of the C5 code.
Block trials - When building a site for a customer it is usual that they will want a piece of functionality that has already been built by one of the excellent add-on developers in the community. however as a business we would like the ability to build a demonstration which is specific to the client and that uses the custom add-ons that may be required to enable us to get the business. To do this at the moment we have to purchase add-ons and test them and then shelve them if they don’t fit.
Can the C5 team enable developers to build in trial time outs or licensing to allow us to showcase the add-ons to prospective clients? with a view to finding the right one to fit and then purchasing it for the specific customer?
So there it is only a couple of things as promised. Again I would like to re-iterate that C5 and the way it is delivered to us has been a breath of fresh air and we are very much looking forward to using C5 for all of our customers going forward. Franz and the team continue to be a great source of support and platform.
Thanks Concrete5 for enabling and empowering our business.
Best to all
Regards
Justin Erswell
Mike thanks for the response..
I agree that you can control (in some circumstances) the date formatting using defines however it does'nt always work so a time / data zone question at the start of the install would be appropriate I think.
It's great to hear that the C5 team are working on the performance. The suggestion of Phallanxs' code was just that so its good to hear that its there we will wait for the next build.
I am unsure of how to combat the piracy issue which is why that particular question was directed at the C5 core team it would just be rather helpful ;)
The purpose of the post was to provoke some thought and to see if the end users could help the C5 team make the product even better and really combat the other CMS's out there as we feel C5 offers so much!
Thanks again for your reply, lets hope its the first of many!
Justin
I agree that you can control (in some circumstances) the date formatting using defines however it does'nt always work so a time / data zone question at the start of the install would be appropriate I think.
It's great to hear that the C5 team are working on the performance. The suggestion of Phallanxs' code was just that so its good to hear that its there we will wait for the next build.
I am unsure of how to combat the piracy issue which is why that particular question was directed at the C5 core team it would just be rather helpful ;)
The purpose of the post was to provoke some thought and to see if the end users could help the C5 team make the product even better and really combat the other CMS's out there as we feel C5 offers so much!
Thanks again for your reply, lets hope its the first of many!
Justin
There have been a few discussions in some of the private forums, but there is no easy solution, thats the problem with the system being opensource. forcing connection to the MP just isn't right also.
Great feedback, thanks.
1) Date formatting, at least in the core, can be addressed in the next
version. We're already making some improvements for
internationalization so I think this is right in line with our plans.
2) Speed. We've been watching that thread and Andrew has been
providing some direction and already planning on including it in 5.5.
3) Trials aren't going to happen without creating stronger IP
protection in add-ons which I'm sure will be problematic for a number
of other reasons. I'm afraid the best we can hope for on this one is
more pervasive use of the demo link that all add-ons & themes get
today.
I really appreciate you taking the time to share your concerns, I
think by in large we can manage to address them in the coming months.
We're looking forward to coming to the UK for a visit before long.
best wishes
Franz Maruna
CEO - concrete5.org
http://about.me/frz
1) Date formatting, at least in the core, can be addressed in the next
version. We're already making some improvements for
internationalization so I think this is right in line with our plans.
2) Speed. We've been watching that thread and Andrew has been
providing some direction and already planning on including it in 5.5.
3) Trials aren't going to happen without creating stronger IP
protection in add-ons which I'm sure will be problematic for a number
of other reasons. I'm afraid the best we can hope for on this one is
more pervasive use of the demo link that all add-ons & themes get
today.
I really appreciate you taking the time to share your concerns, I
think by in large we can manage to address them in the coming months.
We're looking forward to coming to the UK for a visit before long.
best wishes
Franz Maruna
CEO - concrete5.org
http://about.me/frz
Franz
Thanks for the reply.
I'm glad the feedback was taken in the manner that it was intended C5 is awesome we just want C5 to rule the CMS world ;)
Keep going buddy its working well
Justin
Thanks for the reply.
I'm glad the feedback was taken in the manner that it was intended C5 is awesome we just want C5 to rule the CMS world ;)
Keep going buddy its working well
Justin
Well. Piracy. there's a knarley one. But there is a way (I think) of users checking out all the blocks and being able to present custom websites from all the blocks without exposing the block developers' code.
