JoomShaper’s plans for 2019: An exciting year ahead - JoomShaper

JoomShaper’s plans for 2019: An exciting year ahead

02 January 2019
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JoomShaper’s plans for 2019: An exciting year ahead

Beginning of a year is always blissful when you have accomplished what you targeted, achieved what you wanted, and done what you meant to. After looking at the year 2018, we can proudly say we achieved most of the goals we set before, and that becomes a true inspiration for us to start a new year on a happy note.

But, like all other years before, we start each year with a new resolution to upgrade our products & services and bring new ones. This year we will do even more. We are planning on making plenty of efforts that will eventually impact our customers, and the whole Joomla ecosystem positively. All of our efforts have a common goal, that is, strengthening Joomla and enriching its user experience.

Our journey to a better, prettier, and more accessible web is going great. Thank you for being a part of this!

Today we’re discussing what our 2019 will be about. Let's have some ideas on the whole year ahead. Here is a quick look.

  • Two (2) Joomla templates per month
  • SP Page Builder feature update twice a month
  • More advanced & revamped Helix Ultimate framework
  • A useful modification to the pricing plans
  • Accelerated support response time and effectiveness
  • Getting prepared 100% to welcome Joomla 4 when it arrives

Two (2) Joomla templates per month

The global number of websites is growing fast. So many new businesses and ideas are being brainstormed every day. Considering the ever-thriving demand for more diverse designs and template categories, we’ve decided to double the number of templates we release each month.

So, let’s start the new year with a big good news. Starting from March 2019, you will regularly get 2 Joomla templates per month from JoomShaper. In each month thereafter, 1 template will come with your favorite QuickStart pack, while the another will have a new installation pack instead of a QuickStart pack. To be precise, you will get:

  • Total 24 Joomla templates within a period of 12 months.
  • 12 of these templates will come with a QuickStart pack.
  • The rest 12 will have a new installation pack other than a QuickStart.

We are working on the new template installation system which we are planning to release in March.

SP Page Builder feature update twice a month

I know you have been waiting for something more exciting regarding SP Page Builder. Here you get it. We will be releasing 2 feature updates every month for SP Page Builder. That means, you will be greeted with brand new SP Page Builder features and updates to the existing features in your beloved Joomla page builder twice a month. Plus, more tips, tricks, and tutorials for SP Page Builder are also in the pipeline!

More advanced & revamped Helix Ultimate framework

Helix Ultimate, the most advanced generation of the world’s favorite Joomla template framework is set to get a massive revamp this year. We are constantly collecting and analysing user feedback about Helix Ultimate to offer the best ever and the most solid template framework in the history. It will come with a completely new design, overhauled UX and cutting-edge features.

The upcoming Helix Ultimate update will work with all of the current Helix Ultimate based templates. So, no compatibility worries. And, we are working hard to release this huge update in the middle of this year, or in the 3rd quarter. It’s gonna be superb, we promise.

A useful modification to the pricing plans

New year, new resolutions, new goals. Don’t worry! We are not gonna increase the overall pricing. Based on the feedback we received from the community, we are planning to have a useful modification to the pricing structure.

In the template subscription plans, for the Personal, and Business memberships currently don’t offer the access to SP Page Builder Pro. The template QuickStart packs install a version of the page builder on your site, but you don’t get a separately installable SP Page Builder Pro pack.

We will introduce an option to include SP Page Builder Pro in the Personal, and Business membership plans. So, if a customer wants to get any of the above mentioned plans, they can add SP Page Builder Pro in the subscription, and purchase right away.

This is optional. If you don’t want SP Page Builder Pro, the pricing will be as it is at this moment. When you optionally include SP Page Builder Pro in a Personal or Business template plan, that will result in a few additional bucks added to the membership pricing. Fair, and simple!

