Gantry 5 user unfriendly
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- cupofjoe
- Newbie
- Posts: 1
- Thanks: 1
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Your clients are taking the timne to provide input/feedback
Rocket theme has design answers to most any issue and or theme need - mucho appreciation for that
My humble input
-as a slightly more than casual user I need a particle/module library set I can quicky pull from
-some theme examples show glimpses of the power of Gantry5 using an easter egg method to demostrate "other" particles/modules and or mix of same with capabiltes is midly entertaining. I dont have an isolated / large amount of time to design/build particles to advance my clientel
limited needs. That being said , I can see some of the benefits after spending 10 hours of my own time reviewing and trying some of the features. I don't have a handle on how long it wil take to adapt previously honed skills to this new approach.
I do understand how develpers think and have a deep appreciation for the questionable attention rec'd when changing direction like this.
Perhaps we ( your subscriber- (paying)) clients are simply providing feedback to what appears to be a "field testing model"
where we are given new "features" / logic/ and a leaning curve ( we pay for on top of the product)
The simple fact you don't hear a large running (away sound) sound means we are most likely still in awe of what a massively great toolset you have created over the years
I don't have a clear simple answer for a better approach to this sea change and enduser attempts to absorb
it outside of possibly rethinking the user examples/ video(s) or documentation.
I don't know.. maybe provide an indexed library set of examples / applications using the Gantry5 system
and provide a particle libray updated with all existing theme tricks / features
The documetation covers how to create particles perthaps nice for some - not me
In truth Im not a programmer - dont expect to be - I have a different focus -
I regcognize Rocket theme has a cadre of exellent leaders / contributors
so please forgive the obvious - our responses indicate a problem absorbing unexpected change,
we are paying customers with our hands up in frustration
So I'm asking for a bridge between where we seem to be and where you want us to go (or think we want to)
maybe the library idea above or something else more effctively thought out by better
minds than I have.
Thanks for listening
JGC - Last Edit: 8 years 5 months ago by cupofjoe.
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The following users have thanked you: Brett Havard
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- David Goode
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 17058
- Thanks: 890
- Web Designer and Host
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Hi there,
Most of your points have been made and answered either in this thread or others.
I will reiterate - we do listen! That doesn't mean we will implement things on the basis of our more vocal members shouting a lot.
We have already added inheritance to address a lot of the issues members were having. We are now looking at front end editing.
Your suggestion of a library has been made a number of times and we are looking at that possibility as well.
Thanks for your feedback. -
The following users have thanked you: Brett Havard
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- alexvd
- Rocketeer
- Posts: 59
- Thanks: 3
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Thank you for finally listening David and Rockettheme developers.
Our company has left Rockettheme and is now buying templates elswhere. However, we will keep an eye on developments and will come back when the concerns have been addressed.
All the best,
Alex - Last Edit: 8 years 5 months ago by alexvd.
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The following users have thanked you: Brett Havard
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- David Goode
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 17058
- Thanks: 890
- Web Designer and Host
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Hi Alex,
As I have said repeatedly, we always listen. But that does not mean we will always implement everything that has been requested.
As with all software, there is always scope for improvement, and where we get suggestions that make good sense and can be implemented without detriment to the overall concept and speed of the templates, then we will look to do what can be done. Even then, change is not something that humans like so there will still be a backlash of disgruntled users.
With the best will in the world we will never please everyone and all of the adopted suggestions take time to build, integrate and test.
I wish you well for the future. -
The following users have thanked you: Brett Havard
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- MrT
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 101084
- Thanks: 13484
- Web Designer/Developer
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Thanks for everyone's feedback. I just wanted to add here that you may or may not have seen our planned features list here
https://github.com/gantry/gantry5/wiki/Gantry-5-Agenda,-Exploration-and-Time-Travel
. Much of that list has been compiled as a result of member feeback (including references to the originating github tickets). You can also see that many of the items are struck through as we have already completed and implemented them. Once of the biggest features requested was "inheritance" which was implements in G5.3.0 and now we're in the process of looking at refining multi-language capability and front-end editing of particles. We too want to implement a particle repository of some sort - Import and export capability is also on our list.
So, we do listen, but we're also a small development team that has to prioritise the development work that we undertake.
Thank you again for your feedback, keep it coming, we do appreciate it.
