This Ghost Town has got to end

[demostorm]

The Soholauch application is too good a product to have such a dead board. I am probably one of the leading proponents of the company and software. I've been accused of being overly loyal (only my contention is that the company and software has earned it in my eyes) but I have got to say this openly-


The life of any project is in its community's boards. If you have boards at all its where the buzz for your product is made and maintained. The rest of your site has your sales copy and details. The forums is where consumers go to really get the sense of reality as it relates to real users and the application

I go to Netenberg and I can read about upcoming scripts being considered for inclusion. I go to Mambo. Oscommerce name it and I can see what the vision is and have a sense of an interested following.

Over the last few weeks I've seen a few requests to customize the software to individual needs. reports of problems and a fix or two. We do demos for Soholaunch. We know how dynamic it is and its tremendouse potential but I have to be honest if we didn't and we came to these boards we would almost think the company was about to close its doors and that users were generally disinterested in the product (which we also know to b e false.)

So here are my suggestions

A) Forget bugz for feature requests. Keep it right here. out in the open where you can see responses to the suggestions, explain why it is or is not feasible and have guarded feedback as too whether or not the features are worthy of consideration and fit into Soholaunch's goals for the software. Allow your customers to dream with you, look forward to the future and commit to a product that they can see your vision for even if not agreeing with every component of it.

B) Along the same lines. Don't be guarded about the future of the software. Sure no one likes the pressure that vaporware produces but there are enough intelligent poeple in the world to know that vision and time tables don't always go together and stated correctly you don't tie a noose around your neck by saying what you are working on and what your vision is.

In fact thats the kind of thing poeple can buy into even when the envisioned software is not there yet.

Moderators need to have an announcement section that has content at least every two weeks or so even if it features sales milestones, tidbits about what people are doing with the software (a contest wouldn't hurt for all you guys who have been talking about CSS and design). Something. ANYTHING that keeps these boards as dynamic as the software.

Alriight. I'll step down off the soapbox and huddle in my corner and keep quiet now.

[SteveR]

I don't get the sense that anyone at Soholaunch is interested in their "community". The bugz site has pretty much left the forum here in a state of neglect. I understand how tedious it can be to answer the same Fantastico question two hundred times, but users can direct them to the right thread; they don't have to be moderated.

So users like myself who are familiar with the software and are willing to make modifications to it arent engaged at all...what is here for us? Why would I hang around? How many times will I answer a question about basic HTML or permissions before I just give up on this forum? Why isn't there any encouragement of private Soho developments? If I want something to work a little differently in Soholaunch, I code it to do so, and I know I'm not the only one. Wouldn't this help the developers?

Your members are supposed to be your evangelists. We need contact with you. You have all but abandoned the message boards. What are we supposed to think about that? We love the software...just throw us a bone here!

[demostorm]

. I understand how tedious it can be to answer the same Fantastico question two hundred times, but users can direct them to the right thread; they don't have to be moderated.

I think thats the whole ballgame right there. Fantastico brought alot of advertising bang with it but it was not without a big downside. Soholaunch needed a an autoinstaller no doubt but I really don't see given the pricing how Soholaunch can give end user support for all fantastico users especially when you consider that some of them are on a trial account with a host that has ZERO intentions of offering it past the trial date (adding to the confusion to say the least) and the client themselves arre whelping that everything ough to be free or $3 a month.

(God bless you hosts. When the exit door became available to stop dealing with cheap bottom dollar hosting clients I gladly took the opportunity)

I'd suggest a Fantastico end users thread. Put all the answers there and when a user comes along we can just all chip in and tell them to look in the Fantastico users section. End of story.

I don't think its a coincidence that things slowed to a crawl shortly after the Fantastico integration. Up until then thing were smoking. They proved themselves then (and now) to be a talented company but there are just so many hours in a day. I think at some point you just have to say no, look at the name of your product and remember you intended it to be an application for serious small/home business minded people.

So from my point of view I'm with you. I want to talk development issues. Future. opportunities. Issues that relate to hosts.

[SteveR]

...and so I don't sound so bitchy, I am behind this product 100%. It has so many advantages over other Sitebuilders that it is almost in it's own category. I'd just like to have some back and forth between the developers and users...or to be more specific, I'd like it if the Soho guys wanted to do that with their users.


Okay, I have to get back to work...more later.

