Viewing 14 posts - 1 through 14 (of 14 total)
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  • #922285

    I have been a long time user of ENFOLD and absolutely love using the theme, I honestly believe it has the potential to be one of the best themes ever made. My frustration comes from watching enfold slowly get left behind by other more advanced themes and frameworks. Feature-wise, I get it, things take time but when you consider this:

    Enfold has had 148,589 sales on Envato so far which totals over $8.5million in sales (minus the 12.5% commission). With the amount of money generated by selling Enfold, I would expect the development of new features to be happening quite rapidly.

    Additional things such as new animation options, further control of text styling such as drop shadow, logo center, menu either side or logo left menu center. Even additional control for adding a phone number, email address and office address in the header. Things like this surely cannot be difficult for our supreme overlord Kriesi.

    I want ENFOLD to generate another 100k sales but I find myself slowly looking to alternative frameworks and themes that seem to dish out updates and features much quicker and in more depth than ENFOLD.

    Sorry to vent, but I do this through my passion for ENFOLD.

    #922323

    Hey Luke,

    Thanks for your sincere feedback.

    We definitely understand your frustration but we are working hard so Enfold never gets left behind.

    After New Year, we have started releasing minor updates which includes extensive changes to the php structure which will eventually make Enfold faster, more stable and more powerful. We will continue releasing this series of minor updates which also include bug fixes and improvements. Later will come major update with many more features.

    Some of the features you mentioned will be eventually added to the theme however we also try not to make the theme bloated with so many features as that makes the theme complicated for novice users. We are adding more hooks and options to make working with theme easier for advanced users as well. Currently some of them can be found here – https://github.com/KriesiMedia/enfold-library

    Feedbacks are very important for us. That is why we are going to improve feature request form as well.

    Once again, we are never going to let Enfold get left behind. Hopefully upcoming updates will make up for all the frustration :)

    If there is anything else you would like to add, please do so :)

    Best regards,
    Yigit

    #922347

    Thank you Yigit,

    My only suggestion would be to add more options, a clear example of this would be to expand the number of animations that can be applied to a column/image.

    I think being cautious about bloating ENFOLD is a wrong move, taking this approach is what leads to enfold becoming less feature-rich than other more popular themes. tabs are a great way that is already being used to add more customisations to elements without everything being cluttered.

    I am sure you are all doing a fantastic job and I look forward to what is in store for the future.

    Also, I see that many themes such as Visual Composer, Elementor and Beaver Builder have made it so other advanced users can make packs that attached to the main theme.
    https://codecanyon.net/item/ultimate-addons-for-visual-composer/6892199?s_rank=5 – its the 5th best seller for WordPress plugins on Codecanyon.
    Allowing developers to do this might make life easier for you and your time while also allowing advanced users to benefit for additional features in ENFOLD. Pre made sections that can be imported and inserted could also be a good way to allow other developers to add to enfold and make some money.

    Many thanks

    #922358

    THANK YOU LUKE86, you really hit the point.

    #922359

    To further my reply:

    https://ultimate.brainstormforce.com/dual-button/ – this feature is already being used on Kriesi.at homepage – it can’t be that hard for it to be implemented? This is a clear example of small features being added that can make a huge difference to a theme in my opinion.

    Just some examples of things that could be implemented that will really expand on the type of designs that can be built using ENFOLD.

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Luke86. Reason: wrong word
    #922864

    Hello,

    Thanks for this topic. Hope Enfold team will come with more futures. I really like the advanced buttons and animation blocks. And also a gradient background is nice. Hope Enfold team will come with this in the future.

    But there are really more things to do for SEO and usability wise. Like boom boxes when the user have an exit intent, scroll triggeret boxes, attention grabbers, elements that stay on top when scroll down like the sticky header and an automatic internal linking future (now you must install plugins for this futures)

    And the data and pricing tables can absolutely have an update on visual and for mobile friendly wise. Also inclute an information icon with more information is good for the data and pricing table.

    But also what Yigit say the coding is also important. Google has become a lot smarter and more extensive. The coding of a theme is at the moment the most important element to score high in mister Google.. Also rich snippets are a good improvement.

