Interspire - Tell me about your experiences
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Gabe,
Looks good but one small thing, prices of over £1000.00 seem to throw off the columns, presumably because of there being a coma (?) after the first digit.
Other than that all seems well. -
thanks dave, i'll fix that today. i'll also be adding full site image ripping.
i'm thinking you all may need an option to choose the iage being ripped, products or ext. info.
meh... i'll have a go. -
Well, that option doesn't bother me, but I guess it would be useful for some. The real bonus would be importing sizes/colours etc from Actinic but I'm thinking that might not be possible!
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OK
1st test site up and running here http://www.plastics4less.co.uk/shop/
Gabe your ripping tool works well, obviously still lots of bits missing but the main product details are all there.
Nice job -
Darren (and anyone else),
What do you think of that theme you are using? I was going to use that as a base for our new site (when I actually get a copy of the software). Any thoughts/issues? -
no, its quite possible.
in fact, i have the spec drawn up, i just have to code it.
:D -
You Sir, are a legend! Could you perhaps code my ass out this office and into the nearest drinking establishment?
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tech about the importer:
at this stage, the impoters actual code is a php file in the same folder of the launcher. the brains of it all. its called:
'default.php'
you can open this in a text editor to see. there is an option for debug mode, that you can set to true of false, to limit the amount of records to 10, for a short test.
set this to false, to get all the products.
later on, there will be more options here, to play with. -
dave_finlayson said:Darren (and anyone else),
What do you think of that theme you are using? I was going to use that as a base for our new site (when I actually get a copy of the software). Any thoughts/issues?
Only just started playing with it, they have plenty of themes that are free to play with, i just picked this for the colours of my test poduct -
designing a theme wasn't hard.
it took me 1 day to do the outer layout for uktactical.
the theme engine for the content publisher, id' dare say is based on exactly the same tech. -
Nice one, I'm no designer but I can hack html no probs so having a decent theme as a starting point certainly helps.
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It is but the drag and drop part is different and perhaps I think better. Its built from blocks of content which can be moved about the same as the ecommerce but you have a panel of modules that can be dragged over into the layout eg twitter feed.the theme engine for the content publisher, id' dare say is based on exactly the same tech
You can also create your own blocks of content eg adding a google gismo - you create a block give it a name and paste in the html then drag it into the layout.
For a non tech person I think its the best Ive ever seen and will give clients almost total control over thier template.
For the designer you can download the template file and do whatever you want.
Im finding that clients want more and more control over thier website and not be limited to simply adding products so Interspire gives them that control in a far simpler way than is possible in Actinic. The name of the game these days is "Agile Design" the days of having a fixed template are over as you need to be able to react quickly to customer demands without having to have an expensive and time consuming template redesign.
Im also finding that its fantastic to be able to work on a clients site which they are doing stuff as well - no more snapshots:D -
WOW - just handing a site over to a client and when creating a user account you can specify what they have acess to down to a very fine level eg I want this client to be able to only add products for the time being. So when they login they only get the product tab - later you can go in ad allow them to do more until they get the full admin level.
This is great for the "slower" client as it introduces one thing at a time making remote training very easy. -
OK have just used gabes tool to import all the data from this site http://www.casupply.co.uk/
to this http://www.plastics4less.co.uk/shop/
only a couple of duplicates found and 3 products not imported. The biggest problem is that it imports data from hidden sections. i can see a snapshot taken and imported to a new site and all the stuff you dont want imported deleted before running the tool. All things said and done there is something like 3400 products extracted and imported in about 15 mins
so Gabriel you should be proud of what you ahve done -
so the import tool thingie works fine for sites with 'straight' products then?
How about products with choices?
I'm guessing that associated products (not that I have any any more :rolleyes: ) are out the window?
permutations? Where there are different prices?