-Steve

[SteveR]

...especially when you consider that some of them are on a trial account with a host that has ZERO intentions of offering it past the trial date (adding to the confusion to say the least) and the client themselves arre whelping that everything ough to be free or $3 a month.

LOL at that...a real dance with the devil, those customers.

[Adrian]

I would have to concur with all of demostorm's viewpoints. The big question is, is anyone at Soholaunch even reading this thread?

I must admit, I'm quite satisfied with Soholaunch as long as they respond to my support tickets. However, Soholaunch seems to be wasting the opportunity of building a thriving community. This does have me concerned.

[sinclair]

I am new to SohoLaunch and am mostly pleased with the product itself - but have been very concerned by lack of support on this board and through support tickets. Also, the online documentation leaves much to be desired.

I will say that once I figured out that I could call them (I held back at first thinking I was going to be charged for every support call as stated on their website), I have gotten great support by phone, especially from Cameron Allen.

I have asked Cameron what is going on with poor if non-existent email support and poor participation with this forum, and he said that they had many problems with the Fantastico debacle and got bogged down with all that. He mentioned (this was a few weeks ago) that they are re-grouping and have a lot coming down the pike (my words - can't remember exactly how he worded it).

But I agree with the comments in this thread - those issues could be handled better so that the rest of us could get what is needed.

I submitted a support ticket in the partner area over 5 days and have never heard back. I knew that I could call Cameron but realized I probably needed to wait until the holiday weekend was over. (I don't think they work on weekends....?) By Tuesday, the problem had resolved itself on its own. But no word from SohoLaunch.

I can't understand this. I just have received word from my customer who I have built and am testing a SohoLaunch site for - that they received the Kaboom error when trying to make a credit card purchase. I did a search on this forum and found 2 threads that were no help. I guess I will give Cameron a call in the morning. I will post another thread and maybe somebody can help me with it on this forum. But where is the SohoLaunch staff?

[Mike Morrison]

Big thanks to Demostorm, SteveR, Sinclair, and Adrian for creating the most intellegent thread I've ever seen on these boards.

I will speak minimally about the source of the problems you've brought up, primarily because:

1. Your deductions were highly accurate.
2. I'm here to talk about the future (hat tip to DemoStorm).

As you guessed, the flood of end-users on free accounts and over-reliance on the bugz site were indeed big factors in the negative support experiences.

Product development (and therefore discussions about product development) was hindered first by an unrealistically accommodating attitude, then by a standoffishly guarded attitude (which itself was an attempt to rein in our natural desire to accommodate), and finally by me (the lead developer) burning out after working 4+ years without stopping to collect my thoughts.

So I took two weeks and went to the beach. Now I'm back, and more committed to growing this product, this community, and this company than ever before.

I'd like share some of our personal desires as it relates to Soholaunch. While you're reading them, keep the following eternal truth in mind:
Desire reveals Design reveals Destiny (and visa versa).

Cameron wants to restructure the forums so that they’re focused on information exchange, rather than technical support.

Cameron wants to get support ticket response times down as low as 2 hours during normal business hours.

Cameron wants to provide ‘living’ How-To’s and FAQ’s for new users and partners that constantly grow and reshape to incorporate the most current questions and issues.

Cameron wants to work with Fantastico on tools that let hosts create and deploy different feature packages, and also to improve Fantastico’s Soholaunch auto-installation process.

Jim wants to seek new relationships that allow us to provide the hosts with more automation options.

Jim wants to create new ways for hosts to reach their end-users through the product.

Jim wants to publicly ‘back’ our active partners through on-site ads, relevant name-drops in promotional materials, and personal referrals.

Jim wants to put together collaborative initiatives that effectively utilize the core competencies of each partner involved.

Joe wants all official release versions to be bulletproof.

Joe wants to have smooth transitions between even the smallest point releases.

Joe wants an organized partner/user involvement during new version development and testing.

Joe wants software release dates that don’t move (he insists that he’s not kidding).

I want our relationship with you, our partners, to be completely open, direct, and straight-shooting.

I want to put everything I know about Soholaunch, from modification tips and architecture explanations to marketing strategies and success stories, into a 'Soholaunch Bible', which I want to make publicly available to all partners.

I want to share advanced tips on the forums that developers can run with.

I want to build tools that empower hosts to offer the product their way, and features that empower end-customers to use the product their way.

I want to continually advance the customizability of the product itself in a way that accelerates the growth of partner-built add-ins and premium content.

