How many people are still using WebsiteBaker?

[Boudi]

I close this topic for obvious reasons. This is a public forum. Help each other and respect each other. Thank you.

[Gast]

Im Gegensatz zu dir mach ich hier noch was und schwing nicht nur große Reden, die keinen interessieren. Die Tatsache allein, das du da nach 3 Monaten wieder auskramst, um mal wieder auszuteilen, beweist doch schon, welcher Sinn dahinter steckt.

Wenn du englisch sprechen willst, dann mach das und wenn es niederländisch ist, auch egal - das ist ein internationales Forum, ob es dir gefällt oder nicht.

[Tez Oner]

@jacobi22

Can't you stop ranting - again and again - (and it's even off-topic) about the 'language barrier'
every time. Have some private conversation or some like that - it's been made clear that WB needs
to be more 'international' orientated if it want's to survive as a CMS.

Think everybody knows you didn't grew up with the English language, but with German and Russian,
but it's 2016 - awake 

Keeps the topic what it's about - or contribute somethings constructive, WB is a powerful CMS with
that got possibilities - but that depends on the community.

And yeh also again launched another WB website - for me tho I also work with Magento and other
mayor systems WB is still the tool for medium and some big websites.

Cheerz,

Tez Oner

[Abanksy]

I think the point of a very first question was not that WB is dying because it is not good enough anymore, but that it's fading because of strong competitors, that displace it from the league. Each CMS has its pluses and minuses. Both WB and WordPress are very convenient and powerful content management systems, but let's face it, now WP is more relevant. 
WordPress is known worldwide and more successful. If you ask any person who is just slightly acquainted with web building to name one CMS, the first one in his mind would be WordPress. Because now it's everywhere, and people prefer to use it because it's easy.  Look at any templates or themes marketplace, the majority of ready web dev solutions is based on WP. I agree with the point that WB will be more 'active' if to use English by default.  Of course it's better to communicate in your native language. And if your clients from all over the world know German, it's super. But I believe that majority don't. So using more English can be not that bad idea.

[Tez Oner]

@jacobi22

I think your (again) pulling things pretty much out of proportions, we had this language
discussions earlier and filling up the forum with such (personal) issues doesn't seem to
contribute much to the discussion, you don't come with constructive solutions IMO.

All the time with german / russian issues? It - is - of course constructive, for longer term
to translate also core files to english thats language any developer can speak / code and
gives developers changes to develop new code on WB.

But thats my opinion

Cheerz,

Tez Oner

(And I'm yeh still developing on WB, that was the topic about right).

[sky writer]

WB is the ONLY CMS I have ever used for website development for my clients, and I intend to continue as long as I can.  I tried many of the others in my early search for a tool that felt good in my hands.  Some looked prettier, many were much more popular, but none felt just right, simple as that.  And then I found this forum full of positive, like-minded people from around the world, who seemed eager to help each other, and my decision was made.  Few of those particular people are still seemingly active with WB or on the forum, all for their own reasons, which I respect.  I've felt the tug over the years to try another CMS, whether it be a WB fork or one of the big names, but it just hasn't felt right to me.  Maybe someday I will look back at all this time I have struggled through my early development days and say "What were you thinking?!", but I have always been of the mind, if something is broken, you fix it.  You don't throw things away just to buy the next shiny new toy on the shelf.

I'm also a lover not a fighter.  That said, I can find points to agree with on both sides.  I voiced some of my thoughts on a similar thread back in January of this year - http://forum.websitebaker.org/index.php/topic,27938.msg194760.html#msg194760
I was hopeful that I might be able to find a way to spark or reignite camaraderie toward a common goal.  I was obviously naive and didn't realize the depth of the issues.  Surely, this will not degrade to a debate of who is selfless vs. who is selfish.

All people have needs.  From my experiences in life, most people don't realize what those needs truly are.  But GIVING is the one need, which when exercised, brings the greatest fulfillment.  We all have limits and responsibilities which restrain our time, but none of us are incapable of finding way to give.  As far as WB is concerned, that could be devoting time to discussing positive ideas to further development, developing a module, testing a module, providing detailed feature request suggestions, or yes, even 'donating' to a developer.  Even constructive criticism is a form of giving, but it's an empty offering when not accompanied by some form of suggestion or forward thinking idea toward improvement.

