FirestormXVI Posted February 25, 2014 Posted February 25, 2014 Are the daily blog posts over? :( I'm a little disappointed that IP.Content wasn't touched on because as was mentioned earlier, it is what I think a lot of people are most worried about. I'm really hoping 4.0 is where Content becomes easy to use enough to replace WordPress for many of us so we can truly integrate our community and content in an age where people seem to increasingly move to Facebook groups.
Clover13 Posted February 25, 2014 Posted February 25, 2014 I can certainly understand your point of view. I guess it's difficult to explain, but we are kind of in a fish bowl. We have always been very open about what we're doing (that stems back to our days of being free software I suppose). We are a close-knit team that interacts with customers frequently. So it'd be difficult for us to spend a year working on IPS4 without saying anything - people would know what's up anyway. I think people who have been here a while also have a feel for what our release patterns are like too, so they'd already have a sense that the 3.x series was coming to an end and that a major update was next on our list.I hope that makes sense. We're in a situation that needs balance - we take pride in being more interactive than most companies would be, but have to try and tie that into the breathing space we need for such a major overhaul (IPS4 is the biggest project we've ever undertaken).Well said Rikki. I do understand where you're coming from, especially if your team is a small, tight-knit group. I get that. Likewise I'm sure the long standing customers of IPS have a better understanding of your history and releases processes, which leads to them making more sense for those customers :smile:It's also quite a competitive market. A competitor can release a new major version of their software (and then subsequently release 33 betas... but whatever), so in order to keep people interested in IPS products, IPS releases a few details on the next version. Is it a bit early? It could be. But a major x.0 release takes a lot more time than a 3.x or 4.x release. It also appears that this suite is going through one of the biggest evolutions, ever (at least from my point-of-view).I think it also has to do with IPS Staff getting excited about the new version as it evolves. I imagine they are just as excited to push the next version out as you or I will be when we get our hands on it. :smile:Yes, that goes hand in hand with the small, tight-knit group of developers. I've been there, I understand the excitement to share news, as it helps motivate your team and the users. It makes sense.Are the daily blog posts over? :sad: I'm a little disappointed that IP.Content wasn't touched on because as was mentioned earlier, it is what I think a lot of people are most worried about.I'm really hoping 4.0 is where Content becomes easy to use enough to replace WordPress for many of us so we can truly integrate our community and content in an age where people seem to increasingly move to Facebook groups.That's the blog I'm waiting on too :smile:
CheersnGears Posted February 25, 2014 Posted February 25, 2014 I think some have a very strange perception of how long it takes to create a large, involved, enterprise-level software package :smile: Isn't there an app for that?
Management Matt Posted February 25, 2014 Management Posted February 25, 2014 Matt - everyone appreciates the work being done and that there are best intentions from the IPS team, which consists of a group of very smart people. The problem is that many have hoped that we wouldn't experience the same vacuum which permeates other places like vBulletin. Even those who are highly experienced can benefit from the input of different and fresh set of eyes, e.g. real world experienced webmasters with large functioning sites who provide the free focus groups that IPS seems to feel it does not need. What would really be a huge disappointment is to find out how far along IPS 4.0 may have come only to discover it isn't a feasible solution for our existing sites. Answers as to how IPS (and most certainly IPC) will handle URLs and where components can or must be installed are of great concern to any established site. Others probably have critical questions that should be answered without giving away the secret sauce. Where there is silence on these issues, it makes us more concerned and possibly more prone to making a decision earlier rather than waiting for an already prolonged time and still indefinite period of time. Thanks for listening and allowing the conversation. Appreciate the reply. IP.Content is still in heavy development so it's honestly hard to answer these questions as there's a chance that things may change, so no information is better than misinformation. I do want to point out that I don't think we are anything like vBulletin. I understand the concern there but until they came along and destroyed their own product, most people where quite content that generally developing a new version is a good thing and results in a good product. So while vBulletin may have broken their trust, it doesn't mean that you have to assume we'll do the same. I also want to point out that we're on these forums every day replying to topics as best we can. We also blog a lot about upcoming features in IPS 4 and we intend to involve mod authors in the late alpha / early beta testing. If you do have concerns over IP.Content, then please start a new topic and I'll do my best to answer your questions.