Accelerated support response time and effectiveness

As you already know and feel, JoomShaper has a good track record of great customer support. Our support engineers strive to offer even more prompt and useful responses on the forum. The pre-sale support team is also doing awesome. We’ve increased the team size to provide a far better support experience in the coming days.

In 2018, we achieved an overall 5 star rating for support and documentation along with functionality and ease of uses for SP Page Builder on the Joomla extension directory. We consider this as a huge milestone that proves how much dedicated we are to the users.

You can find a detailed look back at JoomShaper's 2018 in this year-in-review article. And, we are prepared with our team to welcome Joomla 4 when it arrives. Learn our Joomla 4 plans here.

The best part is we focus on days as we know a year is all about 365 days. Making each day count got us where we are standing today. The changes we are going to make, the products we will develop, and the new things we will bring this year will hopefully impact our future beyond a single year. We want you to be with us on this journey. Do stay in touch.

Arafat Bin Sultan

Arafat Bin Sultan

Arafat is a tech-enthusiast with a keen interest in space, photography, and video making.
Joomla! Man
Joomla! Man
5 years ago
1.SP Page Builder feature update twice a month
2. More advanced & revamped Helix Ultimate framework. :)
Arafat Bin Sultan
Arafat Bin Sultan
5 years ago
And more... Thanks in advance for being with us :)
M
MeR
5 years ago
For me, SP Page Builder Pro lacks such capabilities:
- Slideshow builder (analog https://smartslider3.com)
- Form builder (analog https://www.balbooa.com/joomla-forms)
- Pop-up builder (analog https://www.tassos.gr/joomla-extensions/engagebox)
- standalone content addon with filtering (analog https://demo.rockettheme.com/live/joomla-
extensions/roksprocket/mosaic)

Kawshar Ahmed
Kawshar Ahmed
5 years ago
1. We will release a major Page Builder update with a brand new slider addon. We are working on the addon for the last 6 months and we are very close to release the update.

2. Form builder addon is also work in progress.

3. We already have a component call [url="https://www.joomshaper.com/joomla-extensions/sp-simple-portfolio"]Simple Portfolio[/url].

Thanks
M
MeR
5 years ago
3. I meant, a standalone content output addon with filtering without being tied to a component
or
specifically to display sppb-pages of a particular category ;)

For example:
https://demo.rockettheme.com/live/joomla-extensions/roksprocket/mosaic
(tiles are created manually with arbitrary links or generated automatically from an article component).

Unfortunately, there is no such solution in sppb :(
Kawshar Ahmed
Kawshar Ahmed
5 years ago
SP Page Builder content structure is very complex and cannot be displayed pages in a filtered way.

But, we can add Page Builder integration to our SP Portfolio component so that you can show better output to the portfolio details page.

Thanks
M
MeR
5 years ago
Спасибо! Действительно с нетерпением жду этого!
M
MeR
5 years ago
Thanks! Really looking forward to it! ;)
Kawshar Ahmed
Kawshar Ahmed
5 years ago
You are welcome :)
Paul Frankowski
Paul Frankowski
5 years ago
New slideshow addon should be presented next week with new update.
Form addon is planned for upcoming months. Specification is already done.
Mo Ahmed
Mo Ahmed
5 years ago
1) I think it would be a good idea to also have templates adopt new Google recommendations for page speed rankings out-of-the-box - lazy loading, image support for svg, webp, jpeg2000 etc., structured JSON data.
2) A blank override.scss file by default that we can add customisations into without affecting the default settings of the template in question.
3) Option to hide SP Page Builder Pages from Search components (so confirmation/landing pages are hidden)
4) Some things won't let you choose off-domain images - like logo selection, or the slideshow component - images have to be stored relative to the domain root.

Had a few others but got distracted and forgot!
Kawshar Ahmed
Kawshar Ahmed
5 years ago
1. We will try to adopt as many features as possible within the Helix Ultimate update.

