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Posts posted by Acer
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Yes, it's worrying. However from experience, that's one of the great things about this forum. If it happens and the module breaks, put the site in debug mode. Copy the error and make forum post.
The guys are happy to help and usually it's a line or two that needs to be updated.
You may have to sometimes ping the post, but 9.9/10 you'll get help. Alternatively you could always contact @datakick or similar developer to implement fix.
A broken module is'nt necessarily the end of the world.
Also to put things into perspective, we recently purchased Advanced Search 4. A great paid filter search module. No official support for TB, but the up-to-date version for PS 1.6 works like a dream in TB.
Incidentally that's one of the reasons there's such a fuss being made about @datakick leaving (support, looking after Core and pushing the project forward)
All effort needs to be made to convince him to stay.
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Point is we need some sort of new 'Running Committee' or 'TB Community Committee' , imo.
Right now there are supporters, and Partner Agencies already. Where is the money going? And how does it work? Why is this not going to devs?
The problem is that the project doesn't just comprise of the development aspect. In my mind we would need to take care of the following:
- Development: new features, bug fixes
- Marketing: Active and aggressive marketing campaigns to bring in more and new users, especially from PS
- Coordination: Organise developers and tasks etc in line with Features and overall goal
- Money and Admin: What is says on the box. Budget, Plus subscriptions, Partners etc
- Leader: pulls all of this together. The Master Mind. With vision of future TB and with the motivation and momentum and purpose driving the project forward. With a blood lust to succeed and take on PS head on. This individual will need to be a full time, paid and paid well employee of TB
- Community Committee: like a board, votes on issues and tasks and advises and guides the Leader
Maybe we can have a meeting with @lesley and all concerned to discuss?
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That's great that you've had success with Thirtybees. And that you've supported the project.
The thing is: yes, TB needs a Master Mind but it also needs @datakick, or a 'Master or Senior developer'. Without this a lot of that 'god like' support will just not be there. And the project will be in trouble. And without the Master Mind or Leader, Datakick won't be here. At least from my understanding.
So right now all this equals the project being in serious trouble. Captain-less and Head Engineer-less, this ship is adrift and it's only a matter of time before it hits the rocks and takes all our sites with it...
We need to figure out a solution. Fix the Leadership issue with succession planning, sort out the TB Company issue, and get Datakick back + another Datakick clone or two if we can.
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So we're at an impasse still.
Now, how do we take some action and fix this? Given what everybody knows?
No, not everybody is great at everything, so we all have our strengths and weaknesses.
Some are better at the Dev side of things, others better at Leadership / Running the show.
But maybe if we work together and somehow utilize our collective strengths, we can save this project and kick some proper PS ass?
In terms of money, 'the TB company', marketing, direction of the project and leadership?
@Traumflug @toplakd @datakick @musicmaster @rubben1985 @Chandra @movieseals @Occam @lesley @wakabayashi @AndyC @haylau @Briljander @zen @30knees @Sigi
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39 minutes ago, Traumflug said:
A substantial part of the problem is people believing way too much in brand names. They prefer a buggy PS 1.6 over a stable and compatible thirty bees, just because it's named 'PrestaShop'. So far no solution for this aspect in sight.
It requires us to build more sites in TB and to promote it + an aggressive marketing / ad strategy where the PS users get educated that TB > PS hands-down.
Essentially an active resolution to take on and squish PS = PS users coming over to TB en masse. Continuing being placid is not going to help TB's cause.
It needs to take the fight to PS and win.
And no, with an effective message you do not need to spend big $ on an advertising campaign to be effective.
Without this 'active' marketing and promotion drive, it will take forever to build the TB brand.
And will probably in time, be reliant on some really excellent TB sites becoming TB ambassadors to spread the word just by their very existence. -
Proposed Solution
- Low Renewable Once-off fee for Entry (renews every year). Between $2 / $5 per year.