How does the import handle those if, indeed, it can? (yet?)
sorry for a zillion Qs...having another "end of tether" day with Actinic (Vat/Non EU/V9/AssociatedProducts/F*ckUp issue) and have just re-read the latter part of this thread in an attempt to catch up! -
thanks for the feedback, and i'll be adding more features later.
the importer does not do permutations. its a little cimplicated, to build the appropriate feed structure based on what actinic gives us.
there is also a limit in the importer, where hidden sections cannot be hidden via a csv feed. they are created regardless.
he only way i can do it is to detect if all the products inside are hidden, and suitably remove the section. this would mean however, that the products inside would not be imported and then lost into digital oblivion.
iv got a pretty good idea on how to do permutations, but there will be data lost in translation. for example, a permutation associated with a product, is going to be a pig to import the data from.
i'll be able to do simple dropdowns, without a component quite easily, but, more complex configurations may ahve to be done manually. -
please note the comma bug in the prices, before you impor with this alpha version, its not fixed yet.
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Heres another which took about an hour to setup http://www.crazytoners.co.uk/
It will get a new logo and then be populated from a current website -
I could get an actinic site up much faster tbh BUT once interspire is installed you can do a whole lot more and easier. People need designers when using actinic because it's hard to design with - people don't need designers with interspire as much or at all IMO.
I like to offer people sites that they have control over and interspire does that - my prices for websites have dropped to reflect the ease it is to work with interspire. -
Well some bad news - I'm having a dig dong with interspire at the moment. I purchased the software and a support contract from interspire for a client and all went well. The site is up and now I check to see they are able to get software updates, manuals etc etc BUT they cannot.
Interspire now tell me that anything sold through my partner I am responsible for providing support for even though the client purcahsed a support contract from them. This really makes reselling interspire a non starter IMO unless you are intending dealing with a client long term also it does not give me the ability to pass control to the client.
This is very disapponting as for most people it will be cheaper to buy direct and get interspire to do all the work. This will be why there is the White label option built in - designed for designers who like to keep control.
Not a good day - but at least the sun is shining. -
"get interspire to do all the work"
Sounds like that's what they were looking for, tbh.
sneakyspire. -
I had a look at Interspire towards the end of Summer last year and the main reason I didn't opt to use it then was because of the SEO disadvantages. Back then, you set one meta description, one list of meta keywords - and that was that, for every page. Not the end of the world, but not exactly what is wanted.
I like how with Actinic, you can edit the layouts accordingly so your page titles, meta description and meta keywords can be entered automatically depending on various factors. Or you can simply enter them manually. It's quite nice, when it works.
Having sought a suitable alternative to sell more 'complicated' products online (ie. multiple choices/variations, prices, etc,) - there were a couple of carts that stood out, Interspire looks phenomenal now.
Fundamentally, Actinic does what it is intended. Sure, there's several key areas it really needs improved - and technology seems to be moving in the opposite direction, but I still think Actinic's a good thing. Somebody buys the product, we download the order, print the packing list, get it ready for dispatch, print an invoice, slap the labels on, and there you go.
For that reason, I'm going to look at Interspire for creating a new site for such products. More on that in a few weeks. Hopefully by then Gabe will have mastered Act2Int and will be ready to sell some copies:D -
As you say things have moved on and now you can customise every page just like actinic.because of the SEO disadvantages. Back then, you set one meta description, one list of meta keywords - and that was that, for every page
Interestingly I have been doing a few seo tests and Interspire performs as well or better than the same site in Actinic -
I had a long chat with Interspire today and unlike Actinic they are only too willing to tell you where they are going - lots of things going to happen BUT the main one for me is an update to the design area.
They are planning to make it the same as the way thier website publisher work which IMO is THE DOGS BOLLOCKS - if you think the e-commerce designer with drag and drop is good then the newer method will blow you away. Its a single template system which you drag and drop bits about as you can now BUT you can also create blocks of content/html to drag about as you please all withing a very simple editor. VERY Impressive -
Ruralweb said:Well some bad news - I'm having a dig dong with interspire at the moment. I purchased the software and a support contract from interspire for a client and all went well. The site is up and now I check to see they are able to get software updates, manuals etc etc BUT they cannot.
Interspire now tell me that anything sold through my partner I am responsible for providing support for even though the client purcahsed a support contract from them. This really makes reselling interspire a non starter IMO unless you are intending dealing with a client long term also it does not give me the ability to pass control to the client.
This is very disapponting as for most people it will be cheaper to buy direct and get interspire to do all the work. This will be why there is the White label option built in - designed for designers who like to keep control.
Not a good day - but at least the sun is shining.
Does this mean that you are white labelling interspire?