Concrete5.org has a demo that you can set up
http://www.concrete5.org/about/trial...
It creates a default install but only has the default blocks.
Now.....
All developers have to send in their blocks for approval, so the concrete team have all the blocks (both paid and free). All that needs to happen is, in the trial, all blocks are available rather than just the default. The trial only has access to the Admin (not the root) so users trialling all the blocks cannot see the code. Job done.
Concrete5.org has a demo that you can set up
http://www.concrete5.org/about/trial...
It creates a default install but only has the default blocks.
Now.....
All developers have to send in their blocks for approval, so the concrete team have all the blocks (both paid and free). All that needs to happen is, in the trial, all blocks are available rather than just the default. The trial only has access to the Admin (not the root) so users trialling all the blocks cannot see the code. Job done.
I guess that is possible, but purple are going to complain that they can't
upload their own turns and such.
On Mar 7, 2011 10:57 AM, "Concrete5 Community" <discussions@concretecms.com>
wrote:
upload their own turns and such.
On Mar 7, 2011 10:57 AM, "Concrete5 Community" <discussions@concretecms.com>
wrote:
@Mnkras.
Didn't understand a word of that.
What's a "turn" and who's "purple"?
Didn't understand a word of that.
What's a "turn" and who's "purple"?
Sorry, my phones auto correct
On Mar 7, 2011 11:12 AM, "Concrete5 Community" <discussions@concretecms.com>
wrote:
On Mar 7, 2011 11:12 AM, "Concrete5 Community" <discussions@concretecms.com>
wrote:
@Mnkras
Still none the wiser ...lol.
I'm going to assume purple = people? and turns is themes?
Well. I think you are agreeing that blocks are covered (didn't see a mention of "blades" :) ).
So themes. I guess they are just going to have to contribute a theme to the community so that it appears in the list.
Still none the wiser ...lol.
I'm going to assume purple = people? and turns is themes?
Well. I think you are agreeing that blocks are covered (didn't see a mention of "blades" :) ).
So themes. I guess they are just going to have to contribute a theme to the community so that it appears in the list.
haha yea :P
I agree some sort of trial block program would be great. Many blocks authors do not even put a demo of there blocks in the marketplace, it makes it hard to want to buy from them.
Recently I had a client trying to decide between my building his site with C5 or someone else with Drupal. An author of one of the more expensive add ons trusted me with a copy of his block so I could give the client a demo with some custom layouts. End of story, I landed a big job and we bought the developers add on. I've lost other jobs because I was unable to demo the blocks needed for a project.
Recently I had a client trying to decide between my building his site with C5 or someone else with Drupal. An author of one of the more expensive add ons trusted me with a copy of his block so I could give the client a demo with some custom layouts. End of story, I landed a big job and we bought the developers add on. I've lost other jobs because I was unable to demo the blocks needed for a project.
Problem is, you're the one honest guy to the 15 dishonest out there. I still find it hard to believe anyone would need to go to a client with a fully-functioning site before they sign off. In my experience, a demo/mock process is done before you actually need the site to completely function. That's what all these guys in the UX and Interface Design jobs do, they mock how something is going to work, it gets pitched to the client, signed off on... and then completed.
I totally agree that before purchasing the add-on you should be able to see how it works and play around with the final product/output, but I don't think you should get an entire copy of the final product.
Maybe someone will come up with some grand idea for trial licensing, but until then it would be a total honor system, and frankly, it's too easy to abuse that.
I totally agree that before purchasing the add-on you should be able to see how it works and play around with the final product/output, but I don't think you should get an entire copy of the final product.
Maybe someone will come up with some grand idea for trial licensing, but until then it would be a total honor system, and frankly, it's too easy to abuse that.
The concrete5 team is actively working to increase the speed of concrete5
The code by Phallanx is included in the next version of c5, but it is not turned on by default.
How can you do that without Piracy?
Mike
(im not part of the core team btw)