Regards, Mark. -
The following users have thanked you: Brett Havard
- Please search forums before posting. Please make sure your post includes the version of the CMS you are using and a link to the problem. Annotations on screenshots can also be helpful to explain problems/goals. Please use the "secure" tab for confidential information.
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- Helia Technologies
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 31
- Thanks: 0
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I wanted to add my two cents / upvote this topic(s).
I've used RocketThemes for years and consider Gantry 4 RocketThemes best of breed. They are great because they just work and have the defacto required pages like Contact Us, About Us, Pricing, etc 90% done. Just pop in content and off you go.
Joomla is not quite as easy to use as Wordpress but serves a different need. The easy of Wordpress with the flexibility of Joomla is what I'm looking for. The front end editing of Joomla and ability to click and change has been an incredible option for quick editing and small business owners that know nothing about web development.
Gantry 5 and the newer RocketTheme templates are a huge Pain in the A$$. I just started another site and I'm kicking myself for choosing a RT G5 template because its taking me 3-4x longer. Learning curve is part of it but a small part.
I want to:
- Get a RocketTheme template thats works and is super stable.
- Spend a minimal amount of time to drop in new content
- Move menus around and add some extra content
- Publish and get paid for the Job.
Gantry 5 may be technical better, but as others have mentioned it doesn't solve any issue I ever had and it significantly increases the time required to deploy and normal small business website.
I get RocketTheme templates because the Contact US, About Us, Pricing, pages are awesome and quick to publish. It would be much easier for me if these pages were deployed without particles but the standard Joomla components as the older G4 templates were.
Part of the problem is searching and searching and searching for where the content is located in the admin and where it can be changed. Front end editing no longer consistently available it seems and using the standard Joomla articles seems to be deprecated in the new RT templates.
For me its not a Gantry 5 thing (which Im sure is better) but the newer RT templates forcing the use of particles and other new Gantry features when the Joomla equivilent work just fine.
So in my stuborness, I'm going to finish this Gantry 5 site and cursing every five minutes and telling myself "never again". The Gantry 4 RT templates are pleantyful and awesome though over time will become more dated and will demand I take another swing at this Gantry 5 Particle thing.
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- MrT
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 101084
- Thanks: 13484
- Web Designer/Developer
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Helia Technologies - First of all thank you very much for taking the time to give us your feedback - we do appreciate it.
Let me try to address some of the points that you raised.
Gantry 5 was built from the ground up to be fast and stable. We did not want to be encumbered with code from Gantry 4 which over many years had morphed to be complex and harder to maintain and which had to support many incarnations of browsers and CMS. It was always our intention that Gantry 5 should support several CMS's too, for that reason, wherever possible, we've tried to keep Gantry 5 CMS agnostic and provide a consistent interface and workflow methodology.
There is no doubt that there is a steep learning curve to go through when starting out with Gantry 5 as it does introduce many new workflows, terminology, and greatly enhanced functionality. That said, we've also tried to make it possible to use you old workflows and methodology if you really want to. Expanding on this... If you want to have only module positions on the layout and assign just modules to those positions (like you did in Gantry 4) then you can still do that. Even the new "particles" that we introduced can be put inside a module ("Gantry 5 particle" module) and used just like any other module. We've also included in the templates layout presets called "Gantry 4" if that's what you want to do that already has the module positions set up for you.
As with all templates (even those using Gantry 4), they are not finished websites. They are templates that allow you to modify/edit content with your own and to move things around to meet your requirements. Certainly, "move menus around and add some extra content" easily achievable in Gantry 5, more so that Gantry 4 because you don't have to resort to coding to add extra module positions to the layout - you just drag and drop them onto the layout. Gantry 5 also includes a menu editor that also enables drag and drop to order menu items or move them into columns.
As I already mentioned Gantry 5 is kept as much "CMS agnostic" as possible. Given the rapid decline in Joomla usage and the fact that we want to let members use the same template in the same way on different CMS it does not make sense for use to build templates that only use Joomla modules.
Every template that we release also has documentation. That tells you where everything comes from. We also provide rocketlaunchers which are exact copies of the demo site (minus copyright images) so you can see exactly how we created the demo. Also the Gantry 5 documentation is the most comprehensive documentation we have ever produced http://docs.gantry.org/gantry5 .
It is true that it is not possible currently to edit particles from the frontend. This is a feature that is requested often and it is on our development list to tackle in the future.