I want great partners like you to be instrumental in creating and sharing the success of the Soholaunch platform.

And finally, I want all of our communications and actions to serve the interests of two root standards: “Visibility” and “Empowerment”. Each of which naturally serves the other.

You want to know what the future will hold for Soholaunch? Look to the desires of its human motors.... who are finally running on a full tank of gas again after months of putting along on fumes.

Side note: Jim, Joe, and myself will be at HostingCon in Chicago next week, so stop by the Soholaunch booth and say hi if you're going!

[Adrian]

So I took two weeks and went to the beach. Now I'm back, and more committed to growing this product, this community, and this company than ever before.

Mike, I'm just glad someone from Soholaunch responded to this thread. Just by acknowledging some of our concerns here goes a long way. Right now I have much more confidence in Soholaunch's future. Considering we now have a multitude of our own clients using Soholaunch, it's my wish that all your listed desires are soon fulfilled.

Taking time off at the beach is always a good thing. I hope you enjoyed it! :)

[Mike Morrison]

Right now I have much more confidence in Soholaunch's future.
Me too. :)

it's my wish that all your listed desires are soon fulfilled.
I think you'll see them all start to steadily grow from concept to reality. Kind of like watching a house spring up from a concrete slab. In this thread you've got the achitect's design concept; a drawing of what the house is supposed to look like when finished.

Pretty soon you'll notice us add something to the concrete slab, and while others may wonder what it is, you'll think of this thread and say Hey! That's the living room wall! Cool! :cool:

[SteveR]

Whew! Thanks for the reply, Mike...glad to hear you're recharged, and not burned-out!

Your roadmap sounds great, and I understand totally your issue with the feature requests and how to manage them. That would seem to be the trickiest part of the problem, as you would want the input of those using Soho for their clients, but the requests seem to have no end, and no rank of importance. Maybe there's a way to prioritize...a poll, perhaps? I don't know.

I took special note of wanting to make the forums 'information exchange", and not support. At first it seemed that it might be beneficial to have support requests out in the open where others could view them, but then I took the rose-colored glasses off and realized that most support request users don't use the search button on ANY forum :rolleyes: ...maybe it is better not to bugger up the forum with alot of the same questions.

Just going to throw this out there...if the goal for the forum is information exchange or new ideas, maybe the message boards could be split up into forums about the page editor, shopping cart, form builder, etc; i.e. by module. Anyway, just a thought...I'm sure you guys have it under control.

Again, glad to hear the good news!

-Steve

[Mike Morrison]

That would seem to be the trickiest part of the problem, as you would want the input of those using Soho for their clients, but the requests seem to have no end, and no rank of importance. Maybe there's a way to prioritize.
Yep, you've hit the nail on the head. I really want to find a good way to prioritize, because otherwise we get stuck having decide what is 'probably' best for you.

One of the problems with that approach is that we're influenced by individuals who make a lot of noise, which I guess wouldn't be a bad thing if those individuals were people we could assume were speaking for the community as a whole. Maybe we could do a representative-based system of sorts. The reps would have a status that let them create/manage polls and such. For example, maybe you could be the Soholaunch Senator for the Developer state. :)

most support request users don't use the search button on ANY forum
That's a big 10-4, good buddy.

if the goal for the forum is information exchange or new ideas, maybe the message boards could be split up into forums about the page editor, shopping cart, form builder, etc; i.e. by module.
Sounds solid to me. The ultimate descision on this will be Cameron's, but I'm sure he'll be think of this when he goes to reorganize the forums.

[demostorm]

Thats pretty easy actually. All you have to do is listen to us and incidentally where do you get off referring to us as people who make alot of noise :)

Seriously though thats why feature requests shold be here on the boards. A few months ago I really ticked of a poster here by shooting down one of his features requests. I though it was a good idea just not a high priority. I Stated it shouldn't be because I knew God made us all to have the same amount of hours in a day.

you may not be aware but we do alot of debates on hosting boards in regard to sitebuilders and as a result I've had to look at a number of competitors and have a pretty good sense of how various hosts view the application.

So I have one suggestion in regard to feature requests. - Scrub almost all of them for now. Your number one priorityy is to have an application thats placed well in the market not to accomodate a wish list.