2. Right now custom.css and custom.js loads automatically but we will consider adding custom.scss.

3. Did you mean hide from Google search? Or, from Joomla search?

4. I am not sure about the last feature you requested. Will you please describe little more?

Thanks
Mo Ahmed
Mo Ahmed
5 years ago
Hi Kashwar -

3) I meant off Joomla search - at the moment, all pages, unless they're unpublished will appear in the joomla search.

4) If you add a logo/favicon for example with helix ultimate, or if you have page builder pro, and you want to link an image that you've stored somewhere on a CDN, it won't let you do that in the slideshow addon I believe - it requests that you choose an image from the server, but there's no option to have a custom URL being used.
Kawshar Ahmed
Kawshar Ahmed
5 years ago
We've tested twice but unpublished pages do not show in the Joomla search.

Well, Joomla media manager has huge limitation. We can not add such feature unless Joomla incorporates such a feature to its core.

But, we will keep your feature request in mind while developing the future version of Helix Ultimate framework.

Thanks
Mo Ahmed
Mo Ahmed
5 years ago
Not sure if you understood correctly.

3) With Page Builder pages - if they are published, they will show in search results. I think I'm not the only one that pointed this out in the past.

This can be a problem for certain pages - for example, landing pages or confirmation pages. These pages are enabled, but shouldn't be available to appear in search results.

4) For example, if you get a Helix Ultimate template:

Admin CP -> Extensions -> Templates -> Styles -> Helix Template -> Green "Template Options" button

Helix Ultimate loads and then you go to:

Basic -> Logo -> Select Media

You can only choose an item in the image folder, you can't specify a URL for this, or mobile logos.

The same applies to [b]some[/b] Addons for Page Builder - for slideshow items, you have to specify a relative URL or choose an image from the media manager. You cannot specify a URL from an external URL. A few addons don't care what the URL is, background images, or image addons let you specify any URL.

Hopefully that makes sense.
pepperstreet
pepperstreet
5 years ago
No offend, but I think increasing the quantity might have an impact on quality.
Quality & stability should rule! Honestly, who needs 2 template releases a month? Who needs 2 feature updates for PB? Just think about the increasing effort and support... not to mention the users will get into a never-ending update spiral... I really have my doubts about a positive outcome.

I would suggest to focus on quality & support.
PB features should not extend in a vast amount of addon variations.
I recommend a look at the current WP pagebuilder market. Keyword: Dynamic content.
PB lacks developer docs and an API (hooks & events!)
IMHO, Helix Ultimate was no improvement over Helix3. I am curious about your changes.
I would like to see a consolidated Helix/PageBuilder environment (choose or same CSS framework, even better framework-agnostic with CSS grid and flexbox.
;)
Kawshar Ahmed
Kawshar Ahmed
5 years ago
Hi, first of all, thank you very much for your feedback.

Well, our first priority is quality. Previously we had 2 UI/UX designers but right now our design team is much bigger than the past. So, we decided to add more value to our products and planned to release industry-specific templates alongside our regular templates. The second template will be smaller in scale compared with the regular monthly template and we believe that you are going to like our approach.

As we said that we are going to be releasing two feature updates per months that means SP Page Builder will be more powerful day by day. We will add almost all the requested features and some amazing features that you never have seen on any Page Builders available right now.

Helix Ulmate will get a huge update by middle or last quarter of this year.


Thanks
Paul Frankowski
Paul Frankowski
5 years ago
About feature updates for PB -- it's part of support, users ask for new features. Like you does from time to time. New feature also means to add new option for available addon, right.
---
About WP pagebuilder market - I think it will soon end, because with last version of WP 5.x developers added support for blocks. But I agree there is a lot of useful features in 7 popular WP page builders.


