[quote name='P-Pharma' timestamp='1392169965' post='177257']
Cs-cart it's release standards are certainly way below what we are used to with for example xenforo which fixes all bugs before adding anything new. I hope that the recent announcement indeed means that this will improve. I plan to have a xenforo integration coded btw.
The quotes I got for custom work by simbirsk was about twice the price that others give.
I am also looking at other solutions but so far I am not seeing any greener grass yet.
Maybe it's time for a xenforo crowd fund. At least then the platform is solid and bug free.
[/quote]
Bug free? Is that some kind of a joke? Any software has defects. Always. The more features software has, the more potential bugs can be found.
A see a lot complaints like “a lot of bugs.” But in the actuality, a lot of those “bugs” turn out to be just unobvious cooperation of some add-ons or default functionality. And the unobviousness I mentioned is usually the result of the software's flexibility—the ability to use the same feature in different use cases.
We had lot of cases when one says that some functionality is a bug and insists on a fix, but a few months later another client posts a bug report that our previous fix is actually a bug, and should be rolled-out.
The key point is, the more flexible/feature-rich your software is, the more “bugs” can be found. If you're not convinced, I'm ready to back my opinion with examples from real life.
Take a look through the bug traker, how many of those reported bugs actually affect the funcitonality you use?
And another very important thing: we do fix the bugs. That's why we have minor releases—for fixes and improvements.
P.S. Regarding the custom development service—Simtech Development is our primary partner because if its
yearly proved excellence. There are a lot of other partners though: Add-ons. You are free to pick a developer whose pricing will be acceptable for your budget.
In defense of cs-cart, quality has improved dramatically over the past few years. QA seems to be an integral part of the testing cycle but the demo store is probably not the best thing to test against.
Getting a defect acknowledged as a defect and a fix put in motion can take days and countless messages through the help desk since recent changes now seem to send Bugtracker issues to the helpdesk. Then, visibility is lost to the larger audience.
CS-cart has “evolved”. Adding new things in an “evolutionary fashion” can be challenging since you're trying to get something to work that it wasn't necessarily originally designed to do. At each new major release they try to move from “evolution” to “revolution” and end up with a pile of bugs as a result. While it make take a few releases to get to a commercially viable product again (I usually expect 4-6), the platform is usually better suited for the direction it is taking.
My believe is that once cs-cart has their SaaS product in place, they are going to get a whole new understanding of what it means to develop a “platform” for development versus updating the SaaS environment and breaking all addons that were functioning perfectly before then. They will be forced to view their product as a platform rather than a developer sandbox. But time will tell on this one.
I don't agree with many of the practices/policies of cs-cart. But bottom line is that it does offer the most features/$ than any other cart and if you can live with the version you start on, it can become very stable. It's when you want to continually upgrade your store to be on the latest where you experience the most difficulty.
Also note that it is one of the few packages available where a competent addon developer can produce an addon product that seamlessly integrates with the core and is not affected by upgrades (in general, but exceptions do occur though).
I just wish there was better communication with development partners in advance of significant changes that are planned in future releases so we can plan for them and be ready rather than being surprised by the extent and impact to our businesses.
[quote name='imac' timestamp='1392713068' post='177726']
Bug free? Is that some kind of a joke? Any software has defects. Always. The more features software has, the more potential bugs can be found.[/quote]
It's hardly a joke. I really hope that you will take the release quality more serious. You are right that any software will have bugs. But a healthy release cylce means that you fix all confirmed bugs with the next minor release and keep releasing minor releases until the number of new bug reports is minimized. Only then its healthy to release a major release or even a major point release.
This is how XenForo does it, and it is a major reason why XenForo is conquering the market at an amazing pace. Their bug tracker has virtually no unfixed bugs and advertises the stability of their product.
If you look at the sorry state CS-Cart 3 is in, then there is quite some contrast.
It says something about CS-Cart that the first release is touted by customer as not production ready. As Tony says, it takes until the fourth or fith point release before its safe to use. Basically what that means in my opinion is that the first 3 point releases are actually beta quality.
The bug tracker for CS-Cart does not offer a clear overview of outstanding bugs or what is the status of each bug. Maybe if there would be a clear overview of open bugs, then it would be easier for customers to see what is being done and what is still open. As it looks now, you have many hundreds of open bugs.
[quote name='imac' timestamp='1392713068' post='177726']Take a look through the bug traker, how many of those reported bugs actually affect the funcitonality you use?[/quote]
Thats somewhat backward thinking. Software quality should be as high as possible. If the webmaster has encountered a certain bug or not is not important. The webmaster is only partly using the software. The webmasters customer does. If the end customer encounters a bug, they abort the purchase and the webmaster looses money.
