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northwalesinks

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Hi All

 

I am new to open source software can somebody explain to me why big change for cubecart

does it mean in next few years know more cubecart.

 

Does it mean the main people be hide cubecart are stopping doing coding for software

as i did startwith cubecart 3  or is it all down to money funding it

 

I hope cubecart didn't mind me asking questions 

 

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I am new to open source software can somebody explain to me why big change for cubecart

does it mean in next few years know more cubecart.

 

It's a risk for CubeCart as a company as we have switched off the existing revenue stream in place for a number of new ones which we believe is a much better long term plan for both us and our customers. We believe it will help to spur faster development and boost the community.

 

Does it mean the main people be hide cubecart are stopping doing coding for software

as i did startwith cubecart 3  or is it all down to money funding it

 

It's business as usual and the same developers will continue to work on all future releases. There are no plans to change that... maybe we will get a little extra input from some new and existing community members too if we are lucky on top of the wonderful ones we already have.  

 

 

 

I hope cubecart didn't mind me asking questions 

 

Not at all. It's good to ask such questions and I am more than happy to answer.

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I have been using CubeCart for many years and see this as a positive move. It paves the way for third party refinement in core modules and renews customer focus for the support team... in theory anyone could offer support services so they will have to keep delivering 1st class support or lose out to a rival support team.

 

However I'm not overwhelmed by the demo version of CCv6 so I think I'll be sticking with v5 for my clients for a while.

 

I hope Al doesn't mind but I've set up a quick poll on Upvote / Downvote to see which way the wind is blowing on this issue. You don't need to login or register to participate, just click on the Up or Down buttons and tweet your vote.

 

Upvote / Downvote - http://upvoting.com/vote/475

 

Best wishes to CubeCart - I hope this move works out okay

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"However I'm not overwhelmed by the demo version of CCv6."

 

In my initial comparison of the CC600b1 codebase with CC5215, I see relatively little rewriting of the code. I find there are a few bug fixes, and some additional work that solved problems for CC6 that CC5 suffered from by getting "painted into a corner".

 

Therefore, I would say copy over your CC5 skins or download them from the Marketplace and use them on CC6.

 

Or was there something else about CC6 that you were not overwhelmed about?

 

So, I see CC6 as a progression from CC5, almost exactly the way CC4 was a progression from CC3. But nothing at all like CC5 was a programming paradigm shift from CC4.

 

I will eventually get around to running CC6 through its operational steps -- not concerned at this point what it looks like.

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You hit the nail on the head Brian. There are a few new undocumented features like new mailing list management with import tool in the admin control panel.

The main focus really was to;

- get the front end UX up to today's responsive standards;

- to make design changes a breeze from a very simple stock skin with powerful framework;

- to make it as lightweight and optimised as possible (on going work);

- to make it too easy to add 3rd party extensions which can versioned outside of the main package.

It could have been released as 5.3 but with the new focus of direction it seemed much more appropriate to give it a major version badge.

I am hoping that we will see more highly customised designs and developers will experience just how much easier and faster this is to do. The stock skins in v5 are very much showing their age.

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I for one am excited to have a responsive stock skin, even if it is very basic at this point.

 

Since the responsive Blueprint skin I use is no longer serviced by the developer, this is great news to me. I am, however, essentially a coding newbie. Been trying this afternoon to figure out how to add a subtheme, with no luck so far. So would suggest CC start a forum Foundation section for learning about it as it applies to CC. Yes, I know there is the actual foundation website, but I found it confusing.

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I'm pleased to hear that Rosemary. When I say basic I mean by look and feel. It is fully featured as far as being responsive is concerned depending on requirements of course. smile.png

 

The stock skin only has three device view modes;

 

Small - Smartphone

Medium - Tablet

Large - Desktop

 

It would also be possible to add extra view modes for example for larger desktops but I thought for the average store those three are sufficient.

 

In concept it's really very simple. The layout is controlled by a grid of twelve columns. You can use classes to specify visibility. e.g. "show-for-medium-up" to display areas for tablet resolutions and higher. 

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I should have said basic "looking". I DO understand the grid system, as that is the way Blueprint is designed. Once I understand Foundation well enough, I hope to be able to recreate the look of my v5 store with a subtheme of Foundation. I don't expect to grasp it quickly LOL, but I like the challenge.

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Really happy about this new direction, as it also follows another popular store system, which was a joke several years back but had grown due to being used by folks running WordPress. So, now CC has some new "grit" to get out there and being open source allows folks to try the system who would not have, even though it's always been one of the more affordable solutions on the market.

 

The "responsive" framework was my big "gimme" as we cannot use non-responsive stuff on our sites anymore, and recently passed Google's new "mobile friendly site test" (basically Google is going to start "labeling" sites which actually work with mobile when folks on mobile devices do Google search -- and eventually will start to hide sites not compatible (!). Plus, it will be SEO signal, too. So, all good!

 

While I might have preferred Bootstrap; technically most of these grid layouts are all stepchildren of the 960 grid concept from a few years back, often revised to 1170 or similar.

 

In any case ... BRAVO!!!!! Great idea to give away the car, but then upsell the seats, tires and sunroof. This makes total sense as so many folks now think in terms of a "free economy" .... (annoying, but true).

 

Cracks me up how many people whine about $50 WP themes, and then want 10 hours of support. And complain that's it's 'too expensive' -- nuts!

 

In any case, happy days and I think this was totally the right move for CubeCart. And frankly, the new base skin is much better than the old 20th century skins which were in many cases looking old and not very usable.

 

Was really surprised to get the announcement email. So, Wow!

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I'm sticking by my original comments. When I said I'm not overwhelmed by the demo version of CCv6 I wasn't commenting on the technical aspects, which are admirable. However step back for a minute and look at the design and ask yourself whether a client would accept the look of this store straight out of the box and the answer is a firm no. The typography is all over the place. Maybe it ticks all the boxes for admins but a more refined default skin is definitely needed as it moves through development.

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However step back for a minute and look at the design and ask yourself whether a client would accept the look of this store straight out of the box and the answer is a firm no.

It's not been designed for that purpose but I agree with you entirely. I suppose there are a few answers here;

 

1. More skins will be available as time goes on. You could always add one of these prior to showing them.

2. You can explain to the client why it looks the way it does. "It's more like an architect's drawing than an actual picture of the final house and garden.".

3. You can decide not to show the client anything but agree functional requirements/specification. Build a mockup in Photoshop (or whatever) then agree delivery date.

 

I would imagine that one of those three options would work for most. Which one I expect will depend on the client's budget. :)

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I only mentioned Bootstrap as I spent the last year and a half learning all the ins and outs of that for our main site, and also the "Vector" skin I was using (which is no longer fully compatible with next-gen tech like mod_SPDY) used that as well. So, it's pretty darn entrenched now with sites all over the place using it.

 

But Foundation is one of the other popular ones, so that was not a bad choice at all. :-)

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