v2.5 Comments to Matt (4 month customer)

[xxkylexx]

A great job on Matt's part for v2.5. This is indeed a Complete Solution for a cPanel/WHM hosting business. WHMCS has been a great contributor toward the success of my business, and I want to thank you for that.

 

With that said, I would also like to comment that v2.5 still has alot of work to be done. Although the stable release was made, it still needs to be fine tuned alot and is still quite buggy.

 

My only concern with WHMCS that I would like to express is that it will one day become too overloaded with features to the point where it becomes like alot of the other management software out there today.

 

I would highly suggest that you (Matt) take your time with v2.5. Spend alot of time building and perfecting this version and keeping things stable before you even think about a v2.6. As far as I am concerned, with the features supplied with v2.5, I don't ever see a need for a v2.6 for a very very long time. Adding small things such as new payment gateways, etc is still great, but I don't see a need to keep adding any more major features.

 

I hope you take these comments into consideration and help keep WHMCS the great product that it is.

 

Regards,

Kyle

[MACscr]

First I want to thank Matt as as well for all his hard work on WHMCS and specifically 2.5. It does have its bugs, but i think its a large step up from 2.4 as far as features that I needed.

 

Now to respond to xxkylexx's comments:

Maybe you dont needing other features, but others might need them. Since we cant edit the source and make our own modifications that maybe we only need, we are at the mercy of Matt and just have to request the feature. The larger WHMCS grows (in popularity), more flexibility/features will be needed.

 

The fact that WHMCS is soon going to support different control panels other than cpanel/whm proves that point exactly. LOL, its even called WHMCS and soon directadmin support will be available.

 

If needed features arent available or cant be created by the user, then you will see customers having to look for alternative billing systems. A business should never let a peice of software or any tool, structure how it does business. This is exactly the reason why MB came out with the MBAPI and has restructured to use smarty throughout the entire system. MB has all kinds of other problems, but thats not what im talking about here.

 

WHMCS is awesome, but without being able to run my business the way i want to and in the most productive manner, I will eventually have to develop my own inhouse system. I know Matt doesnt want WHMCS to be just a stepping stone for a hosting company, but a complete solution that they can grow with.

[strategy]

I agree. I wouldn't have upgraded if I had known that 2.5 had so many open issues. It seems like the forums are just full of people finding new bugs and users trying to help solve them. I can't even create accounts with 2.5, so I'm stuck doing it manually until that is fixed. Matt is aware and working on it, tho.

 

I was very happy with 2.4 and it was rock solid. That's what made me switch to WHMCS. With 2.5, I'm seeing too many bugs being identified that should have been handled before the stable release. I'll stick with it because I kow Matt will fix whatever issues come up, but I'm certainly not as excited as I was when it was announced. I kind of wish I had 2.4 back.

 

I've also noticed Matt's absence in the forums and even though my tickets are answered, they were answered much faster in the months before 2.5 was released.

 

I'm confident that all of this will smooth out, but it's just taking a longer time than I'd hoped.

[Matt]

I've also noticed Matt's absence in the forums and even though my tickets are answered, they were answered much faster in the months before 2.5 was released.

 

I'm currently on vacation which is the reason for less activity on the forums and slower ticket responses. Normal service will be resumed next week.

 

Matt

[xxkylexx]

@MACscr. Perhaps Matt too could come up with some type of developer tools (API)? Or is that something that is restricted by this encoded system?

[coffee23]

Hi,

 

Why not then Matt just bring out the most requested features as downloadable addons, then if we want to use them we can download/install, but if not we don't.

 

As with v2.6 that could just include all the bug fixes in one download.

 

I don't know if anything like that would/could work out, but it got to be worth a though.

[MACscr]

He could, but he would have to almost do a complete rewrite. It would be best for him to switch to a OOP style programming, with 100% smartiezed output. That includes the admin area. That means that their would be absolutely no markup in php files. With an organized api and smarty templating, he could allow 95% of his code to be available to developers and still encode the remaining core files. Do you really think large players like MB and Kayako would do this without knowing what they were doing? All he has to do is make sure the rest of the code relies on those few encoded files to function. Without those files and license checks, their copy wouldnt work. If I truely wanted to copy WHMCS, I wouldnt have to have any access to the code. I could just spend $2k-$5k on a programmer that could duplicate the functionality in 60 days and recoup my fees and turn a profit in 6-12 months. There is absolutely nothing special about the code or programming that Matt does, he is just really good at putting together features that users and and in a fashion where they can easily use it. I didnt choose to use WHMCS for my companies because of its features, but because of its ease of use and dedication of Matt.

[MACscr]

I just want to add that I am not at all against commercial software, im a huge backer of it. I dont think all software should be free like some do as well. I just like to have the ability to customize it to my businesses needs. Here is another angle, lets say I buy it (im leasing now) and God forbid something happens to Matt or he quits. Yes, maybe he has a backup plan for licensing to continue to work, but who is going to fix all the bugs in the encoded files or cpanel upgrades and whmcs no longer works? Were all screwed then.

 

This product is young and the community is young, but we still spend countless of hours giving free support to each other. Why not pay us back by letting us use WHMCS to its fullest potential? By doing this, we can help fix those bugs for you and also make additions for WHMCS. That only brings in more clients to you and thus brings in more money. We already do your beta testing for free. =P

[thernes]

MACscr, I totally agree on your thoughts here. I have a couple of other scripts on other projects I've been working on. Only a few of the core files are encoded and the freedom this gies you as a developer is great. I also think if Matt decided to to this, it would lift this project to new heights. It would become so much easier to add "hacks" and modules and you could baiscally cutomize the script anyway you want it.

[Harrison]

Maybe Matt should start to hire one or two more staff, to help with support tickets, etc.

 

Having an API system would be nice though. It would mean easier intergration with custom modules.

[thebyp2]

i also would like to add my congratulations about a rather nice bit of kit. I have licenses for all the major players but prefer this over and above because its just so easy to use.

 

Now, in terms of critisims, it would appear there are many bugs floating aroud, and perhaps the choice of release date should have been moved to after he got back from holiday. Also, maybe matt should take up the offers to respond to tickets, especially the sales ones.

 

There are a lot of skills on this board, and he may do well to use them.

 

Lastly, keep it bloat free. The addons option sounds like a really good one.