15 replies to this topic

[Gadu]

Hi,

I'm wondering if etomite ist still under active development, since the last version is soon 1 year old. I would like to keep using etomite, but without updates I'm going to switch to another CMS.

Thanks in advance.

[Ed Headset]

Gadu, on 20 August 2010 - 02:43 PM, said:

Hi,

I'm wondering if etomite ist still under active development, since the last version is soon 1 year old. I would like to keep using etomite, but without updates I'm going to switch to another CMS.

Thanks in advance.

There is always development in Etomite.

While there are no major things visible at this moment, there is enough things going on in the background, I'm sure.

There are some small changes reported in the forum, support of PHP 5.3.x, needed some changes, while these does not qualify for a new version it does mean that Etomite is still active!

A new version takes time, I know I'm been working on a CMS system myself, and relay thinking about dropping that in favor of Etomite.

I have writing some nice things that can be useful in Etomite, mostly snippets, but have some file-manager things that could be useful.

So Etomite is still under active development.


But don't take my word for it, and switching to another CMS system, I think you will regret this in the end.
Nothing is as flexible as Etomite is

Thinking about this :

So what do you want Etomite to do for you ?

Most of the development you can do yourself by writing snippets of chunks,
The back-end of Etomite is mostly done, and does what it has to do, let you maintain your site, so what more do you want it to do ?

Edited by Ed Headset, 20 August 2010 - 04:43 PM.

[Gadu]

OK, so I thought about it for a while and came up with this:

• The etomite manager looks quite "old" in comparison with for example the etomite.com-style Are there any plans for a redesign?
  
• After finally getting the file manager to work (this helped: http://bit.ly/aJvIyb), I'm still not able to upload through TinyMCE, don't know if this is TinyMCE-related? I know this feature from other CMS and I find it very useful.
  
• Why is there no Update for TinyMCE? Etomite 1.1 seems to include TinyMCE version 3.0.6.1 (April 2008), latest version is 3.3.8 - Am I at least able to update myself without much work?
  
• I couldn't find a news snippet for Etomite, I know this functionality will never be included in Etomite, but why is there no snippet either? I integrated PHPNews which is very ugly, because you're not able to add/edit/delete news in the Etomite Manager and have to switch to another page.

These are all things I personally could live with, but I used Etomite for a website of one of my clients - and you know, it should look good and be easy to control for a person who's used to work with Microsoft Word or something

[Ed Headset]

Gadu, on 21 August 2010 - 10:38 AM, said:

OK, so I thought about it for a while and came up with this:

• The etomite manager looks quite "old" in comparison with for example the etomite.com-style Are there any plans for a redesign?
  
• After finally getting the file manager to work (this helped: http://bit.ly/aJvIyb), I'm still not able to upload through TinyMCE, don't know if this is TinyMCE-related? I know this feature from other CMS and I find it very useful.
  
• Why is there no Update for TinyMCE? Etomite 1.1 seems to include TinyMCE version 3.0.6.1 (April 2008), latest version is 3.3.8 - Am I at least able to update myself without much work?
  
• I couldn't find a news snippet for Etomite, I know this functionality will never be included in Etomite, but why is there no snippet either? I integrated PHPNews which is very ugly, because you're not able to add/edit/delete news in the Etomite Manager and have to switch to another page.

These are all things I personally could live with, but I used Etomite for a website of one of my clients - and you know, it should look good and be easy to control for a person who's used to work with Microsoft Word or something

Hi Gadu, well that's a nice list you have there

I'll try and answer this to my knowledge.

It's maybe true that the manager looks "old", but it is a proven concept easy and understandable for first time users.
making everything nice, hip and clean, could also reduce speed and create more things to get broken.
I really hate to see a office 2003 user working with office 2007 effect in Etomite, if you know what I mean.

I haven't to much experience with TinyMCE, one of the problem with it was the inability to upload images, and if I remember correctly it was TinyMCE related.
You could try FCKeditor, I have it working with image upload from the edit window.

The reason there is no update for TinyMCE ?
I really can't answer you on that, as said earlier don't use TinyMCE
Maybe there are not a lot users using it, it's maybe never asked....

And about the news, there is a news snippet included in the 1.1 version, agreed it is a very basic version, but there are snippets for it.
I guess you used my 'Add PHPnews headlines in Etomite ' snippet to include the new on a page?
Well it is a rough version but you should and get in incorporated into you page with out a problem.
The output is as ugly as you want this to be

Don't matter what news package you use, if it's not in Etomite you will need to go to the manager page of the package to put it in.

But there will be updates to Etomite, and there are things you can do to get it updated.

Speak up, the list you have is a good start, don't just wait for it, as it.
Talk about it in the Forum, If Dean or Ralph don't know what your questions are, how can they answer them ?

So you've made a good start here, maybe more members will participate in this.

BTW: welcome to the Etomite Comunity

Regards,
Ed

Edited by Ed Headset, 21 August 2010 - 11:57 AM.