Also, on this page (http://www.interspire.com/partners/index.php - 4th tick) it says that it's support by them? im confused -
Thats the bit that I was confused about TBH and why I made a mistake.it says that it's support by them? im confused
The way it works is that when you sell/setup a website via your partner portal AND pay the reduced support fee for that licence then YOU and NOT the client gets support access.
The system is very good now Ive got my head round it - the white labeling is total and soon there will be an option to insert your own logo into the admin and help panels so that its branded to your company.
Its a bit of a foolproof system - you can charge a support fee and whatever you cannot answer Interspire will help.
On the other hand if you just want to sell the software then the affiliate programe will generate income.
You just need to decide which way you want to direct potential clients. All my clients are on support contracts which will carry over to Interspire once thier websites are converted from Actinic -
Right, got you. So the support is 'funnelled' through you (if they purchase it).
Been reading this idea thread on interspires website (http://ideas.interspire.com/pages/3499-general/suggestions/129103-change-the-interspire-upgrade-policy). There seems to be some very unhappy people.
How does this compare to Actinic as I have only used v8 and v9 and didn't have to pay anything extra (cover customer). But looking at that thread you would need to pay extra (50% for maintenance subscribers, and full price for non maintenance subscribers) for any major updates (e.g. v4 to v5) -
There will always be people who complain about having to pay for anything! - the price for "cover" for the pro version is $199 which is significantly less than actinic. Pro equates to business plus multi user for which Actinc will charge you £150 setup fee and £595 pa SO even if you have to pay 50% of the full price for a major upgrade it is significantly less than Actinic.
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The comparison is not so favourable for current Actinic users who not have Actinic Cover.
It is certainly a factor that would need to considered when choosing between Actinic and Interspire.
Personally I don't particularly like the idea of being forced into a maintenance contract just to receive minor updates and bug fixes. -
I think part of the problem with actinic is that they dont force people to purchase cover so there is pressure on them to come up with new versions that they hope people will upgrade to - so there is always pressure on them to be working to the next version rather than getting a steady income and releasing smaller more frequent updates.
This business model also trashed the actinic forum IMO as it was flooded with people wanting free support. people who use software that is being continually worked on should pay to support it IMO and if $199pa is a significant amount to people then I would shut shop and try something else because in the grand scheme of things it is peanuts.
You also need to consider that actinic needs a pretty hefty PC to run it - Interspire can run on a mobile phone or a 10 year old PC so there is another cost that needs factoring in if you are looking at the big picture. -
Ruralweb said:There will always be people who complain about having to pay for anything! - the price for "cover" for the pro version is $199 which is significantly less than actinic. Pro equates to business plus multi user for which Actinc will charge you £150 setup fee and £595 pa SO even if you have to pay 50% of the full price for a major upgrade it is significantly less than Actinic.
I ways take comments with a pinch of salt. People are always to quick to complain.
Also, the prices they mention on their site, are they Australian dollars or US dollars? (I hope they are Austrailian dollars) -
Now Im working with multiple clients Ive been playing with the templates and how to pass new designs to clients.
It very clever and works a bit like an upgraded V7 for those who new how that worked!. Each template has separate files all contained in a separate folder - no mixing of template css etc like actinic.
These folders can be downloaded and worked on in DW - when uploaded the changes are made to the existing design. Now the clever bit - if you download the template folder and rename it you can change the design and upload the new folder. This then shows as a new design available in the clients control panel - with a single click they can enable the design and the site is changed in seconds. This is very usefull if you want to change your design slightly to match seasons etc you just build up a selection of templates and apply them when you want. -
one other good point is the support from interspire itself. When you submit a ticket in your client center it is recorded there together with any replies from interspire so you always have a record of every conversation you have with them.
the tickets allow you to attach files and securely submit ftp details if required. its all very slick and ive always had a responce within 12 hours and every question answered to my satisfaction. -
Heres another site just started today with a few example products http://www.alittleofwhatyoufancy.co.uk/
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i'm having a really shitty time getting their quickbooks integration to work.
its a nightmare.
as i'm told, by their nice front desk chaps, its not a heavily tested feature. in fact they could find no businesses that are using it.
i feel that having this feature in their lists is not a good idea. :(
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