Dear ViArt,
 
It's been 8 months since last release... any updates to the community on anything to come?

Well TOCDCO you have waited 8 months for an upgrade - several of us have been waiting more than 2 years just for our One Page Checkout feature.
 
Chris

Dear Forumers,
 
Yes next version is in the works and we hope to release it shortly, most likely this month. There would be quite a lot of changes and new features for example:
- new CKEditor
- ajax Site Map
- multi-shipping module
- new PayPal and Google Checkout scripts
- 'Order Again' functionality
- 'Product Type' settings in payment systems
- WYSIWYG editor now works in Opera, Chrome, Safari
- removed category_id tag from friendly URLs
- Site Map does not contain language links unless otherwise selected
- new 'Order Approver' access levels
- Keywords Search by partial terms
- Full Site Search results in different blocks
- Google Merchant Center update
 
And new comprehensive with ability to track sales:
- Email Campaigns module
 
Wait for our newsletter or news update, as usual we'll try to describe all new features with great detail.
 
Best Regards,
ViArt Team

That does not include the OPC, then, Vera?

 
No it wouldn't be in this release. Please note, because of the delay we've refunded all OPC contributors except you. Please send a ticket if you wish us to refund you as well.
 
And I can assure you one more time that OPC will definitely be developed as soon as we find some free time.
 
Regards,
ViArt Team
 

It's good to see new features come out, however, we would rather the time spent on items promised earlier. You guys have refunded everyone's money, which is good, but we all would have rather had the feature added in.
 
So I guess what everyone here is wondering, so I'll just ask it, is what is going on with ViArt. Is the company under a rough patch? Will it rebound? I remember back to 2007 when I bought ViArt, how great of a team and product there was. I remember the timely updates and new features. I remember a forum of postings that were active due to an active community. I feel some slipping, but I'm hoping otherwise.
 
I hope that ViArt can make a comeback and grow the community to what it once was.
 

As you remember a break between versions 3.6 and 4.0 was 2 years, now we release versions every few months so I wouldn't call it a rebound.
 
Yes 2007 and 2008 were pre-crisis years and things were looking better back then but so was every business
 

We are adding to this wishlist there's a few neat things in your next release list above, however we are still waiting for way to long for the finish of the Call Center pieces that are not functioning in 4.0. Such as logging into already registered accounts.
 
I hope from what I read above that your are going to change the "Keywords" functionality on your back end as well, we ran this function for three and a half days and it indexed 64000 products out of 341000 we have. It is not efficient and needs a new search base to function faster. We did as you suggested and brought it down to two fields, Code and Keywords and that's what took three days.

So this was said to come 'Most likely this month' ... when is this coming?

Good question, TODCO. I do wonder also at how quiet the forum has become, when we had a pretty active community in years past.
 
This and the fact that some very important features, like one page checkout haven't appeared yet. I also wonder why there are not at the very least, some responsive design templates available so that the Viart websites could be more mobile friendly.
 
I"m concerned, because I've been in situations before where I picked up a great software product but for whatever reason, the company lost market share and eventually closed its doors. I would like some assurance that this isn't the case with Viart. However, I have no way of knowing how many Viart installs are really out there, all I see is a pretty quiet forum.

Plans changed a little, new version will be later this month or the next but more features will be added.
 
Regards,
ViArt Team

You are right NTM - I understand the Viart situation - we are all in business as well and times have been tough.
 
But is does feel as though all the sparkle has gone as well as the feeling that we, as customers, matter ;-(
 
I rarely post these days because I get the impression that no-one else is bothering.

I think that with a little effort on ViArt's side, they can bring this back again full force. We'll see what this next update does.

I do want Viart to know that I agree that their product is feature-rich, but they aren't staying current with thier competition. As good as Viart is, that's not enough to get me to stay with the product. If we do move to another platform, these will be the reasons:
 
- Lack of an open, professional, and client/customer centered communication philosophy
- Nearly nonexistent online community
- Slow, no, or insufficient adoption of new technologies and features (ie social media, mobile, responsive design, one page checkout, etc.) that the competition already has (and has had for some time)
- Poor documentation
 
Additionally, I don't like a business model where features that should be available to be on a par with competitors have to be paid for by one or a consortium of current customers.
 
I don't believe any customer would mind paying for something that no one else would use (and we have in the past), but to pay for something as mission critical (in our current market) as the items I noted above leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
 
If Viart is losing market share*, it's for the reasons I noted, not because the product isn't great (but great in a 2008 way). It needs to be great in a 2012 way.
 
*Most especially in the Western and North American markets.

