JoomlArt Forums 32,862 posts

[coalition Friend coalitionJoin date: December 2010Posts: 106Downloads:0Uploads:8 Thanks: 5 Thanked: 18 times in 1 posts]

#172374

I’ve been with JoomlArt for over a year now, and am a little disappointed in updates. I had my 3 websites using JoomlArt templates, but once I updated to the t3 1.6.0 framework, everything got broken. The sites were running extremely slowly, almost 15 – 30 seconds to load, and too many things had gone wrong. It seems as though JA’s taking one step forward and two steps backward. If you look at the last four releases, they’re all “too” similar. JA templates and its ja_extensionsmanager create hundreds of unwanted files that drive one’s inode count through the roof. It’s just not right.

Unfortunately, I became so frustrated with the framework trouble that I’ve had to remove JA products off of two of my domains. It’s been a frustrating year and I had to abandon the platform. It’s far too slow and clunky lately, and the new releases do not impress me.

When I started at JA, I was new here and loved many of the earlier products. For me, with each new update comes several new problems, and I simply don’t have time to mess around.

Walt.

[TomC Moderator TomCJoin date: October 2014Posts: 14077Downloads:58Uploads:137 Thanks: 948 Thanked: 3155 times in 2495 posts]

#432246

Hi Walt:

Hmmm … somewhat different that your last review a year ago.

WaltUnfortunately, I became so frustrated with the framework trouble that I’ve had to remove JA products off of two of my domains. It’s been a frustrating year and I had to abandon the platform. It’s far too slow and clunky lately, and the new releases do not impress me.[/quote]

Walt . . . Thank you very much for your comments and feedback. I am certainly sorry that some of JATC’s releases over the last year have not impressed you. While you are certainly entitled to your individual/personal opinion as to the “originality” and/or diversity in JATC’s last several template releases, I would invite you to read NEW TEMPLATE RELEASES – First Impressions . . . CAN CHANGE. The fact of the matter is that 100% of the people are never going to be “impressed” 100% of the time. JoomlArt endeavors to create and offer as universally appealing templates and themes as possible – and another “fact of the matter” is that most of our JATC Template and JMTC Theme releases this past year have been met with quite healthy acclaim from/by a great many Members. Nevertheless, as I said, we also certainly understand that not everyone is going to like every template/theme release.

I am, however, in a bit of a quandry as to why/how you have become “so frustrated” that you have “had to abandon the platform.” What kind of issues have frustrated you so that could not be addressed and/or overcome through some time, patience, research, trial-and-error and seeking Technical Support assistance from time to time?

TomC wrote:

When I started at JA, I was new here and loved many of the earlier products. For me, with each new update comes several new problems, and I simply don’t have time to mess around.

It’s that last part that troubles me, Walt. What kind of confines on your time might be so preventative as to not allow you the time to research/investigate and resolve any issues you may encounter?

I very much encourage you to read THE THREE Ps – PATIENCE PRACTICE and PERSEVERANCE
– as I think you may find it both enlightening and inspiring in dealing with some of these “roadblock frustrations” and assist you in growing and progressing in your web development endeavors.

😎

[n6rej Friend n6rejJoin date: November 2006Posts: 1040Downloads:0Uploads:63 Thanks: 79 Thanked: 145 times in 90 posts]

#432260

<em>@coalition 292524 wrote:</em><blockquote>I’ve been with JoomlArt for over a year now, and am a little disappointed in updates. I had my 3 websites using JoomlArt templates, but once I updated to the t3 1.6.0 framework, everything got broken. The sites were running extremely slowly, almost 15 – 30 seconds to load, and too many things had gone wrong. It seems as though JA’s taking one step forward and two steps backward. If you look at the last four releases, they’re all “too” similar. JA templates and its ja_extensionsmanager create hundreds of unwanted files that drive one’s inode count through the roof. It’s just not right.

Unfortunately, I became so frustrated with the framework trouble that I’ve had to remove JA products off of two of my domains. It’s been a frustrating year and I had to abandon the platform. It’s far too slow and clunky lately, and the new releases do not impress me.

When I started at JA, I was new here and loved many of the earlier products. For me, with each new update comes several new problems, and I simply don’t have time to mess around.

Walt.</blockquote>

Hi appreciate your commitment and review… I had reservations about 1.6.0 at first because I rely HEAVILY on overrides to protect my sites from problems like you decribe. I’m elated to say that the overrides worked perfectly!

Many users DON”T use overrides like they should even though its fairly well documented. T3 1.6.0 makes it MUCH easier and intuitive for the user to do just that.

I’ve only been a JA Mod for about 5 months now, but I can promise you things are looking better and better… I work with JA Dev’s on a daily basis trying to making things better – as I have MANY sites the use T3 and am quite active in working on them much deeper then the average user would. I’d be happy to take a look at things and see where your issues might be. There could be many causes of this issue. We are striving to make the framework lighter and lighter as each release goes by.

Just yesterday I submitted a ticket to remove RTL js when RTL is not in use. Another step towards making it lighter.

I’ve used a LOT of templates in the 7+ yrs I’ve been involved with joomla and while T3 is not the most intuitive it is by far the most flexible I’ve run into.

Open a Support Ticket, ask it to be given to “Bear” and myself and the JA Devs will work together to see what we can do.

[coalition Friend coalitionJoin date: December 2010Posts: 106Downloads:0Uploads:8 Thanks: 5 Thanked: 18 times in 1 posts]

#432330

Tom,

Thanks for replying.