- All existing members pay access fee & get nice 'verified supporter' badge or whatever
- Aggressive marketing campaign to attract new users - actively take on Presta
- More users approach galvanizes TB to grow and actively seek out new users (without exploiting them)
- = Money for developers + new features
- = Free things are still free essentially
- = Sustainable growth with "Best of Both" Opensource and Monetizing's Benefits and none of their weaknesses
- = Renewable yearly subscription 'milks' without overdoing it and works towards the sustainable part
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21 minutes ago, movieseals said:
But to draw in more users, you need a massive, aggressive marketing campaign. And you need funds for that too.
The once off fee will help with that. And yes, you need have an aggressive marketing campaign (and an aggressive go-getter attitude). Take on the competitors heads-on and actively go for Presta - which to be honest, in a head-to-head battle, TB will win in my opinion. Literally squish it into oblivion.
Let their users know this and they will come over to TB en masse and funding (even with once-off) will no longer be a problem. I guarantee it.
And no need to charge for something that was free before (regarding the recurring and charge module ideas). -
1 minute ago, movieseals said:
The recurrence to help finance the constant improvements. But I confess that I did not think about all the possible situations. But the truth is, either platforms charge monthly, or take a cut of your revenues, or they milk you with the modules and the support just to get the basic function going, with no more updates unless you pay and so on. Somehow, someway, we have to pay for the development. But I am open to other methods too.
For me it makes more sense to draw in more users every month - not milk the existing user base. It helps and motivates the project to grow. By getting more new users to do the once-off fee.
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2 minutes ago, movieseals said:
I agree, but I think for the most part, this is the long term plan anyways, right? At some point, anyhow, we will have to move away from PS as they are more and more developing for 1.7 anyways. I think we could, however, buy out the rights from some modules that are particularly useful or integrates some functionalities into the core over time to palliate those issues. Again, I am no techie, but it seems logical to me.
I like my once off $2 fee idea better.
Also re modules - there's still plenty of actively supported great 1.6 modules out there - so dropping support = bad idea. -
16 minutes ago, movieseals said:
I agree with that. I was already OK with being a contributor for 5$ just for the awesome support. I think a small fee to keep things going and develop the product further is not too much to ask - a model such as what Adobe does, while not necessarily great, if it is reasonably priced, would make sense. If there is decent support, upgrades and maintenance, I do not see why not. The platform is solid, rapid and so on. It needs to be more known, bring more people interested in it. The whole getting a cut from modules approach and the awful, let's milk customers for all they are worth Zen system from PS is not a smooth way to go. I think up to even $20 a month per shop would make sense. It is not a lot of money - and if it can keep things going, and going further because it was promising, I do not see why not. This project was shaping up to be great. It would be a shame to see it die on the vine.
I don't agree with that. For me the subscription model is a rip off basically. Think Adobe Creative Cloud and a million other services. Why pay for something recurrently where a once-off worked and was justified?
Also, $5/20 per month might be affordable for some, but for others it just adds up too quickly and eats into important budgets like hosting, security, themes etc.
To put things into perspective, I'm in a 'third world' country with an exchange rate that's definitely not favourable (to me). So where Panda may be $75 +- and worth it, it's an expensive expense.
I simply cannot justify a recurring expense for the platform. Then I may as well go to something like Shopify etc. which is not great imo.
However, what I would be ok with is a very low once-off fee or 'cost of entry'. Like $2. Think about it. The more people you get to come to TB, the more money it makes. 2 milllion users = 2 million dollars.
So it's motivation for the project to draw in more users, isn't a rip off and helps to generate good cash for the project and its future development with very low cost of entry.-
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11 minutes ago, Mark said:
Yes I realise this is likely to be the prevailing view for awhile and I understand exactly why and have those views also. There's lessons to be learned about the way PS went about things on the commercial side of things that can be incorporated into this but virtually everyone knows that every company has to make money to thrive.