My call to action in my above linked post - "If there is anyone who wants to start working on even just one aspect they feel is lacking or a weakness, let's see what we can do as a community.  I don't want to continue to just sit back while members walk out the door.", was met with the rousing sound of crickets.  So, I will keep trying.

We need to be more efficient.  We need to grow.  We need to work together.  Here's someplace we can start - When an added module functionality is requested in the forum, instead of the amazingly helpful developers energy and time being spent on typing scattered forum replies offering code snippets to hack individual installations of the module (a post which all to often gets lost in the abyss, or at the very least, obscured by the multitude of development thread tangents), we need to embrace that moment in time when there is momentum and passion around a topic to strengthen the core of that module, and see it through to a new version.  We should try to refrain from bickering and stalling, and think, "why are we all here?".  I'm not saying that the helpful developer should necessarily be the one to do all the work to update every module there are request for.  If there is an active developer on that module, it would be nice if  they took note and pride in furthering the usefulness of their offering.  If there is no active module developer, perhaps we could have some "wranglers" who would be willing to piece these bits of refreshing code together and breath new life into stagnant developments, helping to build strength into the WB brand and family.  I'm not sure what the best approach would be, but anything would be better than nothing.

Oh, I forgot to mention.  I'm also a dreamer.

Peace to all.

[Argos]

Sure everyone has a life besides contributing to an open source project. But what's that to me or other users? Private stuff always competes with work stuff, that's life. People get ill, have accidents, get divorced, loose jobs, there are deaths, etc. All bad things that naturally come first to the people involved. Of course! But the truth is, it's not of any concern to the users. If there are only 1 or 2 devs working on the core, and they have all kinds of s*** happening, that's sad for them. And if they have arguments and fights all the time among each other, that is sad and bad as well. And if online project collaboration is not running smoothly, it's also a bad thing. In the end it all gets in the way of project progress. And if that continues for a long time, an open source project will get behind and become less interesting for its users. I feel a bit sad that WB has come to this stage, but on the other hand, only real life matters. Software comes and goes. Maybe WB has come to the end of its life, and maybe it can be revived, I don't know. It's not even important in the bigger scheme of things.

I'm a site builder for clients. I just need a proper tool to build professional sites. WB has been my first and only choice for many, many years, I loved it so I have done my contributions to it. But WB is not my child or my wife, it's just a tool. And the tool has seen very little progress in functional development. I hasn't kept up with the demands of the industry. I cannot change that, so I have to choose another tool. It's as simple as that.

I can't code, so I have to rely on devs to build a modern core and modern addons. I don't care if something is code or addon. That's totally irrelevant for me as a site creator. I just need to be able to create what I want without too much fuss and without heavy custom coding. And I cannot do it with WB anymore. Maybe some future WB version can, I hope so!

On topic: the question was "How many people are still using WebsiteBaker?" The answer is that there are still many people using it. But that's actually not very important. More important is: how many people will use WB in the future? The answer is: that number will become smaller and smaller if nothing drastically changes. I don't say that to annoy or seek a fight, on the contrary. I wish WB and its developers all the best. But it's just how I see it. So by keeping the focus on the few good things of WB (the small footprint, the simplicity of the backend, and the easy creation of templates), you only fool yourself. It's far more constructive and better to focus on what's NOT good. Because that is the ONLY way to improvement. Closing discussions and topics about what's not good about WB, or ignoring those facts and only focussing on good things, is a sure road to the final end of the project.

[Gast]

By the way, even WB has proven to be too complicated for most of my customers, and most of them let me do their content work every now and then. I have used WB on many dozens of client sites in the past, and only one of them did and still does his own content. All the others outsourced it to me.

exactly the opposite here: 112 WB-Installations and only 6 of them let me do the work with the content. and for the others, the simple backend was the main reason for using WB.
Maybe i can make a lot of money, if i tell them, wb is dead, use WP and pay for me, if i change your content, but its not my way.
this 106 wb-users works the whole time with wb and say's: its good enough for my project, its easy enough to change a price for a coffee shop two times in a year or add a new actress-job in a wysiwyg-section, why should i pay for that? i can do it by myself! And they do it....

of course, i lost some of the customers to WP, if i've to say, this or that functionality is not possible, but i can write a module - no, i take a free WP-Addon....thats life.... on the other side i win customers from typo3 or joomla, and their are realy happy with the simple backend 

every project need the best solution and sometimes WB is not the best if you need some professional functionalitys like a big shop system etc.
we have a lot of very good pages on WB-Core-Base (fork or "classic" wb - doesnt matter)
i remember to chio's words - the user or visitor has no interest to take a look under the hood in front- or backend - here is my idea - is it possible with wb - yes or no?