    Greetz Mike

    #924035

    Hi,

    Thank you very much.
    That is true – those effects are amazing we do agree!
    We have also let Kriesi know regarding the post, so he can see and go ahead with what might seems also good!

    We are already working on new elements and what is really good is that ALB does have it API now, that will allow developers create elements!
    We hope we can see some really good examples soon!

    Best regards,
    Basilis

    #924207

    Subscribing to this thread as it’s a great discussion and definitely I have been feeling this way for a while. I keep checking out other themes but really want to stick with Enfold. But it is frustrating to see the focus shift from theme functionality to creating more demos, which is about selling more themes, I get it… however that’s at the expense of better video handling and better mobile handling, especially the menus. I am still reeling from the menu update a few versions ago where the mega menus changed on mobile… I now have to have many sub-menus on mobile for users to access the same info they used to access with one click.

    I have seen more support / faster support lately and the return of Vinay is great to see. It is also really helpful now to see when the next version is coming (to the right, on the forum) and to have changelogs updated as soon as the version comes out so we know what changed. It does seem like you guys are listening so we appreciate that.

    I don’t quite understand the strategy of all the mini-updates (4.2.3, 4.2.4, etc) that don’t really impact user experience but I trust there’s a good reason for this.

    Thanks!!!

    Rob

    #924223

    Longtime Enfold user. I used to be a big promoter as well, but I can’t do that anymore, for the reasons everyone is stating and for some others that I won’t go into here. At some point, no matter how much you like (or used to like) something, when the majority of OUR clients are fed up with the issues…well…the writing is on the wall. Enfold can keep promising that things will get better, but that stops working for OUR clients and reflects really poorly on those of us that recommended this theme to them.

    Just my opinion, but it appears there is a flaw in the business model.

    1. ASKING KRIESI: C’mon, really? This is getting really old and seems like a copout. I’ve never had plugin or theme support where the team said: “let me ask the boss”. The staff is normally empowered to make decisions or to be honest with customers.
    2. MINI UPDATES: What a fiasco. They are MINI, but they still can’t get those right? Are we BETA testing in real-time?
    3. FORUM: It’s the Wild Wild West. I’ve seen issues get passed by, while the “how do I change the color of..” go 35+ responses deep by the moderator and poster. Those of us with actual issues get delayed responses because of all the really basic issues (noise). I had one of my posts hijacked just this week and the moderator stopped responding to me….because he was busy responding to the hijacker.
    4. FORUM / DOCUMENTATION: Rather than building up documentation and a knowledge base, forum moderators continue to entertain the same questions over and over again. At some point, you have to start referring people to documentation. I’d love to see how many hours are wasted answering the same questions over and over.
    4. FEATURE REQUESTS: Useless. There is absolutely no proof that this is doing anything. See #1 above.

    The promises have to stop. Results need to happen. It’s clear that many of us are looking for something other than Enfold.

    #924688

    Really great points… and I’m saddened to see this post was hidden from the list of posts on the Enfold forum. Really disappointing, guys… though it seems to re-appear with my reply.

    And yes, we are beta testing with these mini releases that cause problems without providing ANY user experience benefit. I don’t know why anyone would do these updates — why not just wait for the big update that provides a change to user experience?

    Edit by Kriesi:
    We did not hide this thread in any way. Maybe it just slipped to page 2/3?

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Kriesi. Reason: small clarification ;)
    #924940

    Hi Guys!

    We are pretty much working on all of the things suggested here. More features, faster theme, better documentation, improved template builder, etc
    In our Github repository there are currently 10 Pull requests with new features waiting and we are adding more every week. We have changed our support system internally and are really a lot faster when it comes to responding to requests. When we previously had a queue that was usually around 200 open threads we are now usually at about 50, sometimes even less. We have started this progress about 2 months ago by hiring new team members and changing our internal hierarchy and are still improving our support and the theme. You should reap the benefits in the upcoming months when the new documentation is ready and the new team members are fully integrated.