MMXII Posted February 25, 2014 Posted February 25, 2014 I'm really hoping 4.0 is where Content becomes easy to use enough to replace WordPress for many of us so we can truly integrate our community and content in an age where people seem to increasingly move to Facebook groups. I don't need a WP replacement as such, but I hope that IP.Content will be more flexible to use. For example, there could be both an "easy mode", where you can create a site using drag and drop and inserting content blocks here and there, and a "professional mode", where you have the full flexibility when it comes down to creating sites using HTML, PHP, CSS etc. The first mode would be great to simply set up a page quickly, the second one could be used in order to create whatever you like. But let's wait and see what IPS comes up with. I am pretty sure they have another and maybe even more comfortable solution to enhance IP.Content! :)
Dylan Riggs Posted February 25, 2014 Posted February 25, 2014 I don't need a WP replacement as such, but I hope that IP.Content will be more flexible to use. For example, there could be both an "easy mode", where you can create a site using drag and drop and inserting content blocks here and there, and a "professional mode", where you have the full flexibility when it comes down to creating sites using HTML, PHP, CSS etc. The first mode would be great to simply set up a page quickly, the second one could be used in order to create whatever you like. But let's wait and see what IPS comes up with. I am pretty sure they have another and maybe even more comfortable solution to enhance IP.Content! :smile: It's already like this, minus the drag and drop visual editor... which is also a mod on the marketplace by Marcher, or you can get Content Layouts by NeoGrant -- Easy pages like you mentioned, as well as being able to put all the markup/php inside the blocks or on the page as you desire. It's not so far from WP or any other CMS as far as developing your site goes. The issues is that IP.Content lacks a lot of hooks/mods/addons/modules whatever you want to call them, compared to say Joomla or WP or even Drupal. The problem as I see it, is that the many addons/hooks that IPS sports from 3rd party developer and that are enticing just don't have much to add to IP.Content for you, and many of them don't even give you the option to pull data for you to create these blocks for your content created pages. If 3rd party developers would of addopted porting hooks to IP.Content, including blocks from their application or allowing you to pull feeds of data from the application while using a created block template from the start, people would of been much happier with the outcome. There are so many great hooks that would of worked really well with a little extra styling for your front page, or heck, just porting it TO a content page would make a lot of people happier, but sadly - this practice was not adopted by many, despite some of it being very easy to do.... almost copy/pasta And clients do not want to spend the time to figure out how to sift through a hooks code, to find what they need, and copy/pasta/edit it in an IP.Content block. They want to purchase that product and display it working on their website, nothing more and nothing less. Really, all in all -- IP.Content is lacking Content, that's about it. If it simply had a nice addon base like other CMS's, it would of been a much better product for most. Look at WP for example, if it didn't have the 100,000's of plugins, would it really be that popular? Does the CMS really do much more that the IPS suite doesn't offer out of box? I don't think so, it's simply the major base of 3rd party support that separates it from the get go. You can take this further by theme developers, to release IP.Content home pages or layouts for you, this would also entice people to use IP.Content, but sadly, not many do.
pavero Posted February 25, 2014 Posted February 25, 2014 And we can not say for example a rough time before the holidays or year-end 2014 or early 2015. ?
Management Charles Posted February 25, 2014 Management Posted February 25, 2014 Are the daily blog posts over? :sad: I'm a little disappointed that IP.Content wasn't touched on because as was mentioned earlier, it is what I think a lot of people are most worried about. I'm really hoping 4.0 is where Content becomes easy to use enough to replace WordPress for many of us so we can truly integrate our community and content in an age where people seem to increasingly move to Facebook groups. You seem to be operating under the assumption that because we didn't post a blog yesterday that we have nothing else to talk about.
Midnight Modding Posted February 25, 2014 Posted February 25, 2014 I think some have a very strange perception of how long it takes to create a large, involved, enterprise-level software package :smile: Some must include you, since you're the one who posted the 2013 figure.
Management Matt Posted February 25, 2014 Management Posted February 25, 2014 Some must include you, since you're the one who posted the 2013 figure. What do you hope to achieve with this comment? You perhaps think that you're being funny and exposing us and our methods as poor but it really just proves us correct in that we shouldn't divulge too much during development.