Your product is way ahead of the market in terms of features. Please do not add anymore modules right now. When we discuss your application with people there is only one thing it needs and I suspect you already know - a new editor or a significant modification to the present editor that opens it up for design (preferably for the whole page although thats a tall order) and standard navigation.

Thats it and since I can imagine thats quite a task its all that should be on your plate now. Its core to your application since it is perceived primarily as a sitebuilder. Addressing that answers all the other things I know you have heard - cross borowser compatability, lack of templates, complaince issues, navigation problems and general design. It also answers and would blow away your competition that has none of your features but a more standard approach to their editor (although having an editor that looks like everyone elses is not the goal)

So bottom line is as long as you play like a good boy and do what you are told you'll be fine and we'll even allow you to post things here more often. After all this is our community now. squatter's rights apply. Play by our rules and you probably won't get burned out either. Cross us on this and we will send a deluge of Fantastico users to your personal voice mailbox (or home number because we know how to make Cameron crack and give it to us). Be afraid. Be very afraid :p

[SteveR]

Bring on the noise!

I don't think people have requesting alot of new modules; it's more about changes to existing modules. The two biggest I think are the text editor and having editable forms and blogs (tied for #2 ;) ).

Aside from having a new text editor, I'm not interested in new modules, anyway. The things I want to hear about are database search results customizations, custom details pages, cool template builder mods, etc. That thing Mike described about how to get the auto menu to display bullets really opened my eyes...I haven't tried it yet, but I bet there's a way to get it to grab a "different" bullet depending on what template is active. And then, what about more CSS tricks in the menu? I'm going to try to incorporate some CSS rollover stuff for the menus and see if I can get it to work...

I guess my point is that I know the goal of Sohlaunch should be to have a very solid out-of the-box product, but my view is that there is so much potential for someone who wants to make a custom version that differs from what everyone else offers.

[demostorm]

Well I am good at creating noise (don't agree to quickly or you will hurt my feelings) so heres some more.

At some point you have to change the three column editor. I cannot see it remaining without change. Depending on how its done the text editor vanishes into the main editor. templates are affected as well as other design issues like CSS. So it starts there.

I understand that we come from a different perspective than a host or developer that has a fixed problem looking at but I think its closer to how Soholaunch as a compay HAS to look at it. The similarity is that we (by virtue of what we do) derive an income from Soholaunch's popularity. that doesn't mean we don't understand the developers needs but the opposite. We understand the needs and wants of the wider market.

No one has ever said they don't like the search function so they are not going to use it. Of course once you are using it its good to improve but I know you didn't come to SL for its search function. thats my point.

We encounter these objections in general conversations (besides which are those that love Soholaunch to death).

-Cross browser compatibility (mozilla, Firefox being the main thing. Mac users yell pretty loud but theres a reason so many developers don't develop for mac. Presumedly you can get them both. realities of market share dictate which one has to be the priority if theres a choice))

-limitations of the editor and the resulting control issue (putting things where you want them instead of just assigned 3 box width diviisions (although alot of newbies like the simplicity of it). Seeing the site in some representative state as you design it as well.

-Templates. Well we all know that issue. the key answer to this is how easy it is to design for Soholaunchs. Still the structure of how naviagation is generated, the lack of control over top side menus/banners and the restriction to three columns across does limit things a bit. Mind you these are all things that hamper a great many sitebuilders but they have a certain amount of razzle dazzle designs to start with.

- setup and Fantastico. Of course. under that heading is the unreasonable - It ought to be free because its in Fantastico. Those who follow various threads know how enamored I am with that but beyond that is the reality that hosts don't want to setup each domain. Fantastico itself recognizes an server IP and grants use by virtue of that but not on a domain basis

I point out these things not to give Soholaunch a hard time. Even with these complaints its pound for pound the best sitebuilder out there now (time stands still fo rnone of us).. I poin them out because as you can see addressing the editor wipes out three of the four major complaints as regards to prepurchase. I thnk at that point along with an enhanced Cart and then own the market completely.

[Mike Morrison]

Just a quick post from HostCon (we're setting up our booth)...

and incidentally where do you get off referring to us as people who make alot of noise
Who said I was referring to you guys? You guys are way, way outside of the 'non-representative noisemaker' category. You are the two of the human motors I mentioned, and I will always have an open ear for your desires, for they too will shape the destiny of this venture. ;)

More later as I get time...

[demostorm]

Just a quick post from HostCon (we're setting up our booth)...