You are very fair Dan but I do tend to agree with NTM. And you know how strongly I have previously argued against critics of Viart.
 
The sting for me was when I found that a custom feature was not properly upgraded after Viart had done the site upgrade for me. Because I did not discover the problem for a while, I was told I was out of time to complain - read our T&Cs they said - and I would have to pay to have this detail put right.
 
Several times over two years I was assured that OPC would be available to me after the next upgrade and it never came - now I have been refunded - it is a bit of a trust issue.
 
I don't want lots of features that are not really useful.
Let's just get some fundamentals:
OPC
Link to FaceBook
Mobile friendly
Newsletter that works - takes details from the user table - if I use the existing facility and a customer updates email address the newsletter list doesn't know.
Call Centre that is fully functional
.... and, of course, a proper instruction manual.
 
Get faith and confidence back in Viart again and the other matter you raise, NTM, an active forum, might resolve itself.
 
As for getting users to fund development - mmm, well I went along with it for a while as did many others.
 
Do you ever get the feeling that an upgrade announcement with lots of bells and whistles is just good to attract new customers? And that putting right or improving existing features does not sell more product?
 
For a fee of $750 to upgrade each year for my six domains, and having made contributions in the meantime, Viart is now starting to feel a bit unaffordable to me.
 
Sorry, Vera, you must know that over the years I have been staunchly loyal; my angst must, then, mean something?

Hello all
 
I also do remember the days when i was active in this forum as well. It had some sort of community feeling, albeit, a tiny community.
 
But now, only those posts who have some installation issues, apart from that not many post here. It is as if the forum has finally died. I just dont even bother coming to the forum except for the Viart 4's Patches.
 
I agree with the above poster regarding the main issues which, in all seriously, is hindering Viart's future prospect in the ecommerce market.
 
1). Documentation, is almost non-existant.
2). Some Features' usage in Viart's admin is not even explained, no documentation of even how to use some of the features.
3). Really behind the current ecommerce sphere in terms of functionality.
4). Its time clean up the existing code and leave off the legacy PHP 4 code behind.
5). Admin interface is non-intuitive and counter productive.
 
 
Viart has enough features, and i think theres not much need for new features, but its downfall is lack of proper documentation for existing features. Why is it that the team does not understand this vital point in this day and age. It is as if they dont even care for proper documentation.
 
 
It really feels as if viart's code is old age compared to the current ecommerce systems.
 
Id say if Viart only had to work on one thing for its system, that one thing should be "Documentation"!
 
I still feel that there is no better option that Viart out in the market yet.

Good to hear from you again Ibn Saeed

Hello Chris
 
How have you been ?

It's been a very tough couple of years in the UK. Business suddenly dropped away a year ago but it is slowly and steadily coming back; we just have to market much harder.
 
Otherwise, on a personal front, I moved out of the city 100 miles north into the countryside and have a great house and garden with spectacular views across the valley to the Malvern Hills [put my village, Broadwas in Google - I run the local web site www.lowerteme.co.uk] and also look at Malvern - anyone coming to England should visit my area.
 
This is semi retirement - couldn't take full retirement!!!
 
How are things with you?
 
Chris

Although I haven't argued with critics, I've been a strong supporter of the product in my organization over the 4 years we've used it. Back when we evaluated and chose Viart, there was just no comparison and it was an easy decision to choose the cart.
 
Now, evaluating and making the same decision again, it's not so easy. I wish it were, for Viart's (and our own) sake. I'm not a fan of conversions and redesigns. I'd rather improve what's we have, but in order to grow as an ebusiness, we can't stay with Viart unless something changes, and soon.
 
I completely agree with Chris regarding OPC, Mobile, and Social Integration. All these should have been standard features 3 years ago, and we're still waiting.
 
And yes, everything must be documented and functional. How can I explain it more clearly or logically... If you have a feature and no one knows how to use it, it is not a feature! If you have a feature and it's not functional, it is not a feature!
 
I realize what I'm saying is harsh, but I don't feel like I'm being a friend to the company if I just keep silent and leaving the product without a word of explanation. I suppose if I had less respect for the product and team, that's what I do.
 
Chris, looked at your village - I'm jealous! You live in a lovely area.

Hi all, I really agree with everything you have said. I have cut down on my participation in the forum since it seems as though it is an empty echo there - noone answers.. Earlier ViArt staff answered the threads (sometimes) but now it feels like noone has even the time to read the threads nor answer them.
 
I started using ViArt in 2008 and at that time I was, as you all, stunned with the greatness of this (in Sweden) undiscovered ecommerce system. I was almost overwhelmed with the possibilities and kindly offered to help translating the whole system to swedish to help them grow and make sure that I would be able to use it. I did not know how much work that would be, or how long it would take, and if I had known then what I know know I doubt that I would have bought any licenses. But I have been a great customer to ViArt and have spent almost $8 000 on licenses, custom work and so on.
 