    About the Mini Updates:

    Unfortunately, in order to improve Enfold the way we want a lot of the core structure has to change, and thats why we are holding back with feature updates. Those are also the reason why we are doing these smaller updates. I get why you feel you are real time beta testing, and to a certain degree this is true. The reason why we are doing those smaller updates, and don’t change everything in one big swoop, is that I don’t feel we can afford to break the theme in a way that affects tens of thousands of users. Unfortunately we also can’t test those changes on 1000 different servers ourselves upfront so we need to let the community test those changes in small doses. And I do agree that it must get frustrating if you are one of the few who are affected by those changes once or more, but I also have to tell you that in general the process has been a success for us, since the few issues that our customers encountered were solved fast, and the number of people affected was minimal.

    Anyways, I hear you and maybe we can implement a BETA testing feature if we need something similar in the future, where users can opt in to those updates. The only immediate solution for everyone affected several times is to skip those smaller patches and wait for the next big one.

    Now a little more detail why we are doing what we are doing:

    Our focus for a long time was to carefully pre-select the best possible options and elements for our users and implement them into the theme. Basically we wanted to only add what benefits the most users and let everything else should be added by plugins or custom code. Since the users base has grown a lot and we got much more niche use cases, we agree with most of our users, that we can no longer go that route. So we will add a lot more options and features, and also improve existing ones.
    In order to not slow down the theme to an unusable degree we want to make every feature and every element optional. And that is unfortunately really tricky and is the cause for those multiple smaller updates, since it involves CSS and JS file creation/compression on the fly.

    To make every option and every template builder element optional we are started splitting up CSS and JS files. This allows us to only load used elements and make sure only necessary JS and CSS is loaded in the front end. We also have added a compression script that bundles all those css and js files into one compressed and minifed version. Next step will be to add an optimization tab in the theme option that allows users to fine tune the optimization themselves. (eg: which level of compression, which files to compress, which elements to exclude, etc) This should also allow us to implement google AMP out of the box. It will also allow us to add any ALB elements that we like, even for niche use cases, since if a user does not need them they will simply not be loaded. Same with additional options: if an option generates a lot of extra CSS or JS we can simply split it up into a new file and it only gets loaded when necessary. That way the only thing we need to take care of is to not make the theme too complicated to use.

    As said before: it will take a little while before you can fully reap the rewards of those changes but Enfold will be a much better theme once they are done. More features, options and demos and at the same time faster and more lean and clean out of the box.

    Regards,
    Kriesi

    #925203

    Thank you for the reply Kriesi,

    It all sounds amazing and its great to hear that you are in active development and have big plans to improve and expand ENFOLD. Might I suggest a couple of points.

    1) Emails – Send us a newsletter a couple of times a year and keep us informed. It sounds like you have loads planned and want to improve ENFOLD is every possible way. Drop us an email from time to time and let us know!
    2) Facebook – I am already a follower of the Facebook page yet a handful of posts last year just doesn’t cut it. I use a theme called Flatsome for my ecommerce websites and they use a private facebook group instead of a support forum, it makes it much easier for users to get support from other flatsome users and their moderators are very active on Facebook throughout the day. They also have a private beta testing group that allows more dedicated users to help install the latest updates and run some tests.

    I honesty think Facebook is the best way forward, with Enfold I find I only visit the forums when I need help with something, where as I am active in the flatsome group because I use facebook throughout the day, I often drop replies and help into flatsome posts simply because they appear in my News feed. Overall support could be improved, workload on your staff could be reduced and it brings the community together better. Also you could add the odd gif showing new features that keeps everyone happy!

    Glad to hear from you and please keep up the fantastic work you do.

    Luke

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Luke86. Reason: wrong word
    #925270

    Hi!

    @Luke86

    Please feel free to join at Facebook
    https://www.facebook.com/groups/WordpressEnfold/

    Where Support Team is also active and we push the updates, news etc.

    Thank you for your understanding – newsletter and blog are also in our plans, but as we said, step by step!

    Cheers!
    Basilis

    #933933

    thanks Kriesi, it is just what I expected from this template and from this work group, a greeting

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