But actually, the number of bugs I have ran into and the way they can collide has actually made me look back and consider wether or not to ignore all the development time and money already invested in CS-Cart and jump ship to another platform. I am still commited to CS-Cart, but I do not think CS-Cart should downplay the importance of fixing bugs and delivering quality.
[quote name='imac' timestamp='1392713068' post='177726']And another very important thing: we do fix the bugs. That's why we have minor releases—for fixes and improvements.[/quote]
6 minor releases for version 3 in many months is really very thin.
All in all I am very happy to see that Simbirsk aims to improve its release quality. My comments above are not meant negatively, but posted in the hope that you will consider it as constructive criticism.
I think CS-Cart is great and has a lot of untapped potential.
[quote name='P-Pharma' timestamp='1392797257' post='177784']
[color=#282828][font=arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif]The bug tracker for CS-Cart does not offer a clear overview of outstanding bugs or what is the status of each bug. Maybe if there would be a clear overview of open bugs, then it would be easier for customers to see what is being done and what is still open. As it looks now, you have many hundreds of open bugs.[/font][/color]
[/quote]
I've described here how you can view all the bugfixes that is going to be included in the upcoming minor release: Official Bug Fixing Timeframes - News and Announcements - CS-Cart Community Forums
In order to view all not fixed bugs just use the filter at the bottom of bugtracker page, where you chould change the “ALL REPORTS” to “Confirmed”.
As I promised in December we have reviewed all the Unsassigned bugs from old versions and fixed everything that was still an issue in 4.1.x.
Besides now the QA team review Bugtracker issues within 1-2 days.
I understand that current Bugtracker filter is a bit tricky and there should be more userfriendly tools. I'm thinking on it. I think we will improve this in near future.
P.S. As for the XenForo, I'm absolutly out of ideas why do you guys compare feature rich ecommerce platform with a … forum???
I used oscommerce before, then changed to CS-cart.
The differences i've noticed are:
- CS-cart has more features, which is very good of course
- But many of these features are now being removed and/or people need to pay extra to get them
- CS-cart is A LOT slower. I'm running my own webserver with 16gb ddr3 php-apc cache on gbit lan, but still it takes probably 10 times longer to load a page in the admin panel in CS-cart. Why does it take so long time to get a list of new orders for instance? I don't undertand that. It's a very simple task.
- There are a lot more bugs in CS-cart than OsC, (but also more features). Bugs are being fixed but you need to pay money for updates. I don't mind paying money for feature upgrades, but bug fixes should be free in my opinion.
- CS-cart uses a MVC design, which is a good idea. OsC does not and it's pretty messy if you want to change the design. CS-cart uses smarty for their templates. Smarty is probably good if you know it, but it takes some time to learn and master.
- I have setup a new shipping provider in CS-cart. This was a nightmare. There should be a really easy way to do this like in CS-cart. Stuff like this really annoys me big time.
- The norwegian language pack that was included in CS-cart 3 was really bad, i had to rewrite almost everything, Language packs for OsC are much better.
- CS-cart has a lot of more options to configure products and to create your own design in easy ways.
I still feel like CS-cart is in the “beta-phase”. It's evolving and improving for every update, but i still think it's a long way to go.
I have set up opencart the last week for a customer of mine and I'm really impressed with this system. It's very fast, really easy to change the design (MVC), it's easy to make new modules, easy to understand how it's built etc… It has most of the features that you need, if not you can probably buy an addon for it. It's not perfect and some things are better in Cs-Cart but it's really good. i would probably use Opencart myself for a small business and maybe even a medium sized one,
I hope CS-cart will continue to evolve and become a faster system with less bugs, better language packs and more useful addons.
[quote name='ModNet' timestamp='1394107351' post='178867']
- The norwegian language pack that was included in CS-cart 3 was really bad, i had to rewrite almost everything, Language packs for OsC are much better.
I hope CS-cart will continue to evolve and become a faster system with less bugs, better language packs and more useful addons.
[/quote]
If you think the language pack was bad, you could contribute to make it better here:
Translations
Log in, and click on 4.1.3 and your translations will be included in the next version. The reason its probably better in OSC is that more people are helping out.
[quote name='Onkel_Sid' timestamp='1394108564' post='178868']
If you think the language pack was bad, you could contribute to make it better here:
http://translate.cs-…rojects/cs-cart
Log in, and click on 4.1.3 and your translations will be included in the next version. The reason its probably better in OSC is that more people are helping out.
[/quote]
First help to improve the system and then get charged for it through the update fee? Sounds like a bad idea to me.
If contributors would get free updates, then i would definetely consider it.