Who said I was referring to you guys? You guys are way, way outside of the 'non-representative noisemaker' category. You are the two of the human motors I mentioned, and I will always have an open ear for your desires, for they too will shape the destiny of this venture. ;)

More later as I get time...

I know you are not accustomed to my biting wit (My son thinks it bites too but in his generation he means something else and you might concur). but in case you missed it there was a smiley at the end to decipher it. Wish I could have made it to Hostcon but knock em dead and don't make the Sitezen guys give you any gruff. Just tell em drag and drop ecommerce baby - gets em quiet every time.

[SteveR]

I know you didn't come to SL for its search function.

Actually, I did.

Check out www.planyourmeetings.com/index.php?pr=Resource_Directory. That's 4 categories, searchable under State/City, all with individual stats. And I have to update all of them weekly. That was my requirement for builing that site. Now, I'm not a programmer, but I call tell what's going on in a PHP script. That setup is way beyond me coding from scratch, let alone having such an easy way to update the info in bulk, or individually. For my money, nothing touches that in any sitebuilder.

There have been a few posters on here who have questions about the database search feature...I know because I have helped them (with varying degrees of success :D ). The reason I mention that feature is because there are a number of good sitebuilders on the market, but none do these searches as well as Soho can. Not even close. Problem is, there are so many ways people would want to display their results and set up their searches, how do you set it up as a default? Is it good enough as is? Could it be better?

I agree totally about the Shopping Cart; I think that is another huge difference bettween Soho and the others.

-Steve

[demostorm]

Great job on that site!

I stand corrected but the reality still is that its nice to have a search function enhancement but its not a real drawing point for most clients. Nice looking templates, powerful editor, drag and drop ecommerce are all major selling points.

[webdev]

Hello Everyone...

It's been awhile since I posted here but came back to see what has been going on.

As someome who knows about SohoLaunch as a company, They have had to deal with thier share of roadblocks in the past just as any developer or software vendor would. But many of the users of the software don't know anything about the how's or why's. They just see what the software is from the time they start to use it or play around with it. Unless you've been using Soho since an earlier version, you may not think that much has changed, but on the flipside, it has!

Software Development isn't an easy task.. There are 1000's of scripts available, and every one of them has their pro's and con's dependent on certain users. These pro's and con's of software are normally associated with the background experience of the actual user themselves, it's not that it's 100% software related in most cases.

In regards to posts on page one of this discussion relating to the search function...

Searching a database is about the easiest thing that you can do.. I have seen many many examples of searching databases in the web. It's simple to search a db for anything... Links, homes, autos or anything else.

One thing that you need to remember is that SohoLaunch Pro maintains it's sessions as well as db connections. You can write your custom php includes with only needing the custom code. So you only need to make the actual mysql queries, not complete connections. Any beginner php development site would cover this information in much more depth. Learning the basics would then allow you to write a search function to return anything such as events based on select dates, movie showings by date/time, returning home/automotive listings, links, news or anything else you can think of.

Searching Blobs:
http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/clay19990421.php3

Some references:
http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Tips_and_Tutorials/Searching/index.html
http://www.zend.com/zend/spotlight/websearchengine2may.php
http://moskalyuk.com/php/yourownsearchengine.htm

Regards,
Webdev

[demostorm]

Hello Everyone...
you may not think that much has changed, but on the flipside, it has!

Don't think anyone would disagree with that but something tells me knowing something of the company myself that when our friends come back from Hostingcon they will do so with a fire at their back. Survival isn't determined by where you've come from but whats out there. If you have the lead keep it. Anything else is a losing mentality and knowing the quality of people at Soholaunch I doubt they have any intentions of losing.

[Mike Morrison]

something tells me knowing something of the company myself that when our friends come back from Hostingcon they will do so with a fire at their back.
Burning white-hot. HostingCon was awesome.

Knowing the quality of people at Soholaunch I doubt they have any intentions of losing.
Damned. F-ing. Right.