[Ralph]

Is Etomite still under development...??? Yes and No...

Yes, there will be an Etomite v1.2, which is long overdue... There are two main reasons for it being overdue... First, my real life business has required more of my time... Second, and more importantly, I have been experiencing health problems for over a year and only recently managed to amass enough cash to seek medical help... Now that I am on medication I am feeling better but one of those medications has a side effect related to my vision, which I am hoping will only be temporary...

And beyond the current code base there has also been some development... The whole look and feel, which I have always felt looked old, is also being changed... How soon a sneak peek will be available is anyone's guess at this point... I do want to get the new code base completed, however, because it will make my own development easier... It will not be a "portal" or an "mvc framework", however... So don't expect it to come pre-packaged with a plethora of perfectly sculpted goodies... It will be a programmers platform, for programmers... I am uncertain how well it will work with current snippets at this point but I'd like to see it work with them with only minimal tweaking...

So, there you have it... Read into it what you will...

[Ed Headset]

Ralph, on 21 August 2010 - 02:08 PM, said:

Is Etomite still under development...??? Yes and No...

Yes, there will be an Etomite v1.2, which is long overdue... There are two main reasons for it being overdue... First, my real life business has required more of my time... Second, and more importantly, I have been experiencing health problems for over a year and only recently managed to amass enough cash to seek medical help... Now that I am on medication I am feeling better but one of those medications has a side effect related to my vision, which I am hoping will only be temporary...

Sometimes life caches up on you

Sorry to hear about your health problems, I hope things will be better soon.

That's one of the main reasons I haven't been on to, Had a neck hernia, that had to be operated on, or else I would have lost all control of my right arm.
Had an operation, and things are going better and better, so I'm back, and hoping you for speedy recovery.

Ralph, on 21 August 2010 - 02:08 PM, said:

And beyond the current code base there has also been some development... The whole look and feel, which I have always felt looked old, is also being changed... How soon a sneak peek will be available is anyone's guess at this point... I do want to get the new code base completed, however, because it will make my own development easier... It will not be a "portal" or an "mvc framework", however... So don't expect it to come pre-packaged with a plethora of perfectly sculpted goodies... It will be a programmers platform, for programmers... I am uncertain how well it will work with current snippets at this point but I'd like to see it work with them with only minimal tweaking...

So, there you have it... Read into it what you will...

Well that sounds great, but will take it's time.

I didn't expect for the manager look/feel to change much, read above for my opinion in this.
But then again, time changes everything

BTW, I'm missing the NO here, that's a good thing

Edited by Ed Headset, 22 August 2010 - 10:34 AM.

[Cris D.]

@Ralph - Sing out if you need help with getting V1.2 together.

[cathode]

The following is my opinion and mine alone, and is not intended to offend anyone

Etomite (the website) does have the abandoned look - and this falls squarely onto the fact that the website/forum have not been kept up properly. Etomite itself runs great and looks good (my opinion.) Sure there are upgrades and changes every 9 months or so to etomite.org or .com, but the overall state of unfinished pages, missing links, disjointed, inconsistent design and impossible-to-find snippets is catching up. It seems that with each forum or site upgrade, something is lost. And meanwhile, since the public face is suffering, more and more people bypass Etomite because it has the look of a house with the weeds growing up too high around the yard. Less people = less contributors = slow, spiraling death.

Take the missing news snippet. [[NewsListing]] has been around with Etomite since forever and I use a pretty recent version, but it's bad when a newcomer can't find it on the boards. I don't know how often I just pull snippets from past sites I've developed because 1) they can't be found on the boards and 2) They are a newer, better version.

I know Ralph's situation, but Deal is in control of the marketing portion of Etomite, and he's AWOL 99% of the time. Every so often I pay Ralph to update something or create a new snippet, but he's got his own issues as stated above and needs to pay the bills. Dean may or may not be in the same situation, but since Etomite works so well, his part is more important right now.

I am one of the biggest, if not the single biggest developers using Etomite today, and although it shines like a star in the sea of crap CMSs out there, I'm starting to use WP more and more, just for it's plugins and updates. Yes, WP stinks when it comes to custom design, it's templating method is an enormous pain compared to that of Etomite; but I have begun to move to where the updates are. I have even tried the more famous Etomite fork, but it's grown bloated and slow, and sets my teeth on edge to use it.

[Dean]

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The following is my opinion and mine alone, and is not intended to offend anyone

No worries!

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Sure there are upgrades and changes every 9 months or so to etomite.org or .com, but the overall state of unfinished pages,

Which pages? I've looked and the only page that was incomplete was the screenshots one, which I've just stuck some screenshots on.

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missing links,

Which links?

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disjointed, inconsistent design

I agree - but I've not done the docs site as the documentation's never been completed - ever. Even before we took over, it was never completed. Everything else is consistent.

