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allexiel

Dear all,

I started out with joomlajunkie, buying a subscription to try out Creativa. It was fun working with it in the beginning. And I really like how the configurator works, and the amazing work Chris does...

Now we are 3 months later, my subscription is over... and Creativa hasn't evolved a bit.

At first, there was clear milestone for the updates planned for Creativa. If I recall well, kunena, jomsocial, and other things I was eagerly waiting for, should have been implemented by now (according to the milestone a few months ago).

Then it started getting worse : No updates at all, milestone completely removed, no official dates on when to expect things, and this all hapenned AFTER I paid.

Even a basic feature (avalaible on all other themelets) like topfish and other, should have been updated by now, but still aren't.

Now I went live with Creativa, thinking I waited too long for the updates, so I could at least 'try' what I did buy... and annoying bugs appeared (like rendering internet explorer 6 css file in chrome or firefox). It's probably not Creativa's fault, but still, it makes me unhappy.

Now my subscription is over, can't even reply to my last (and only true support I evered needed!) I'm left with a verry unhappy feeling, and don't even know why I should buy a subscription again, because up to know, I only got problems and no solutions.

It's sad it turns out this way...

Allexiel.

chris

Hi Allexiel,
I am sorry to hear that you feel like you haven't gotten value for your money. I am also sorry that i have not been as diligent with the updates regarding Creativa's progress. As you may have seen on the forums and our twitter updates, after i started working on the Jomsocial integration i realized that there were too many issues that needed to be added in the core of Jomsocial to fully achieve what i had planned and after discussing this with Azrul and his team, i was commissioned by them to completely refactor the frontend code of Jomsocial, which would then mean we would really be able to harness the full power of the extension. Then to add into the mix was our move, which resulted in a month of unexpected connectivity hassles. It's taken longer than i had hoped to get back into full swing, but we're finally back on track and into our normal work mode.

Another thing which came up was the need to continue the ongoing development of Morph, addressing all the issues that have been reported on the forum, so among providing support and driving the development of Morph's next stable release (which we are very close to having ready for beta testing), i've had to put Creativa's development on the sideline until the Jomsocial implementation is done.

Once the stable release of Morph is done, i'll bring Creativa back into the mix and balance my time between working on that and finishing the Jomsocial stuff (you can monitor my progress here: JomSocial new base theme development).

All of this said, my intention is not to make excuses, but rather just explain the situation of why Creativa's been delayed. Of course at the end of the day there is no excuse from my side for not keeping you guys updated and for that i apologize.

On a side note, we've extended your membership by 3 months, which should give you enough time to finish your site using Morph and the finished version of Creativa (though i can't promise i'll have all the integrations done within that time, as i've come to realize they take a lot more time than i had initially thought to do properly).

Cheers,
Chris

Enrico

What about new themelets, instead?
Last one (Mocha) was released 2 months ago and it was an already-seen design even if built from scratch.

chris

Our current focus is stabilizing the current build of Morph (the new beta will be available soon), upgrading Morph for 1.6 and finishing all our current projects (like Creativa, etc).

I know Andrew's been working on a number of different designs, as have i, but we need to finish our current work load first, otherwise it just creates more stress than anything.

allexiel

Dear chris,

Thanks for the time you spent on answering my post.
I must say I'm gladly pleased by the way you handled my message.

I understand better what had been going on behind the curtains...

Thank you for extending my subscription. I am very pleased with this. Now I can try to continue working on creativa.

I look forward to your updates on morph, creativa, and more importantly your work Jomsocial.

Kind regards,
Julien

chris

Thanks Julien! I am thrilled to hear that you are happy again!

Enrico

Considering I'm about 2 days before my membership expires, I'd like to say that the support here is outstanding (fixing bugs, solving issues on members' sites...), however there's a huge lack of themelets' releases.

I'm saying this 'cause a paid membership comes with the morph framework and premade themelets too, even though customers can create new themelets, starting from vanilla.

My membership started 11/28/2009, and in 7 months there were just 2 themelets released (I do consider 'liquorice' and 'urban writer' just variations of vanilla and leblanc respectively); mocha and creativa.
Mocha is nothing visually new, as it's a themelet from a previously released joomla template (was it really necessary to release it? Why not something that we hadn't seen instead?).
Creativa, after 4 months since its release, still lacks of its social/community features (What we're working on).

Also, released themelets, besides leblanc, seems to be the same templates with just color/gradients variations. I mean, compared to templates released monthly by other joomla clubs, they do look similar.

Clearly here there's something wrong with themelets' development and releases. On the other side, you did great steps with morph's updates/beta builds though. Maybe you spent much time on morph and leave behind themelets' development? What about hiring a webdesigner to create graphics for themelets? Or buy some psd/html templatas from themeforest, there are such great templates there.

Thanks for your support in these 7 months. Much appreciated.

kenlyle

Hey Enrico,

You obviously know your stuff. And you seem to write nicely balanced posts :)

Did you ever get the PSD to Morph tutorial? That might really help you.

For me, I got a PSD, and then had it converted to HTML/CSS at very low cost, and was able to transfer that to Morph.

The result is at The Hydra - Solar Water Purification System - Not the most beautiful thing, but OK, I think.

You know about the great support...maybe Morph was delayed a few hours as Andy helped me with some layout issues.

I hope that maybe you can help to develop the PSD to Morph "machinery", so that the (only two) guys and Tess can focus on Morph, and we can start cranking out templates.

If you want to pitch in, you can PM me, as I have access to some new designs.

Best,
Ken

Enrico

No, never got the 'psd to morph' tutorial. I remember Andy once said he was going to share that tutorial with the members.

However, that's not the point. I could convert html/wordpress themes on my own (like once I did for a test), but the joomlajunkie membership comes with morph+themelets. I thought themelets were going to released on a regular basis, but that never happened.

tess

Hi Enrico,

I just wanted to let you know that I've read your feedback and that I really appreciate your way of expressing what you think and feel. I've asked the rest of the team to read your feedback and we will reply later today. :)

Stay tuned. ;)
- Tess