New WHMCS template coming any time soon?

[gei]

The WHMCS client area and order form themes are - without sugar coating it - extremely ugly and outdated.

There are 3rd party themes that improve this like the one from Lagom, but considering the absolutely astronomical price increases that WHMCS has had over the last few years, isn't this something that WHMCS should be fixing themselves? Where is all this money going?

Is there any plan on making WHMCS look any better in the near future? Or should we expect that the only added "features" will be centered around extracting more money from clients (ie Marketplace additions that no one wants)?

[bear]

2 hours ago, gei said:

should we expect that the only added "features" will be centered around extracting more money from clients (ie Marketplace additions that no one wants)?

I think we all know the answer to that. 

[Slaweally]

It's good to see that I wasn't the one who thought that whmcs started to deteriorate after it was sold years ago. Years ago, when I saw that cPanel whmcs plesk was all connected to the same company, I wrote a comment on Twitter and they blocked me 🙂

If we come to the subject, I think whmcs will now continue on the marketplace, and even gradually force users to completely attract users to the market. In short, for users, I think they are applying intimidation and hate policy. Maybe they are doing it unconsciously, but users think about it.

[bear]

3 hours ago, Slaweally said:

they are applying intimidation and hate policy

I don't agree with that. 
They're operating under a parent company, one that demands revenue increases without any major expenditures where possible (based on observation). That makes the focus more on the marketplace, since some users will avail themselves of it, increasing revenue, even if just a little. They don't spend as much time/effort on new included features or fixes, since that has no discernable income generation and isn't in the budget. 
Any corporation or VC company I've ever worked with behaves this way, and the folks under them have to produce or be replaced, generally. In that process, we lose the friendly "this will make our users happy" that used to exist, in favor of "this will make the owners/shareholders happy". A shame, but that's the way these things go. It's only when it goes much too far that the reality shifts and things improve for the user.
Or it's sold off. One of those. 

[Slaweally]

12 hours ago, bear said:

I don't agree with that. 
They're operating under a parent company, one that demands revenue increases without any major expenditures where possible (based on observation). That makes the focus more on the marketplace, since some users will avail themselves of it, increasing revenue, even if just a little. They don't spend as much time/effort on new included features or fixes, since that has no discernable income generation and isn't in the budget. 
Any corporation or VC company I've ever worked with behaves this way, and the folks under them have to produce or be replaced, generally. In that process, we lose the friendly "this will make our users happy" that used to exist, in favor of "this will make the owners/shareholders happy". A shame, but that's the way these things go. It's only when it goes much too far that the reality shifts and things improve for the user.
Or it's sold off. One of those. 

They don't realize that they are losing users while gaining shareholders. maybe they are trying to keep the profit rate stable by putting the power they lost on the customers they retained because many users now hated whmcs and switched to alternatives.
This migration is increasing day by day. I don't know about other systems, but Wisecp has started to have a lot of influence in this market and they care more about their customers than whmcs, which has become a monopoly.

I can honestly say that whmcs is bringing its own end every year with this kind of price increase and no development.

[Slaweally]

1 minute ago, Slaweally said:

They don't realize that they are losing users while gaining shareholders. maybe they are trying to keep the profit rate stable by putting the power they lost on the customers they retained because many users now hated whmcs and switched to alternatives.
This migration is increasing day by day. I don't know about other systems, but Wisecp has started to have a lot of influence in this market and they care more about their customers than whmcs, which has become a monopoly.

I can honestly say that whmcs is bringing its own end every year with this kind of price increase and no development.

I agree with your example, for example, they released a big update like 8.12 and look at the new features;

What's new in WHMCS 8.12
This version includes the following new features and functionality:

    Scheduled Actions for Support Tickets - Simplify and automate your support ticket follow-ups with scheduled actions
    Support Ticket Pinning - Keep priority support tickets at the top of your ticket queues
    Admin Invites - Simplify onboarding and increase security with the ability to invite new team members
    MarketConnect SSL Promotional Updates - Changes to client area promotional content and messaging that increases sales and conversions
    Scaling Quantities API Updates - Improved support for scaling quantities in products and addons
    OPcache Warnings - Proactive warnings when OPcache is enabled

They really make fun of existing users. They don't care about those who have been on the wish list for years.

[bear]

5 hours ago, Slaweally said:

many users now hated whmcs and switched to alternatives.
This migration is increasing day by day

This I also doubt. I know of some users they've lost, but my knowledge of this is limited to those that vocally (and loudly) stated it, as I have no inside track to knowing the true numbers. I'd suggest you don't either.  
Your statement doesn't take into account the users they've gained (which is also a guess), and those that understand the billing system does a lot of things that simplify operations while having the downside of the marketplace stuff, forced telemetry, and an annoying and confusing user/client system. Overall, it's more complete than many of the competitors, though bloated. 

As for your list for 8.12? 5 of the 6 are functional changes and not marketplace. Not all will find them useful, but at least it's mainly core operations and not more chipping away at services many of us offer. I suspect that's coming, in this product, as well as eventually in the control panels they own. There are lines that haven't yet been crossed. Time will tell. 

[Slaweally]

1 hour ago, bear said:

This I also doubt. I know of some users they've lost, but my knowledge of this is limited to those that vocally (and loudly) stated it, as I have no inside track to knowing the true numbers. I'd suggest you don't either.  
Your statement doesn't take into account the users they've gained (which is also a guess), and those that understand the billing system does a lot of things that simplify operations while having the downside of the marketplace stuff, forced telemetry, and an annoying and confusing user/client system. Overall, it's more complete than many of the competitors, though bloated. 

As for your list for 8.12? 5 of the 6 are functional changes and not marketplace. Not all will find them useful, but at least it's mainly core operations and not more chipping away at services many of us offer. I suspect that's coming, in this product, as well as eventually in the control panels they own. There are lines that haven't yet been crossed. Time will tell. 

My statements in this way do not mean that I hate WHMCS :) Since I am here yet, I am using whmcs.

What I'm talking about is that whmcs thinks itself indispensable in this sector and risks losing its customers at the expense of making a little more money.

I mean, they are not focusing on the needs of real users, but on what can make them money. but the truth of the matter is that it has always been real users who bring them money.

 

[Huslua]

I get where you're coming from – the default WHMCS themes are definitely outdated and not the prettiest. I’ve been using WHMCS for a while now, and I honestly find it a bit frustrating that they haven’t made any major updates to the design. I know there are third-party themes like Lagom that can help, but when you consider the rising costs of WHMCS, it feels like they should be addressing this themselves. It almost seems like they’re more focused on adding features that push extra costs, like the Marketplace, rather than improving the core user experience. At this point, I’m not sure if a redesign is coming anytime soon.

[bear]

I take it no one considers making their own theme based on one of the default ones? It's what we'd done. Probably not as fancy as Lagom, but free is good, too. 

[gei]

57 minutes ago, bear said:

I take it no one considers making their own theme based on one of the default ones? It's what we'd done. Probably not as fancy as Lagom, but free is good, too. 

We've certainly considered this, but given they have raised their prices astronomically, you'd think they would put some effort into it themselves.

[bear]

13 hours ago, gei said:

We've certainly considered this, but given they have raised their prices astronomically, you'd think they would put some effort into it themselves.

I'd say that's a fair thought, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Historically it's been really low priority, with more of a "this new way we do things won't work in that existing template very well" causing a template release, and not a "let's make a new template for our users just to be nice". They have to answer to the bottom line here, so minimal attention given to the "small stuff".