Sure, you can buy a cool HTML/CSS template at Themeforest or Templatemonster, and make it into a WB site. But that's it. There are no out of the box usable news, blog, gallery, and contact modules, let alone built-in page builders and modules for all kins of advanced website functionalities.

is this a part of the core development? i think: no
i see no addon development, we've only a handfull newer and free modules / module version in the last two or three years, members  &&  topics from chio, bakery from freeSbee and Ruud's modules. Its very easy to say: we need, we need, but who will spend his spare time?
look here, to the forks or to other small systems: you have 2-3 workers for the core and 2-3 addon developer and with a little luck, their are not the same people, everybody has a job, a family etc.
WP has a very big comunity with millions of users and its possible to found there more addon developer like here

[N1kko]

I understand people find WP complicated but add in Visual Composer and you get a real easy to edit site, and once you show a client how to use it everything falls into place. I have been using CMS Pro before WP which is very user-friendly but unfortunately costs $40 on codecanyon but well worth a look as support is great and it also has some great modules.

If WB was updated and more modules I would have stuck with it as I used it for every clients site.

[Argos]

And that is exactly what is wrong with WB. It has not been kept up to date with website progress. In the old days WB was sufficient for most websites, because most websites were relatively simple. But professional websites have become more and more complex. WB doesn't have the tools to create the kind of sites the average business owner wants.

Sure, you can buy a cool HTML/CSS template at Themeforest or Templatemonster, and make it into a WB site. But that's it. There are no out of the box usable news, blog, gallery, and contact modules, let alone built-in page builders and modules for all kins of advanced website functionalities.

So WB has become a tool for only the most simple, semi-static sites.

I agree the WB admin is way more easy to understand for clients than WP and other CMS'es. But in the end it's primarily the frontend functions that matters, not the backend. While WP is not as user friendly as WB in many respects, it is way more advanced, the community and available addons are enormous, and it offers all the tools and options to create both simple and advanced professional websites.

It is unrealistic to think WB will catch up with WP, but if WB (either original or a fork) can catch up to at least some higher level that offers all functions required for creating a general professional website, it still has a chance of survival and use other than for the most simple low budget semi-static sites.

By the way, even WB has proven to be too complicated for most of my customers, and most of them let me do their content work every now and then. I have used WB on many dozens of client sites in the past, and only one of them did and still does his own content. All the others outsourced it to me. Go figure. So actually I wonder if a simple backend is that important for customers anyway. The most important aspect of a CMS is not an easy backend for end users, but (potential) power and flexiblilty in design, administration and functionality for website builders. Joomla's backend is a disaster, and that is one of its pitfalls. WP's backend (as well as WB's backend) is partly user friendly, and partly not so. But it's enough to survice and grow. But it's the potential, the power, and the possibilities (by using themes and addons) that count. That is why WP has become leader of the pack, and WB is stumbling along. WB's so called ease of use and simplicity has actually become just a lack of features and possibilities.

I hope this post won't be deleted, because criticism and open discussions about shortcomings will only be beneficial for WB as a community driven system. Removing posts like this will hinder progress and community support. We'll see what happens...

[Gast]

What's the point using something that is so outdated?

i think, the handling in the backend for beginners.
i work also with wp and i make it possible for my customers, to try both systems. the most of them are realy beginners or started with 1-click-construction-kits like jimbo, some mouse-clicks and a editor, finish is the page. their using only small projects with 10-20 pages, some pictures, a contact-form, maybe a guestbook, dont need dynamic content like the last twitter- or facebook-post etc. my customers are private persons or little company's and change the content max 2-4 times in a year.
the work in the backend of wb or his forks is very easy to learn and you remember, what you have to do, when you coming back one year later. for my customers wp looks too complexe, too much to learn, too much to forget, wb (or other small systems) are enough for this job

With Wordpress the possibilities are endless

yes, if you need this possibilitys 

[N1kko]

I moved to Wordpress around 1 year ago. What's the point using something that is so outdated? WB has been dead a long time, also modules are no longer updated or supported.