As I mentioned above, Gantry 5 does not "force the use of particles". If you don't want to use them you don't have to but you will be missing out on a lot by doing that. Think of particles as "mini extensions" or third-party module types. The advantage is that they're easy to configure without having to resort to coding. Should you want to develop your own functionality they're also very easy to write yourself in a friendly language called TWIG and YAML - much easier that writing in PHP.
I did also search through your previous posts but I can't find any questions that you asked about Gantry 5 at all (apart from requesting Afterburner3). So, that may account for some of your frustration. We're here to help so please ask as many questions in the forum as you like - we're very happy to help you get through the learning curve quickly.
All of the above said, if you want to carry on using Gantry 4 and it's templates then there's absolutely no reason why you can't do that. Gantry 4 templates still form the bulk of our template portfolio and we have no plans to retire Gantry 4 for the foreseeable future.
In the interests of sustaining balance for anyone else reading this topic I feel I just also just point out a comment we received only yesterday from another member who had just started out with Gantry 5...
http://www.rockettheme.com/forum/gantry-for-wordpress/273241-gantry5-is-awesome
Thank you once again for taking the time to give us feedback.
Regards, Mark. - Please search forums before posting. Please make sure your post includes the version of the CMS you are using and a link to the problem. Annotations on screenshots can also be helpful to explain problems/goals. Please use the "secure" tab for confidential information.
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- Helia Technologies
- Jr. Rocketeer
- Posts: 31
- Thanks: 0
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Thanks for the response, and the quick response.
Its the first time I've heard of the "rapid decline" of Joomla but it makes sense given the the low volume of chatter within Joomla groups. It also makes sense that RT does not want to invest in a framework that is dying.
Its all very disappointing. Joomla has delivered well for what we needed for and RT4 templates have been awesome.
You're point about YAML and TWIG are well taken except I have zero interest in looking at code. I subscribe to RT and use Joomla so we can deliver quickly and publish high quality sites with a minimal amount of effort. YAML and TWIG take more time then just updating a prebuilt RT template. A far more important point is that though I'm technically competent enough to deal with YAML and TWIG, practically no one else in our organization is. These are project manager, writers, and designers. They can do minor css but not much more. Their jobs are to figure out the SEO, edit good content, work with customers and do it at the lowest possible cost.
I don't think this changes the path we're on. RT4 is great and we'll continue to use it until Joomla is gone. RocketTheme seems to have some very smart people, great product and a passionate following. Time will tell if post-Joomla, there will be an better solution for low-tech-skilled people to deliver high quality websites quickly and at a low cost.
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- MrT
- Preeminent Rocketeer
- Posts: 101084
- Thanks: 13484
- Web Designer/Developer
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Again, thanks for feedback. But just a bit of a correction, Joomla is still the platform we develop the templates on first of all and then port to the other platforms (GRAV and Wordpress). Therefore, we continue to invest in Joomla and will do so for the foreseeable future. If you just google "CMS market share" you will see what I mean about the decline in Joomla usage. Also, you may not have seen recent press releases from some of our competitors who have ceased trading on Joomla templates, extensions and support. I hasten to add that we have no plans to follow them down that path.
Regards, Mark. - Please search forums before posting. Please make sure your post includes the version of the CMS you are using and a link to the problem. Annotations on screenshots can also be helpful to explain problems/goals. Please use the "secure" tab for confidential information.
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- Riccardo
- Elite Rocketeer
- Posts: 1082
- Thanks: 29
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Although it's not my native language, sometimes I read some public threads (the most interesting!) in English, like this "Gantry 5 user unfriendly". Normally I follow only technical arguments, in closed conversations only for registered users, which lead directly to solutions and inspirations.
As it's for everyone (I think...), as a small webmaster I can't waste time and must have to go straight to the point (and solve my website issues).
I hope the disastrous predictions (from Helia Technologies) of closing the Joomla project are just unreliable Hall entries. I have been working for years with this cms, which I have chosen between the various largest and popular cms platforms, in the technical comparison of all aspects - including the hacking exposure.
Joomla was chosen for the right balance between all features, including stability, development, security, a large selection of templates and components.
According to this philosophy, regarding the optimization of the needed skills and working hours, I have chosen RocketTheme as the first template partner for my web business.
To read that the RT company, the RWD Gantry framework and the Joomla project continue the development, calms me down again! - Riccardo Rausch
www.rausch.it
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