We would need to do that in a way that works for the site owner and where they will be happy to pay upon performance (unlike PS).
Sites like this are far too complex to do without money and we can see what happens without it.
The issue here is lack of leadership and direction recently, and not lack of money.
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25 minutes ago, Mark said:
Does anyone know key metrics about thirty bees such as how many downloads, how many sites (and who and where) for which it's a currently a platform, which core/ non core modules are installed and the amount they are used?
Part of what I'm talking about would involve an authentication and tracking system for both core and non core modules to bring company and dev revenue based on activity so things would scale to each site's power and T/O.
Each module would authenticate upon back end login by the site owner and the module would disable if it wasnt authenticated or paid for.
I realise many would cringe at this because it sounds money grabbing and potentially privacy invading.
However I believe scaling module cost to site performance will help onboard many owners. and secure recurring revenue for devs and the company, all of which would be empassioned to see the customer succeed.
Sorry @Mark but this sounds disturbingly like the path to the Dark Side. Like exactly the path PS decided to take. And we all know where that landed up.
From what I've seen over here, this is decidedly against the ethos of this project and was stipulated against in the Project's Modus Operandi, where 'we won't charge for modules' and 'won't charge for something that was free ala Presta' is clearly mentioned.
So a definite no no.
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21 minutes ago, lesley said:
@toplakd Its because we have a better community. They care more about the product than just bouncing in once or twice to ask a question. Most of the negativity comes from strong feelings towards the project just expressed poorly.
Really appreciate that you came back to comment here. Thank you. I wish you the absolute best for your recovery.
Yes, we care about the project. You and everyone that contributed really built something awesome and special.
We want to help move it forward. With positivity. So what can we do?
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3 minutes ago, lesley said:
I know everyone here is waiting for me to come and comment, to say that everything is under control, but if I said that we all know that would be a lie. The fact is I am getting better a lot slower than I anticipated and I am unsure what the future holds. But I am open to what it does hold. I am also open to answering any questions you all might have.
Welcome back. Hope you're ok. Sorry that this is going on during your recovery. I know it's not funny and you definitely don't need any hecticness right now.
So, what's the plan? Is there a succession plan? How do you make @datakick stay?
Can we (someone / community) take over? -
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28 minutes ago, toplakd said:
This thread started just fine
Yeah sure. With a foundational / core member just saying bye. Fine indeed. Wtf...
Oh and bytw, about Fernando... the real twist was actually that he was his own TWIN brother! That was sent from the future, who fathered himself and his twin - who was taken away and sent to the future.
By his Aunt, Katerina - who - it turns out - is an ex agent of la SkyNet. Who after a 'bug' in her programming, discovered the error of her (its?) ways, and decided to go back to the past to 'groom' the Fernando twins. And sent one back to the future, to come back to the past, to complete the loop. Roll credits. With nice Terminator end music with a nice Latin feel (think Spanish guitars and 'serious' drum beat). -
Look, this project needs "Senior" developers like @datakick and @Traumflug. It also needs leadership.
Point is, with new PHP versions coming out more often these days, and other factors like security, you can unfortunately not just 'set and forget' a site anymore.
Might work for a bit, but when your host insists that you need to upgrade to PHP 8 (for example) or if there is a serious security issue or bug, that's when you need people like @datakick to fix Core.
As great as TB is, it's not yet perfect (don't know if any project is, but it's pretty close). And with the ground underneath its feet evolving (PHP), it needs to evolve also, just to keep standing - even if it doesn't add new features.
Also, without leadership, let's not kid ourselves: this ship adrift, is eventually going to hit the rocks and take all our sites with it (including the massive Corporate level sites some of us have developed).
So once again, how do we fix this? And what do you need to stay @datakick ? Like specifics? And what happened to you @Traumflug - and what do you need to come back?
Should we create some sort of Community Leadership Panel? That gives direction, goals and guidance? With like a leader that people can vote in every year or term or something?