With Wordpress the possibilities are endless 

[Gast]

actualy we have only a handfull of addons with this safe select's

it means: that the addons working together with new and next PHP-versions and also in mysql-strict-mode

safe-to-work in WB, not unsafe in the sense of a Security Announcement

[Gast]

and my 0,02% (as a german speaker)

i've only german speaking customers. They coming from the caribian island, from spain, canada or malaysia (and also from the german speaking country's austria, switzerland and germany). All of them are native germans or german speakers and all of them talk with me in german. Noboby will talk in the "internet language" english. One of the customers comes from kuweit and of course, he talks in english with me, but why? his native language is arabian and he ask me "can you talk in arabian please? its easyer to explain something in my native language...". We're looking for a common ground and english was the solution to talk
And if you are a russian, you talk russian with your russian customers and a guy from the nederlands talk nederlands with his customers from there (i was living two years there and also a little longer in sweden), i know a little bit about the language problems
i was born in the gdr and learn english in the scool for 3 years (from 1975 - 1978), but i dont need english there. favorite foreign language there was russian. i was a good russian speaker at this time and it was planned for me to go to moscow for a studium over 6 years. No problems for me, we have a lot of russian army people here and i was often the translator. But then i found my wife and she say NO to the studium, so i stay here in germany and i dont use the russian language since this time. Today i have two russian physiotherapeuts and understood nothing if they talk in her native language.
i know, a lot of german users have the same problem, learning a foreign language in the scool and dont use it over 30 and more years.
my kiddies starting with english in the scool with 8 years and learn it over 10 years in scool and highscool, they reading english book and looking english tv, so thats no problem to talk or write english only in a forum like this.

from my point you must make a different between a user support and a development for the core or addons - development language is english and nobody has a problem with this. i build also some addons, but my english is not good enough to start a discussion about a new idea in english only. For a description of a module i can use a translator or write it in my bad english, but if somebody send a special answer maybe to a better way in a function inside of my addon, its not possible to understood for me (sometime)
so i've two possible way's: talk in my native language or put all in the trash 
i use the first way and talk and test with german speakers, but on private way's (PN or email) and not more here in the forum. Maybe, if everything is finish, you can show a new addon here in the general area, maybe....

in april/may we have here a big discussion about this problem and one result of this was a the order, that the "general heading" is the main division for developements of the core and addons, so that we have not longer development discussion in the foreign languages subforen.
the target is, that the most people using this general area for their question around wb, doesnt matter, what the problem is.
we know, that the most of the WB-Users are non-german-speakers and coming from all over the world, but we have also a lot of users in the four languages in the language specific support
a user, who speaks only his native language, needs a place to ask, if he has a problem and if he talk only in italian or in german, it doesnt matter, that he use the general area or one of the language specific forums
with the upgrade of the forum here and the new structure, we see, that a lot of the german-only-speaker use private way's to solve the problems and every time you found the question in the mail "i think, its not longer allowed to post a german question in the wb-forum" and thats also a problem: if the user is thinking, here is not the right place for a "german" question, he search for another place or way.
And thats way i say, you need a different between development and user support.
A lot of other systems try "english only forums", but all of them has problems, if their has (maybe) a big foreign language speakers comunity. the most of them has language specific subforen now

This will probably be deleted anyway.

and why?
its a clean formulated opinion without attack on a special person like other postings in the last time (wb is dead, using wp, its better, chief developer is stupid etc...), i'm sure, that nobody here has a problem with your post

we know, that it was a problem, that the wb 2.8.4 was not going online immediately  after the problem was solved in the begin of the last year. problem was the rebuild of the access-files for the news-posting (if used). in this time, it was correct, to search for a better solution for the rebuild, one day or one week, it doesnt matter. my problem is, that nobody see the problems around this time. i remember, that we talk about wb over 3-4 ours on every chrismas day, i remember, that i stay on the phone on the sylvester day from 20.00 - 23.00, i remember, that here starts a s***storm, that Dietmar (Luisehahne) has minimum one hearth attact and a little bit later a stroke, that Darkviper lost one or both parents and i remember, that we all here make our "wb-work" in our freetime after the normal job, after the family, homework etc.
its a hobby, not more. And if you have only two developers and you lost both of them in the same time, you have a problem, everywhere.