pepperstreet
pepperstreet
5 years ago
[quote]About WP pagebuilder market - I think it will soon end[/quote]
I don't think so. Gutenberg and Blocks are a different story. IMHO, it is targeted to blogging and mass article creation by content authors/writers. I see pagebuilders are used for advanced designs and landing pages, special pages. Maybe even for product catalogs and "templates" for dynamic content. I guess, I would never ever consider a pagebuilder as a "client-tool". At least, I would not let any enduser fiddle around with one as an "editor replacement". :p ;)
G
Geert
5 years ago
It will be a good year. I'm looking forward
Kawshar Ahmed
Kawshar Ahmed
5 years ago
Thank you very much. We are also very excited :)
J
Joy
5 years ago
wow thats amazing! :) love to hear that. Please go more in "Samsung One UI" Style. I have since some days the new OS Update and was shoked how great it was. The idea taking focus on the thumb as example. It's an good idea to have a "interaction" area low below and a "information" area with rich details and pictures. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3LVk0i6bY4

For "Page Builder" i have one ask. When i got rounded corner for a picture, and go overlay with my mouse. The overlay is not matching the rounded corners. Instat, it got harsh edges. Is there a way to fix this?

Kawshar Ahmed
Kawshar Ahmed
5 years ago
Thank you very much for your suggestions. We will fix the image overlay rounded corner issue.

Thanks
J
Joy
5 years ago
thank you :)
Shayan Davoodi
Shayan Davoodi
5 years ago
Exciting news.
Please also go for AMP support.
Paul Frankowski
Paul Frankowski
5 years ago
Thanks, yes, it's on our list to do.
A
Alan
5 years ago
Things I'd love to see:

[b]Timed or scheduled addon for Page Builder.[/b] Allow us to schedule when an item will appear or rotate among several items. So we can have several different items rotating in the same position on a set schedule similar to how the Joomla Banner system works and how the article publishing works.

[b]Automatic Updates that Work[/b]. Far too often it's hit or miss on the updates from the admin area. One time I'll get a good update with no problem, the next I'll get an error message. There doesn't seem to be a consistency. With 2 updates per month, that's 24 per year at a minimum, with the security patches, Joomla version update patches and the rest adding to that large volume, and when you manage hundreds of sites, it is important for updates to work flawlessly. I also use watchful.li to manage the websites, and Page Builder updates similarly won't update properly at all from there. I have checked everything for accuracy, and even with a valid download ID, correct email and the domain listed in my dashboard area, the downloads do not always work successfully. This is a HUGE issue for some of us with hundreds of sites using Page Builder and JoomShaper templates.



senolsengul
senolsengul
5 years ago
Very good news. I hope it gets better.
Arafat Bin Sultan
Arafat Bin Sultan
5 years ago
Hi senolsengul, yes it's a real good news. Of course, everything of us is getting better! Thanks for being with JoomShaper.
GC
Gianpaolo Capuzzo
5 years ago
Maybe I am out of topic, but just a question about the Joomshaper 2019 support forum.
Now it is no more possible even read the answers to the threads without a subscription... Right??? :(
R
robberto
5 years ago
[quote]Our journey to a better, prettier, and more accessible web is going great.[/quote]
Yeah, the real Accesisible web...
[quote]Thank you for being a part of this![/quote]
Only if you buy a subscription..
M
Maxim
5 years ago
Hi! Do you planning to update sp weather? It doesn't work with PHP 7.0 and higher
Kawshar Ahmed
Kawshar Ahmed
5 years ago
What kind of error are you getting?