Cameron's going to set up a moderator forum pretty soon so we can fill in the community leaders on the stuff we can't announce publically yet. :cool:

[ritchie]

I've been absent from this forum for quite some time -- I used to be more involved, although never to the level of many of you. I think my perspective as a user, and less of a developer / supporter, might be of interest to those of you who are promoting this product. I can tell you that a handful of you have helped me in the past - and without that help I might have jumped ship long ago. The product is simple, and effective -- that is what brought me in. But after getting more involved I began to need more advanced options. That is what brought me into this forum. I have to agree that this place felt like a "ghost town" -- and to be honest the lack of forward motion is what forced me to look elsewhere. I hung in there for a while but after severl months of "we will consider that for the next version" I lost interest. Some of you might remember old posts from me asking "does anyone else besides me actually sell products using Soho?" -- that comment wasn't to poke fun or incite the developers - but honestly I kept finding things which were surprisingly basic and simple needs that I couldn't believe hadn't been addressed earlier.

Because of what I perceived as being a lack of community -my solution was to start using Oscommerce - but I held onto parts of Soho too. (promise my point is coming in the next paragraph!!!)

Specifically I feel Soho falls short on the shopping cart side. The other features such as page editing, newsletters, calendars, blogging, gallerys -- are all great. I found serious short comings in the ability to configure shipping parameters. Initially Mike Morrison helped me tremendously -- at least as much as he could. But quickly my list of things I wanted fixed or improved became overwhelming - and I didn't really expect one or two guys from Soho to fix all of my problems. That is what led me to Oscommerce. And why is Oscommerce so much healthier? USER CONTRIBUTIONS!!!! The base OsC product is more robust on the shopping cart side than Soho. But where they really kick butt is that they have a giant family of users / programmers who make up there own customizations. THIS IS THE WHOLE REASON FOR OPEN SOURCING -- the users have made unbelievable contributions which are extremely easy to test and install. Ofcourse all of the contributions come with the "beta warning" but they are so easy and well supported by the forum that there is very little fear in trying out new things. THIS SHOULD BE THE GOAL OF SOHO -- if you want a big future you have to get people involved in bringing this product to the next level.

I apologize if I am stepping on anyones toes -- and I apologize if I am overlooking some basic reason why there isn't or can't be user contributions here -- I certainly won't be programming any customizations myself -- I am a simple user. My real point I guess is to just impress upon the Soho family that if you want greatness you could start by modeling yourself after Osc because they are doing something right. And I know you have a talent pool of support here who could be building new contributions which would ultimately fill in the voids.

Sorry for rambling, but I thought you all deserved and honest assesment from a non-partisan.

[demostorm]

Ritchie I feel your pain. I too would like to see greater strides in the cart and I share your view that it is or should be a critical part of Soholaunch. However I don't think the comparison ot OScommerce is fitting and I know whereof I speak having presided over scores of OSC installations with our hosting company.

First OSC is has been around for many years. Something would be wrong if a standalone cart/catalog system didn't have mature features after those years.

Second contributions with OSC are NOT easy to work with. No one who wants to use a sitebuilder is going to feel comfortable going line by line making changes in the PHP code in order to get a contribution to work. Thats not what people expect out of a sitebuilder

Third, OSC is a bear to design for. In order to break out of the standard (and I think cheap) look of OSC you again have to go into the code and install the STS or BTS templating systems and then only the BTS really frees you. The price of that freedom is one complicated mess to work with.

It surprises me that OSC has been pretty stagnant for the last few years. Its stuck in a rut but if you are just going to it then it won't seem so

ALL THAT SAID

Soholaunch needs to make some decisions in regard to whats core to the application in the next few months. I am suire I will offend some by saying that I think too much time is invested in things that are not core to a sitebuilder.

I know someone will say how important the database and FAQ modules are to them but the facts are the majority of people using a sitebuilder don't even want to know what a database is and they want ecommerce features much more than they want a Frequently Asked Question section.

Thats not to say such thing are wasted or unimportant. Its just a fact that in terms of sitebuilder comparisons people want an easy to use editor that rocks, great looking sites and built in ecommerce with as many bells and whistles.

Those are features that will place the product well in the marketplace of sitebuilders. I have to say that I am surprised. Soholaunch still to my knowledge has the only drag and drop cart on the market. I would have thought They would have gone for the jugular and pushed that advantage. That hasn't happened and its disappointing. I will not be surprised to see another company develop a drag and drop cart (if they haven't already) and the opportunity to dominate an industry will be lost.

[SteveR]

I know someone will say how important the database and FAQ modules are to them but the facts are the majority of people using a sitebuilder don't even want to know what a database is and they want ecommerce features much more than they want a Frequently Asked Question section.

"Someone" here, saying I wholeheartedly agree with you... ;)

Maybe SL is trying to be everything to everyone?

