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[Phill Moderator PhillJoin date: February 2014Posts: 7013Downloads:40Uploads:77 Thanks: 917 Thanked: 2206 times in 1818 posts]

#439507

Some good suggestions there Visigod. Please give us some time to discuss this. Hopefully in the not too distant future we will have more to report. We do fully agree with many of the things you bring up and rest assured we are actively discussing it right now. The JA Skype has gone totally bonkers.

The poor JA devs are still recovering from the shock of all the work over the last few weeks getting J2.5 ready and all that.

As fot Joomla 3.0 not even J know what that will be like yet with regards to migration so at this time looking to that is a bit like looking into a part used cloudy crystal ball bought from some dodgy geezer in the pub.

[Phill Moderator PhillJoin date: February 2014Posts: 7013Downloads:40Uploads:77 Thanks: 917 Thanked: 2206 times in 1818 posts]

#439501

<em>@jabbers 302018 wrote:</em><blockquote>I just purchased a membership to get JA Bistro. I am a bit concerned, having read this thread, as to which Joomla version of Bistro I should install. I am not in a position to perform the not-yet-completed work referenced above.

Is there a stable 1.7 version of Bistro, or was the 1.7 release of Bistro rolled into the 2.5 release and therefore equally lacking in the K2 area? I am particularly interested in the Social Media features incorporated in the more recent Joomla versions, but truly want a stable, completely functional build on Bistro.

–Many thanks</blockquote>

Just to interject and give you a little history of how this all came about.

When JA were 1.5 only they decided it would be a greatidea to not only release the standard template, but to add styling for certain 3rd party apps. Later on the K2 component became popular so some aditional features were added so those using K2 would have some elements of their CCK styled to fit the Joomla template.

This was great until along came Joomla 1.6. At that point the K2 developers were not planning on releasing a version of K2 that worked with Joomla 1.6 and this carried on well into the later versions of Joomla 1.7. For nearly a year there was no version of K2 that would work with the latest releases of Joomla.

In the early days of that JA made a very tough decision and that was to continue adding K2 support for J1.5 templates then add some extensive extra styling for the Joomla 1.6 and then J1.7 versions. Users understood that there really was nothing JA could do other than send a hit man around to the K2 people with a big pointy gun and force them into action.

Then just a few months ago the K2 team finally came up with a stable version of their app and from that point on K2 styling for new templates begun again. But what should JA do with all those templates from that intervening period? The decision was doubly hard with the imminent release of Joomla 2.5 closing rapidly on the horizon.

And so the decision had to be made to not re-visit the older templates at this time. The majority of users it seems do not use K2 so the best IMHO plan was for the developers to work their butts off for a number of months testing and releasing all the JAT3 portfolio for Joomla 2.5 and this work is still ongoing. So the majority of customers now have some fantastic templates that are fully Joomla 2.5 compatible.

The problem here is a smaller number of users are currently stuck without a migration path if they want to use K2. They can still use K2 but it will lack some (but not all) of the specific template styling that was added as a bonus for the J1.5.x version.

At this time JA still do not know whether there will be a big push to go and re-visit older templates and add new features to them. It really is a massive task that would take a huge amount of man hours to complete. JA still have a number of components to update and test and those are the priority at the moment. JA Voice, and JA Comment are 2 examples of big components that are actively being worked on.

So what do users of K2 for J1.5 do? Well they are free to update as the templates will work but may not look 100% like the J1.5 version. They can wait and hope that by the time support for J1.5 ends that their chosen JA template will have this extra styling. They could choose to migrate to one of the newer JA Templates that JA have integrated some specific K2 styling for the J2.5 versions such as JA Kranos for example. They could ditch K2 as part of the migration process and use the core Joomla features instead/ Or they could choose a different template clubs template (though we would hope you stick with us).

It is a difficult decision to make for some and one template users from many of the template clubs face as JA are not alone here. All I can say is we too were frustrated delays from K2 and a lot of pulling of hair has been the result. Currently there are discussions underway as JA central as to how to proceed and you can be assured that when a decision is made either way you will be informed.

We thank you for your understanding on this matter and wish you every success wih your websites.

8 users say Thank You to Phill for this useful post

1. Blaine
2. VisiGod
3. Manos
4. Arvind Chauhan
5. TomC
6. n6rej
7. John Wesley Brett
8. jabbers

[jabbers Friend jabbersJoin date: February 2012Posts: 2Downloads:0Uploads:0 Thanks: 2]

#439563

Hi Phill,

Many thanks for your historical perspective. Now I understand where JA is coming from with regard to K2 and the versioning for Joomla.

Please understand where I am coming from: Based on last week’s JA blog entry, I purchased a JA membership so that I could utilize JA Bistro with Joomla 2.5. There was nothing in that blog post that indicated I would have to sacrifice K2 functionality as shown in the original template rollout in order to do that with JA Bistro.

Building my new site on the JA Bistro version for Joomla 1.5, unfortunately, is not something I bargained for. As VisiGod pointed out, Joomla will only be supporting 1.5 for about 60 more days. I cannot settle for a new site build based upon a Joomla version that will not be supported, nor can I accept a JA Bistro version that sacrifices K2 functionality.

I look forward to hearing if–and when–JA is committed to bringing K2 support to the 2.5 version of JA Bistro. As I am now on Day 2 of my 7-day money-back guarantee for my JA template club membership purchase, I will have no choice but to take advantage of this guarantee and have my membership price refunded–if JA decides not to make the 2.5 version of JA Bistro as feature-rich as the 1.5 version of JA Bistro is, including full K2 support and support for all the 3rd party elements and extensions that were baked into the debut of JA Bistro. Sadly, there is no other JA template at this time that meets my needs for my new site. :((

I would be thrilled if the powers-that-be at JA were to announce–this week–that they would bring JA Bistro on Joomla 2.5 up to this level of features and full functionality. :-* We know that VisiGod and I are both eager to have this happen, and I suspect you have other JA members out there who are expecting this as well.

[Phill Moderator PhillJoin date: February 2014Posts: 7013Downloads:40Uploads:77 Thanks: 917 Thanked: 2206 times in 1818 posts]

#439594

Hi jabbers,

I think you miss-understand. JA Bistro is fully functional with K2 in the same way any normal template is compatible with K2. All that is different between the two versions are some template overrides. This forces a particular layout in the 1.5 version of JA Bistro when using K2. Setup your site to a basic level and give it a go. If you run into any trouble start a new forum thread (as this one seems a bit knackered) and we will try our best to help.

[Phill Moderator PhillJoin date: February 2014Posts: 7013Downloads:40Uploads:77 Thanks: 917 Thanked: 2206 times in 1818 posts]

#439595

Hi jabbers,

I think you miss-understand. JA Bistro is fully functional with K2 in the same way any normal template is compatible with K2. All that is different between the two versions are some template overrides. This forces a particular layout in the 1.5 version of JA Bistro when using K2. Setup your site to a basic level and give it a go. If you run into any trouble start a new forum thread (as this one seems a bit knackered) and we will try our best to help.

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