Thanks
S
ssnobben
5 years ago
It would be good if you could create multilanguage content easy in SP Pagebuilder and your extensions like SP Property like this Joomla component where you have tabs for each language and just change every language easy for headings, text, settings etc see this demo video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gx37_Lyg3vo
Paul Frankowski
Paul Frankowski
5 years ago
Thanks, indeed we thought about it, but first we have to wait for core changes in upcoming Joomla 4.0.
AU
Andrey Uvikov
5 years ago
Lazy Load, Article scroller like in template 'Magazine' and other feature on sppb pro or like commerce addon and modules as part of plan 'Developer'. I would to use it in Helix ultimate but not only in commerce tamplates. Can you do it accessible separately from temlates for plan 'Developer' ?
Paul Frankowski
Paul Frankowski
5 years ago
Thanks, I will ask what we can add into SPPB package. For sure we will consider Lazy loading.
Eder Noriega
Eder Noriega
5 years ago
I would like an app builder that is simple and easy to administer.
I have lost several clients because they have always wanted an android app for their products. It would be incredible that Joomshaper could create the tool for mobile app. Something similar to what joomlashine does,
https://www.joomlashine.com/joomla-extensions/jsn-mobilize.html
Paul Frankowski
Paul Frankowski
5 years ago
Thanks, we will check it.
A
Alvaro
5 years ago
Page Builder Buttons: Most page builder addons have buttons, but not all have the same options, others are simpler and complex. If we want to customize or add new styles it is complicated to do it in all the addons.

My recommendation is to use a single addon for this (Addon Button); and from the other addons that need buttons this Addon Button must be loaded, in this way we have the new styles or customizations of bottones in all the addons. Something similar to how the addons are loaded in the Addon Accordion, but this type of field should only load addon button.

INLINE CSS: All addons should not generate CSS classes of empty fields for example: # sppb-addon-NUMBERS .sppb-addon-content {padding: EMPTY;}. This is not good because it generates 200 to 300 lines of css without any value. This occurs more frequently in the fields of padding and margin RESPONSIVES. This is not good for a website and less if you want to validate the code.

Thank you.
Paul Frankowski
Paul Frankowski
5 years ago
thanks, we have also Addon: Button Group.

we think about global color setting which may solve that problem.

empty classes will be fixed in next SPPB update. we are working on it since Monday.
A
Alvaro
5 years ago
It would solve in part, configure each button filling all the fields of color configuration, it is too laborious, and many end users do not know how to do it. It is best to add selectable classes equal to sppb-btn-primary in the Addon Button, then load the addon button into other Addons that need buttons, so the end user just has to select a style. As you know many of the buttons have movement effects (Material buttons) and creating from the page builder fields is impossible.
A
Alvaro
5 years ago
To solve this we have created a file buttonstyles.php in the folder fields; inside the array we list the botton styles of the SPPB core and the ones we create. From the admin.php of the addons we change 'values' => array () by 'values' => $ buttonstyles

But we still have to modify all the addons that we use and that have buttons and with this we lose the new features that you add to the addons.

Another solution would be this, create a file that contains all button styles for all addons; with the possibility of creating an override from the template for the list of styles.

With that if you can use any library of bottones without so much work and without modifying all the addons.
Kawshar Ahmed
Kawshar Ahmed
5 years ago
We are working on it. Hopefully, this issue will be fixed soon.

Thanks
A
AEgranjo
5 years ago

I would be good if you could create in the Pagebuilder - embed in addon (tabs) insert (columns, table, accordion, ...)
example: component DJ-TABS (dj-extensions)

I leave link:

[url="https://demo.dj-extensions.com/dj-tabs/"]dj-tabs[/url]


[img]https://demo.pixelemu.com/pe-school/[/img]
Paul Frankowski
Paul Frankowski
5 years ago
Thanks, about columns and tables - you can just choose text addon and paste simple HTML code inside. It's quite easy if your template support Boostrap3 or Boostrap4 . But I agree that tabs addon needs some improvements in near future.
L
lumajosh
5 years ago
Here is one recommendation for you - SP Page builder should have a fully customizable via settings ability to enable or disable any available add-ons. I can bet that not a single site built with SP Page Builder utilizes more than 50% of all available add-ons, but the overhead of all of these add-ons being listed in css is huge. Only turn on those add-ons one is planning to use on his / her site and than dynamically generate css for enabled options. Should not be that difficult to do and the benefit of faster loading time especially for mobile devises will be immensive.
Paul Frankowski
Paul Frankowski
5 years ago
I think I understand your concept, but I also little afraid of users who will disable and cry after while , they do not see all addons from Pro. But indeed also in Joomla you can disable module from manager.
Samu
Samu
5 years ago
Great. It is important for me to understand the words.:o
Arafat Bin Sultan
Arafat Bin Sultan
5 years ago
Thanks. Surely you can :)
avp
avp
5 years ago
For a while (a year ago) I was looking at Upage now NicePage as Iam a ext Artisteer user and the user interface I like. But I chose the Joomshaper route due to 1 stability and 2 support. NicePage has come on in the last year. Are there any plans to have a similar interface and usability.
Kawshar Ahmed
Kawshar Ahmed
5 years ago
If we want to build something about NicePage, then we have to build the Page Builder again from the scratch and will impossible to provide backward compatibility. But, we are working hard to make Page Builder better and better without losing the backward compatibility.