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impossible-to-find snippets

We lost a lot of snippets when we had to disable the original one Alex wrote - the custom posting integration broke, then eventually it got dropped (IIRC it got exploited). I asked ages and ages and ages ago for people to submit snippets to the new library (which there are quite a lot in, but if people don't submit missing ones, they'll never be found).

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Less people = less contributors = slow, spiraling death.

Completely agree

Quote

Take the missing news snippet. [[NewsListing]] has been around with Etomite since forever and I use a pretty recent version, but it's bad when a newcomer can't find it on the boards.

I thought it was part of a default new install? I'll go through a default install and add the snippets that are in there to the library. I've added the snippets from a default install - if you know they are out of date, attach the updated version to that post and I'll get it updated..

Quote

I know Ralph's situation, but Dean is in control of the marketing portion of Etomite, and he's AWOL 99% of the time. Every so often I pay Ralph to update something or create a new snippet, but he's got his own issues as stated above and needs to pay the bills. Dean may or may not be in the same situation, but since Etomite works so well, his part is more important right now.

I come in once a week to check for spam and check for forum software updates, that's about as much as I can do... I'm one person that does as much as I can. Whilst there's no new release(s), what else can I do?

[Ed Headset]

Quote

The following is my opinion and mine alone, and is not intended to offend anyone

Same here


I know what is going on, and/ or how much work there is to be done, and what the cause making you feel we are for not going forward,
because we are, slowly at times, but we are....

on a site note:[indent]As Dean and Ralph know, I'm at the point of throwing in the towel for my CMS system (VitusCMS) in favor of Etomite.
VitusCMS has been a little private project for me, and was never released to the public..
VitusCMS is based of Etomite 0.6, I had permission to do so by Alex, just before Dean and Ralph took over.
It has been used on websites installed by me, and has some features I've build in the last years.
Some file-manager options Etomite does not have (yet)
Some Snippets I've build especially for some websites.
I'm willing to share my development with the Etomite Community, I have to rewrite parts, but trying to get things working in the manager/snippets.
I invited Ralph to have a look at things I have done, maybe I can be of assistence, or maybe not, it's his call..

[/indent]
Knowing this the answer is simple, the same reason we are having this topic.

It's not easy to maintain a CMS system by a person, you need input from others, and others also have to invest time into it.
I've had my share of health problems to, and lost my momentum, so to speak.
Idea's were there, but took to long to incorporate, or were never finished.
Bacause of the lack of feedback, and user contributions.
There is only "so much" one person can do in "so much" of time.
That's one of the reasons I want to drop my CMS development in favor of Etomite.

So maybe there are more outthere willing to give a hand in development, bug fixing, etc.
If we can take some load of Ralph's shoulders, make him more comfortable, give him time to take care of things he needs to.
we can maintain the 1.x codebase, so Ralph can think about the 2.x codebase, and have people he can "develop" with.

But as I said earlier, it's his call, I'm not asuming or forcing anything here, this is just an idea I'm ventilating here.

just my 2 cents

Edited by Ed Headset, 12 September 2010 - 11:36 AM.

[Ralph]

I check in here at least twice a day to remove spam and answer questions... All forums get plenty of spam and this one is no exception...

[Dean]

cathode, on 03 September 2010 - 04:55 PM, said:

Less people = less contributors = slow, spiraling death.

I forgot to mention - the forums alone go through at least 20GB of bandwidth a month... so people are still coming to the forums. Just because they don't post doesn't mean that Etomite's not used.

[Ed Headset]

Dean, on 13 September 2010 - 09:38 AM, said:

I forgot to mention - the forums alone go through at least 20GB of bandwidth a month... so people are still coming to the forums. Just because they don't post doesn't mean that Etomite's not used.

Just visiting could be also just index bots, or spam.

Yes Etomite is used, but some more participation would be nice, you don't know "what's going on in the community" so to speak

[deeper]

Interesting forum exchange, please don't stop.
As a Newbie to Etomite I have a simple Upgrade question since I have a new client who has an old Etomite.

It's not crystal clear (to me) from the install and upgrade instructions, whether I have to upgrade from the current 0.6.1.2 Final PL:2 (Prelude) via an upgrade to 0.6.1.4 then to 1.1, or whether I can upgrade direct to 1.1.

Regards to all
Deeper

[Ralph]

Welcome to the Etomite forums, deeper...

The Etomite v1.x installer is an intelligent installer, compared to previous releases, and it will walk you through the entire installation/upgrade process... Just be sure to read the README file before starting... The installer/upgrader will automatically make all required database changes for you with a mouse click or two... I strongly urge you to uograde all existing Etomite sites to v1.1 even though I'm hoping to, hopefully, get the v1.2 release completed in the not too distant future...

I hope this answers your question(s)... If not, ask away...

[asgard2]

I possibly have some of those old snippets that have gone missing. If one of the mods here wants to log onto my server and retrieve them to share they are welcome.

I would do it myself but I have no clue how at this point.