[demostorm]

Well, All i Know is that looking through forums of competing sitebuilders I don't see anyone sweating over RSS feeds, including ASP scripts in a PHP package or database imports. Not hapening. They are concentrating on core functions and when something isn't available they simply say - sorry we don't support that.

You have to choose a feature that you can market that makes you distinctive.. Soholaunch has an incredible distincitive feature just sitting there in its abilty to drop a product on any page and have it ready to go linked to a cart and its been sitting there pretty much the same for a year now (since I first saw it)

I've said it before. I just wish they would break off the cart and make a seperate standalone cart. If they did that then it would become readily apparent the features they would need to put into it to make it competitive with other carts. These are not rocket science features and even if they were I am confident that Soholaunch programmers who are extremely good at what they do would have no problem getting those featrures in there.

Make alot more money too. People are willing to shell outgood money for carts that install on one domain. Completely different pricing expectations in that market.

[ritchie]

[I][QUOTE=demostorm]
Second contributions with OSC are NOT easy to work with. No one who wants to use a sitebuilder is going to feel comfortable going line by line making changes in the PHP code in order to get a contribution to work. Thats not what people expect out of a sitebuilder

I agree with you that the contributions are not as simple to install as I made them out to be : in fact I have had others help me do most of the work inside PHP. But as far as what people expect -- the fact that soho is a sitebuilder brought me to it, the fact that it was lacking cart features pushed me to OSC -- so in my case I can say that I expected more -- I guess I want both... You got the drag and drop, so why not go for the gold? Ultimately lacking features is going to limit your audience -- and hence the ghost town... I don't think this forum is lacking talent -- why not have people start adding contributions? Let them develop something, and then let them offer their services to help install it? Maybe I am out of touch with the users of this forum completely, but don't those of you who know how to program want to make money? Users are already attracted to the simplicity, and if they saw that they could add features for relatively cheap costs -- why wouldn't they? Offer the contributions for free, but let the author advertise his service of installing for a small fee. Some people will do it on their own, some people will try and fail. The forum will flush out the garbage. Maybe you dont have enough traffic now to make it worth the effort, but you got to start somewhere dont you? OSC has been around for a while, but they get bigger all the time, core program might be stagnant but I have run into sites all over the web who are selling selling selling with that cart... including mine luckily...

[demostorm]

Soholaunch is not completely open source. OSC is free and GPL so it does not have to protect its code from being stolen. If you open up Soholaunch completely no one will make money. Thats the problem

Still OSC is not my standard. In fact I pretty much hate it. The other question you need to ask is why so many people opt out of OScommerce even though its free. A better piece of software to look at for Soholaunch programmers would be Candypress. We use it on our site and though we haven't had the time to modify the design of the default layout its quite robust in that regard. It has a feature list thats just about right without needing hundreds of contributions.

A cart has to have -

A good shipping module
Support a number of processors gateways
Have a robust enough discount/ coupon code system
A skin/template system to modify the look of the catalog and cart (not just colors)
A solid customer account center
good admin features
Some cross selling features ("customers who bought this also bought" etc)
Some sales Tracking features
and if its drag and drop It also is necessary to be able to customize whats dragged and dropped.

The future of Soholauch is not in the gallery, the FAQ module or even a blog. Stand alone applications for all of those are always going to beat the tar out of a Sitebuilder. The future of Soholaunch is in the SOHO - Small office and Home office features that get a great looking site on the Internet, Sells the products and services of the operation and effectively communicates with customers.

I think its a community function to let the developers know what is core to the application. Right now there are some isolated custom requests but almot no discussion on the future of Soholaunch. No buzz. No excitement.

I think you are right RItchie. Thep place to start that buzz is in the ecommerce features of Soholaunch. New sitebuilders come out every other month, galleries are a dime a dozen. Blogs even more so. Here we have the world's only online drag and drop ecommerce application (known to me at least) and its just another module.

[lwyau]

My $0.02 is that Soholaunch can use a WYSIWYG text editor so that once for all users can see exactly what will appear in the browser while working with the text editor.

Leh-Wen

[Kimbob]

Mike please excuse my frankness ( and weird sense of humor)

I decided to say what I want.

I want when I click on print (for print page) in the shopping cart orders and any other part of the web site to print all the information in the that in that window and not only what is showing (missing what is in the scolled down bit)

Can you vision extend to that.....