Thanks
avp
avp
5 years ago
M
Mark
5 years ago
Hello,
looking forward to great new this from you.
Have you considered looking into [b]Progressive Web Apps[/b] (PWA)
as a feature of Helix Ultimate or a standalone component?
There are some solutions for that for WordPress
but not really for Joomla.
Thanks
Kawshar Ahmed
Kawshar Ahmed
5 years ago
We've not thought yet but we will keep that in mind.

Thanks
M
Mark
5 years ago
With the Coffee Shop layout bundle and the Wayne Corp. template you brought your designs
to a new level. :)
Please continue in that direction.
Kawshar Ahmed
Kawshar Ahmed
5 years ago
Thank you very much. I hope we will be releasing more beautiful template in the future :)
M
Mark
5 years ago
One other feature I already mentioned before (and that others have commented on too) is "reverse mobile order".

Right now we have this:

If you have a design with two rows that on a large screen looks like this:

image - text
text - image

then on a mobile screen without this addon it would look like this:

image
text
text
image

But what you would often want is:

image
text
image
text

What I suggest is a clickable option for Page Builder Pro rows where you can reverse the order of the columns of a row on mobile screens so you get the above mentioned effect if you need it.

Please include this feature.
Kawshar Ahmed
Kawshar Ahmed
5 years ago
This feature is already on our todo list. We will start working on it after releasing the next version.

Thanks
M
Mark
5 years ago
Another wish for all templates:

Please make the json files for the demo pages of the templates downloadable too.

Because now if I want to have the same page design like in the demo to start with I have only two options:

I can only either install the Quickstart package and start a website from zero
or
install the template in an existing Joomla installation then also separately install the Quickstart package as a standalone website just to export the json files of every single page and import these again into my Joomla installation.

If you just included the json files on the download pages this would help.

Maybe you could come up with a way to import them all at once into Page Builder as a zip file, that would save time in a big way.
Kawshar Ahmed
Kawshar Ahmed
5 years ago
We will think about that.

Thanks
M
Mark
5 years ago
Just one more wish:

Some templates have there own Page Builder Pro add-ons.

It would be great to be able to use them in all templates with Page Builder Pro.

Didn't you want to create an own area for add-ons anyway? :)

Thanks for your great work.
Kawshar Ahmed
Kawshar Ahmed
5 years ago
This is not possible. In order to release a global addon, we've to think about the extensibility while template specific addon does not need that level of extensibility. But, as we said that we will release two feature updates for Page Builder every week. So, you will get lot of new addons in the coming future.

Thanks
G
Gina.One
5 years ago
Woooo, that sound all very good!
I need that update Calcio as fast es possible :D
Happy New Year toooo youuuu
Kawshar Ahmed
Kawshar Ahmed
5 years ago
You are welcome. Happy new year :)
Y
yo_ray
5 years ago
Wow very excited about your great work!

Its nice to read that Helix Ultimate is going to be revamped.
But middle of the year or later)
I hope that the Template will get updates before because the last update is long ago.
Is there any improvement update to come?
H
Honey
3 years ago
wow, its Great and nice efforts by joomla.

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