Should we fork? Or take ownership of TB somehow (including Partnerships, Advertising and Patreon revenues)? -
2 hours ago, datakick said:
Upgrade your tb to bleeding edge. This issue is already fixed there
Upgraded to Bleeding Edge, and sorted, thanks 👍
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9 minutes ago, AndyC said:
Glad someone else is having issues .. I thought it was just me.. I, too, had the 500 page and gave up ..Although now have bits left over from removing 😞
Do you know that you can show the error detail on the 500 page? Because normally it's just blank with 500 error. And it doesn't give any detail.
If you don't know: go to your sites folder/config and edit defines.inc.php.
Change:
define('_PS_MODE_DEV_', false); to
define('_PS_MODE_DEV_', true);
This will then show you the error detail, which you can post here -
Ah spoke to soon... Sorry @datakick, need your help again please.
New error:
Call to a member function attributes() on boolean line 1480Highlighted: $xmlAttributes = $xml->attributes();
Call to a member function attributes() on boolean in file controllers/admin/AdminThemesController.php at line 1480 protected function installTheme($themeDir, $sandbox = false, $redirect = true) 1472: { 1473: if ($this->tabAccess['add'] && $this->tabAccess['delete'] && !_PS_MODE_DEMO_) { 1474: $targetDir = _PS_ALL_THEMES_DIR_.$themeDir; 1475: 1476: if ($sandbox) { 1477: // Load configuration of the theme package. 1478: $sandboxDir = $sandbox.'/'.$themeDir; 1479: $xml = Theme::loadDefaultConfig($sandboxDir); 1480: $xmlAttributes = $xml->attributes(); 1481: $targetDir = _PS_ALL_THEMES_DIR_.$xmlAttributes['directory']; -
1 hour ago, datakick said:
change lines 1256-1257 from
$output = array(); $output = array('skins' => '', 'layouts' => '');
to
$output = array('skins' => array(), 'layouts' => '');
Excellent. This worked, thank you 😀
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Ok so how do we "fix" this then?
As there are many that want to keep this project alive and keep @datakick and others like him around.
I don't know the first thing about starting an Open Source fork, but I'd be willing to contribute where I can.
Both in skill as well as financially if possible. I can help with front-end coding, UI, design and some project management, ideas, coordination etc.
We (all of us) could even work together to finance @datakick and others and give guidance, tasks, projects, goals etc. -
1 hour ago, Traumflug said:
See, this is why I outright fear to tell anything. As soon as I start to tell a few facts or answer a simple question, a rush of disappointed messages follows, sometimes not far from insulting. And this happens with thirty bees only, never seen a message questioning the PrestaShop or Magento or whatever company.
If you want reassurance, here it is: https://github.com/thirtybees/thirtybees Code is public, available for everybody. Even if somebody would pull this public repository, many of us have copies/clones on platter and every single shop has most of its files installed. And its license perfectly allows to use the code until the sun goes dark or the universe collapses. Unlike all the Microsoft/Apple/SAP/whatever stuff, nobody can take that away from you.
Another thing is, I promised years ago to not leave merchants in the dust. This continues to be true. Run your shop, and if something goes wrong, drop me a message. Or Datakick or another developer. Support is still there and pretty much unchanged, even Datakick said about the same earlier in this thread:
Hi, apologies if my post appeared offensive. It was not my intention.
Just you appeared part of the team. And I suppose with no leadership here, it's easy to assume that you played an active role.
So the question is:
Who will be maintaining TB, fixing bugs, sorting out issues, take it up to PHP 7.4,7.5, 8++? Helping us like Datakick and yourself used to?
And moving the project forward like @datakick said?
Goodbye
in English
Posted · Edited by Theo
The thing you guys don't seem to realise is this:
Also, I feel that my previous points are worth mentioning here again. Imo, we need some sort of New Running Committee, Leader, Budget, Marketing and Plan to fix things going forward