This is it in a nutshell. This is why I left Oxygen. All these 3rd party plugins to get functionality. I sunk hundreds of dollars in all manner of plugins.
Just this week, I had to deactivate OxyExtras because the developers have stopped maintaining it and it’s now breaking my site. I no longer have the slider functionality on that site.
Ironically, those same developers jumped ship and made a BricksExtras because that’s where the money is now. I don’t blame them for making their money, but this is the sort of thing I just can’t be bothered with.
That’s not true. I no longer use OxyExtras, but I received an email with their latest update yesterday. They said there won’t be new features, but they will release security and compatibility patches.
Nobody is forcing you to buy 3rd party addons, if they exist, is because the plugin/theme has a good marketshare and devs can make money improving the experience. A clear win win situation.
I’ve been thinking about this a fair and I really don’t have the stomach for switching to other tools.
Even without no further feature additions, Cwicly is ahead of most other builders on the market. I’m looking at Pinegrow as the only other viable option. Bricks is a sideways step (at best) and slightly backwards in many ways.
I’m fine with continuing to use Cwicly into the near future as long as a few questions can be answered or considerations met:
Be able to decouple Cwicly plugin from the live installation, where it becomes a true builder and leave the rest to Gutenberg.
Allied to the above, having a tool capable of authoring Gutenberg blocks from the design that we can then use (similar to Pinegrow)
Ongoing WordPress security considerations are met
General WordPress compatibility (PHP releases and the link) are maintained.
I need nothing else. I can do all the work I need with what exists now. I could do that last year, too. The rest of the roadmap falls in the category of “nice to have”, as far as I’m concerned.
I come from Architecture, and I remember using AutoCAD 2004 at my job, and going to another office where they were still using AutoCAD R14 (released in 1997). That firm was still a pretty large operation doing multimillion dollar projects. The software was still capable and they didn’t care.
Obviously, there’s differences in web dev, but people are STILL using Oxygen even though it hasn’t received major new features in forever, and lots of the 3rd party plugins no longer have support.
This morning I fired up my sandbox site to quickly replicate an interesting section I saw on another website. Everything was done so smoothly. I really shudder to think about using one of the other tools out there. It’s like you used to drive a Tesla, but then had to go try drive a Lada (people in Eastern Europe can relate).
Sure, it gets you from point A to point B, but my lord the ride is rough.
People always say this, and it’s just so lazy. It was thoroughly discussed how lacking in core features and usability Oxygen was that buying the addons was simply the sensible option. The alternative was any manner of other workarounds.
Every builder lacks features. The third-party addons for Oxygen were because a lack of development, and most of them were pretty basic.
The ones for Bricks are quite advanced and are impossible for the team to cover. They told third-party developers that at some point, many of their features would be added to the core.
I will explain with an analogy: it’s as if Oxygen was a car without wheels, with third-party developers selling the wheels. Bricks, on the other hand, is a fully functional car that, if you buy third-party addons, allows you to fly.
If you are a coder, Bricks because it’s a class first builder. An announcement from Bricks today introduces a clever security update in 1.9.7, generating Wordpress “salts” or secret keys
Code signatures ensure that the code you are running has not been tampered with. Valid code signatures are now mandatory. Any code without a valid signature won’t run.
Breakdance also has clean code output, but isn’t a class first builder. Nevertheless, the code output is such that ACSS can be officially integrated. It’s becoming very popular.
If you want the Gutenberg route, then Generate Blocks. However, it’s not in the same league as Bricks.
It depends on what you want, no one else can make the decision. IMHO, Cwickly was the only decent Gutenberg plugin for Wordpress.
Yes thanks that’s a good summary. Who knows what will still be around in 5 years. Gutenberg that’s for sure, so hard for me to not go the Gutenberg route.
It’s a set of 40 elements that won’t have new elements but are fully functional and improve the native ones. They do maintenance and bug fixes.
If there hasn’t been an update in a long time, it means no bugs have been reported, which speaks well of how it’s coded.
If a developer semi abandon the builder like Oxygen did, it’s natural that 3rd party devs focus on other builders.
Ah, okay, got it. You don’t understand the difference between maintenance and abandonment. Also, you think that when you buy a plugin, the developer should develop new features for the rest of your life.
It’s in the same situation as Cwicly, well-maintained but without future features.
Now, it makes sense why developers get burned out with comments like yours spreading misinformation.
Let me ask, when you sell maintenance plans, do you refer to them as abandonment plans when you only update plugins, backups and maintain it secure?
Oh my goodness I’ve just commented that its abandoned for obvious reasons, nothing more nothing less. How can you take it so out of context lol. Very lucky we got this update after 2 years. It’s the same price as its always been and despite many like myself asking the devs directly for clarify and bug fixes they have ignored us. They should be upfront and say there will be no new features and security and maintenance as required. There have been security issues for well over a year. The website still says: Users with ideas for new components or new features added to existing components can shoot over a request.
After struggling for over a week to find a new builder that meets my UI expectations following my experience with Cwicly, I’m considering exploring Greenshift. Could you tell me if it’s possible to purchase a single-user subscription to test it out and then, if satisfactory, upgrade to a 5-user subscription? Thank you for all the feedback you’ve provided.
After Louie’s statement, I’ve been looking for what’s on the market all this time, I’ve tried in my mind all the wordpress builders, tried Bricks again (I have an unlimited plan for it). But Cwicly is the best thing on the market. With my personal website I don’t see the point of moving somewhere else right now.
On what to make new sites clients do not understand at all.
From interesting that I found new, it is Kraft, but it is so in the bud still that it just needs to be kept in mind, for working projects is not ready yet. But judging by their past product, the guys may succeed.
They only earn money if they keep selling new licenses. I prefer software that requires a subscription resulting in a constant and predictable cashflow for the developers.
But judging by the fact that they released a similar product YellowPencil - Visual CSS Style Editor, with such a montization system, they know what they are doing.
Besides, it is quite realizable to change the monetization system.
I’ll repeat, there is a very embryonic state, I was interested only because the interface is very similar to Webflow and the fact that they have a tool that has similar functionality, albeit outdated a bit.