But getting help with problems seem to take longer and longer time and sometimes I almost feel like I am a difficult customer because I send so many support requests, not because the system seems poorly checked.
 
One thing that I have asked for a really long time now (something that is illegal in Sweden), is that they really need to fix so that we are able to add tax on every little fee and cost in the webshop. Okay, so I get that we are strange to have this law here and not many of you others need this, but also ViArt seem to be proud af the fact that the system is world wide spead, and then they need to be open to make changes that is necessary without charging their regular customers for that.
 
To me, it seems almost as if ViArt has tried to grow too fast and has tried to do everything at once, instead of either hire more people or concentrate on fixing one thing at the time to make sure it works with everything else..

Hello,
when the output of the new version?
The new version will have features (Ajax and Rich?)
 
Thank's
Rinaldo Italy

Hi All
Oh if you haven’t been to this little island (England) you haven’t been anywhere I miss Nottinghamshire so much I’ve been using Viart cart for a very long time and I noticed that so many modules not even included as social media and mobile sites and so on my clients wanted to order my products from iphone and so on, we are in age of Smartphone’s I waited and I hoped that Viart has all these modules included in the next release I wanted to buy another license for my other domain but nothing happen, I understand that Viart may rewritten the code of Viart shop from ground up but as a small business I could not wait as online shopping came along way customers wanted to be able to order when they are on the move and Viart did not provide this for my clients I had to source another shopping cart to have these as standard modules included Viart been great ecommerce cart over the years but these days we are competing to keep our customers base loyal I don’t feel Viart will give me the rim over my competitors. 

Thank you to everyone of you who left their comments about how to improve ViArt Shop and what you feel is missing at the moment. Your feedback has a great value to us and we will try very hard to live up to your expectations.
 
For example, the very next ViArt version will include mobile module, actually that's why the release is delayed we decided to add it at the last moment.
 
Thanks for your patience,
ViArt Team

Thank you Vera, that's a good step forward but I am now getting frequent complaints from my partner that we are slipping in ease of use, completeness and functionality.
 
We now use Joomla in place of 'User Blocks' - linking to Joomla pages from just one block. My partner's shop team finds this easier, more flexible, and they can find, edit and add 'blocks' faster and more easily - and more creatively.
 
I have been challenged about the shop itself and the alternative of Open Source software available for Joomla.
 
I am finding it harder to resist their demands to look at these as they appear really quite sophisticated and up to date.
 
And, being a Joomla extensions, there is a mass of third party extensions and extras.
 
As I also use Joomla extensively for local community portals where I live, I am inclined to have some sympathy with their views - except for all the work involved in migrating.
 
Nevertheless my partner wants constructive responses from me and a sound re-assurance that all the promises over the years by Viart are to be fulfilled soon.
 
We were once promised a complete manual, I was repeatedly promised the OPC over the years, the newsletter function is quite primitive so we export client details to a separate program - time consuming and extra cost, orders reports look nice but do not provide accurate and useful financial data, call centre issues mean we cannot use it. and the text editor - often promised to be updated - is extremely limited
... there is a long list and, whilst some are small issues, Viart is starting to lose its gloss as a leading eCommerce package.
 
My partner also points out that a multi store set up with, for example, JoomAce, costs $99 for 12 months or $499 for a lifetime licence. Now, cost is certainly not everything but I now have the issue of demonstrating that the higher cost of Viart comes with a far better product.
 
In these tight times I am sure you will easily understand these issues as you, and we, face the challenge of how we compete in the current market with the best products, service and the keenest costs?
 
I need reasons to stay put and assure my partner that we are using the best package for us.
 
Chris

Of course, it's your choice what software to use but I don't know how you can add 'blocks' faster, more easily and more creatively than how it already works in ViArt.
 
Regarding your points:
 We're working on it, some new articles about new features will continue to appear, for example the most recent one is about CMS settings in v.4.0: http://www.viart.com/cms_settings.html but a complete manual will take more time.
 It's one of our top priorities.
 Hopefully you will be pleasantly surprised as to what we've done with it in the next version. And there will be a manual how to use it.
 Please give us more information what is not okay and what other details you wish to display there.
 Some minor changes still remain but it should be in working mode actually.
 We already added a CKeditor integration option in the next version so it shouldn't be a problem anymore. Here is a screenshot for you: http://www.viart.com/img/ckeditor.gif
 
Regards,
ViArt Team