When I first came to JA, for what it’s worth, the platform was fairly solid, fast, and unobtrusive. The most appealing aspect of JA products originally was that everything worked well together, and it didn’t involve a great deal of effort to hunt down coding issues, stray characters in the code, and most importantly, the “time” it takes to research problems that may be undiscovered at any particular moment. The JA T3 Update (1.6.0) is a mess, and all of the products, including JA’s Quickstarts are clunky and running much slower than before. Not all customers desire to use “over-rides” simply because it’s burdensome and time consuming. JA products used to work very well, right out of the box, with very few conflicts with other components. That’s no longer the case.

Also, the designs of the last 5 templates are, in my opinion, too similar. JA, in the past, was innovative, creative, and utilized cutting edge technologies––as far as new designs were concerned. This is no longer true it seems.

The T3 Framework needs fixing, and needs it fast. The framework, without my having “any” cache’ on anything, creates about 137 files of various types in the t3-assets folder. <–very bad. Much of the time, the ja_extensionmanager doesn’t update things properly, and I’ve had to re-update files offered as updates, several times. When I install the updates from my desktop, they seem to work for me.

I guess the biggest problem is the clunkiness and slow page loads, even from barebones JA Quickstarts. I’m seeing a 40% increase in page load times from previous versions.

So that’s why I said what I said originally.

Also, someone running a website, who’s not an expert coder, but wishes to use JA products should not have to debug anything. But that seems to be an emerging trend with software developers everywhere, not just JA.

I’m going to hang on to my membership, and will check in from time to time to test updates and new releases, but until the Framework, or t3_system plugin is fixed, and the pages load quite a bit faster, I cannot use JA products. I need speed, stability and a product that works correctly, “out of the box.” I don’t have time to debug, beta test, and research things that shouldn’t be broken.

Walt.

1 user says Thank You to coalition for this useful post

1. n6rej

[TomC Moderator TomCJoin date: October 2014Posts: 14077Downloads:58Uploads:137 Thanks: 948 Thanked: 3155 times in 2495 posts]

#432335

<em>@coalition 292644 wrote:</em><blockquote>
I’m going to hang on to my membership, and will check in from time to time to test updates and new releases, but until the Framework, or t3_system plugin is fixed, and the pages load quite a bit faster, I cannot use JA products. I need speed, stability and a product that works right “out of the box.” I don’t have time to debug, beta test, and research things that shouldn’t be broken.

Walt.</blockquote>
I think that’s a wise decision . . . and, to be honest, I agree with you with regard to some of the issues related to how some elements within the JAT3 Framework are coded/configured – especially the latest version update.

The GOOD NEWS is that Technical Support Members such as Troy (aka: n6rej) above are working closely with our JA Dev Team to try to correct issues that are identified by valued Members such as yourself, as well as issues we identify ourselves. I know for a fact that Troy reviews the T3 Framework DAILY looking for potential issues/bugs and ways that it can be further improved – and he communicates closely with our JA Dev Team toward facilitating improvements.

Hang in there, my friend . . . I believe we are all going to see some vase improvements and exciting things from JoomlArt in 2012 – and beyond.

😎

[coalition Friend coalitionJoin date: December 2010Posts: 106Downloads:0Uploads:8 Thanks: 5 Thanked: 18 times in 1 posts]

#432561

Hi n6rej,

I appreciate the offer and thank you very much. Since I am no longer using JA for any of my sites, it would be a waste. And like I said, I will be checking in from time to time, and once things have improved, I will consider rebuilding my JA based websites.

If I may be so bold as to suggest a few things:

1) ja_extensionmanager places updater files “everywhere,” even for non-ja products. <–BAD. Since the updater is from JA for JA products, only JA products should be found by that manager. In the discovery tab, I have 270 of those files, and its a pain navigating through all those files to find ones that “should” be updated.

2) Use the database for t3-assets. It would speed things up drastically, and resolve the ridiculous inodes associated with the current t3. If a subscriber uses ja for three websites, due to inode numbers increasing drastically with t3 use on each site, site owners often exceed the host’s inode limitations for automated weekly backups, and lose out on those protections. That’s only one aspect of t3’s current deficits.

3) Try to find out why “some” ja specific cache files, both .css and .js corrupt over time, requiring manual purges.

4) Fix all the validation (.css and .js) validation errors, such as errors in parsing values in css, and the art_scroller .js situation remaining undefined, even though it’s frequently referenced in JA and other frameworks. (JA’s not the only slacker in this matter).

5) Convince ja devs / designers to stop thinking inside the box and innovate as they had in the past. The themes all have an all too familiar look and feel, so much that it’s depressing. Try some curved, rounded, and maybe some other types of geometrics for designs and layouts once in awhile, rather than the rectangular bs being used everywhere for everything.

6) Develop a new “JA_System_Check” component that can spell out some critical problems that are potentially decreasing site speeds for JA products. Something is needed, and why not JA be behind it?

Just a few ideas, as “constructive” criticism for a company I care about. I still love you guys, but am pretty pissed about the 1.6.0 t3 update destroying one of my sites that I neglected to “backup.” I know it’s my own fault, my bad, but it broke my wittle heart. 🙁

Walt.

1 user says Thank You to coalition for this useful post

1. n6rej

[ciptamedia Friend ciptamediaJoin date: December 2011Posts: 29Downloads:16Uploads:4 Thanked: 3 times in 1 posts]

#432711

Just info… core and extension update supported by joomla! version 2.5

[n6rej Friend n6rejJoin date: November 2006Posts: 1040Downloads:0Uploads:63 Thanks: 79 Thanked: 145 times in 90 posts]

#432713

<em>@ciptamedia 293138 wrote:</em><blockquote>Just info… core and extension update supported by joomla! version 2.5</blockquote>
run that by me again?

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