Dylan Riggs Posted February 25, 2014 Posted February 25, 2014 What do you hope to achieve with this comment? You perhaps think that you're being funny and exposing us and our methods as poor but it really just proves us correct in that we shouldn't divulge too much during development. I would have to kind of agree with Midnight on that comment.... for once, I agree with him, and it's sad. From Charles I think some have a very strange perception of how long it takes to create a large, involved, enterprise-level software package :smile: Two can play this game.... What do you hope to achieve with this comment? You perhaps think that it was not going to have any conflict by mentioning a product release of 2013 exposing our methods of site management based upon your 'enterprise solutions' to run our businesses just proves us correct in that we shouldn't divulge too much trust during your development timeframe. :rofl: :poke: In all seriousness, I really coudln't care less when you release your products, as I'm not one that's affected by it. But on the contrary, I can see this being a problem for those clients that are needing site overhauls or custom work done, knowing that it's going to be wasted once 4.0 reaches and have been putting it off. And since it's not coming anytime soon, like they ORIGINALLY thought by the 2013 comment, has now cost them some moola, and some of this could be good amounts of moola. I'm sure you guys learned your lesson as to not mention a timeframe for a product when you have no idea when it's really going to be ready. It's a shame on you thing that I'm sure is a lesson learned, no biggies!
Management Matt Posted February 25, 2014 Management Posted February 25, 2014 I'm sure you guys learned your lesson as to not mention a timeframe for a product when you have no idea when it's really going to be ready. It's a shame on you thing that I'm sure is a lesson learned, We've always maintained that any date given is just an estimate based on the information we have at the time. We're working on version 4, so we've been here before many times before. We've also always said to not wait for IPS 4 and to go ahead and use IP.Board 3. We'll continue to give estimates and we'll continue to say that they're just estimates and not a firm date.
.Ian Posted February 25, 2014 Posted February 25, 2014 Some must include you, since you're the one who posted the 2013 figure. Rudeness is hardly conducive to getting updates any quicker. :(
Midnight Modding Posted February 25, 2014 Posted February 25, 2014 What do you hope to achieve with this comment? You perhaps think that you're being funny and exposing us and our methods as poor but it really just proves us correct in that we shouldn't divulge too much during development. I'm saying nothing about your methods other than customer support where staff sometimes responds in ways they shouldn't. I never said it should have been finished in 2013. Only that he thought it would, which is no different than others thinking various things (other than obviously he knows things about what's going on and customers don't).
GreenLinks Posted February 25, 2014 Posted February 25, 2014 I am excited to hear enterprise level software expectations from Charles. Many may miss that point but i strongly advise most of you to check costsfor enterprise level softwares out there and consider how much we all pay to reach Ipb. We all accept that there are minor delays. I would honestly wait a year and pay more for an Enterprise Ipb version. Now we will get that without any additional cost in couple month
KT Walrus Posted February 25, 2014 Posted February 25, 2014 I think it would help for IPS to post a "4.0 Progress Bar" in the header of this site. The progress bar would be updated weekly. The end of alpha (where the feature set is frozen) would be 50%. The first public beta would be 75%. And, the GA availability would be 100%. Hopefully, we are close to 75%, but I really don't know what IPS would consider the proper setting for this week. If IPS updated this progress bar regularly and accurately, this would go a long way to satisfying those that want an estimate of when it will be ready without IPS committing to any estimated completion dates. The Progress Bar would just reflect IPS's best guess as to where they are in the development process. And, I would check once a week to see how things are going... I'm really looking forward to 4.0 which I hope will fix many of the annoying deficiencies of IPB 3. A Progress Bar would go a long way in satisfying my curiosity of wondering when we will finally get to see it and make let this endless thread die...
Midnight Modding Posted February 25, 2014 Posted February 25, 2014 Yeah, a progress bar would be nice. Then if people assume it will be done soon, that's their own fault for assuming, so I don't see why IPS won't do it. But as I have said before I don't care when it comes out anyway. The longer the wait, the better for me, where I don't have to start updating apps.
teraßyte Posted February 25, 2014 Posted February 25, 2014 A progress bar is TOTALLY USELESS. That's it, now you can ignore me and go on :)
Adriano Faria Posted February 25, 2014 Posted February 25, 2014 ... so I don't see why IPS won't do it... Maybe because they're busy working on IPS 4 and put someone on this will be a waste of time/resource ?!? Come on... they already said that will be released till July 1st. What else you guys want ? :unsure:
We are Borg Posted February 25, 2014 Posted February 25, 2014 What do you hope to achieve with this comment? You perhaps think that you're being funny and exposing us and our methods as poor but it really just proves us correct in that we shouldn't divulge too much during development. Well as big as IPB is with all add-ons etc i find it that you make excellent time in development, what people forget is that you are doing a complete overhaul of the script everything gets a visit what can be done different and better that takes time.
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