At the point, it a simple question: has a developer the right to a private life

yes, from today's perspective it was the wrong way with the 2.8.4, but the intention was correct (in this day's), searching for a better, a safe way to upgrade all wb-variants to 2.8.4.  Now it is too late to start a discussion about the "old times", its not possible to going back and start in another direction.
a lot of people was angry about the long time and i understood, why.
i lost any of my customers because of that discussions (wb are dead, no more development etc) and also because i work with the wb 2.8.4 ( we need a official version, not a test-version, if we change the web-agentur, nobody knows this 2.8.4), but you must know, the most of the angry users here are professional webdesigners and builds a lot of wb-installation every year and maybe, their have a fear because the future of their work. Everyone earns his money with WebsiteBaker and the developer has to build the base for that in his spare time - immediately 

of course, i'm not happy with the actual situation, but i cannot change this. i can build a module or template, but not the core - i need a developer for that! I'm sure, the most people here cannot develope a cms core, maybe two or three or four, but not more
And if i need another human to earn my money, its not helpfull, if i start personal attack's to this person. i use my phone, skype, PN or mail and ask: whats happend?

i think, everyone should try to put themselves in the position of the developer

• Are you ready to spend your spare (or life-) time for wb?
• Are you ready to receive all the personal attack's from other users if you are not fast enough?
• Are you ready to put your WB-Development before your family?
• Are you ready to to receive some critical comment about your work in the core?

a simple example....
since 2011 or 2012 we have here coding instruction for database select's to make it safer (see here), but nobody read this or use it in the modules. actualy we have only a handfull of addons with this safe select's. i understudd, that its not possible, to rebuild all the modules in the same time, but for a new addon version?
as a chief developer you have to look at all of this, you are also legally responsible, if your code are not safe, but if you say: hey, your addon is not safe, please use our instructions for the code, the answer is a s***storm
i, for my part, ask, why i need backthicks for the fieldnames and why i need a masked variable-names in a select and if i understood the answer not correct, i ask again. i have to learn it for myself, for my next addon, for my job. but in this time, when i learn it and repair my own addons, i dont earn some money and i think, thats the problem: nobody will spend the time to learn.
For me, it doesnt matter, learning one time, using in the future the next years - its not a personal attack from a developer to give me some work, its a international standard.

Nobody has the idea in the job, to go a own and different way from the company instructions. if the car factory say's: we're using 8 airbags now to make the the car safety, its not possible for the worker to build in only one of them. But here, its possible to ignore the instructions, its possible to say: we dont need coding standards, i go my own way - take the module or leave it

the wb-core btw full package has ca 4000 files and in the most of them are old db-select like this, so it needs any time to fix the old code to make it safe and possible to work in mysql-strict mode, to build in a new translate class working together with the actual language standards and change all calls in this 4000 files, to build a new secure form and implement it into every form and and and.....

[CodeALot]

I didn't read the german posts

Many people don't. Personally, I still think WB could have been so much more popular, 'active', with many more people contributing if everyone involved would agree to use English by default always, everywhere. In modules, in forums, in documentation.

No potential module developer, no potential themes developer will ever be interested in a CMS if he finds the core-group communicating in German if he/she can't read that. (And trust me: a LOT of people on this little blue ball can't read that.)

And please don't give me the "we have an English section too in the forum!", because it's downright ridiculous that I have to wade through a German section to see if there's anything there on topic Y that wasn't in the English equivalent of the forum about that same topic.

Yes it bothers me. It has bothered me quite some time now. You're all in the internet-business. That's where we *all* speak English.

Ah well. This will probably be deleted anyway. All I know is that WB is slowing down, not getting the speed in development it should have, because 'we' as users can't attract enough people to get involved.  And that's too bad.

My 0,02.

[Ruud]

I didn't read the german posts
but i'd like to ask that how do you make the EDITING of the bootstrap content possible?
I mean the default backend does not support it at all - multicolumn editing with wysiwyg.
Of course i could edit the html directly but the customers cant!

Have a look here: http://www.dev4me.nl/modules-snippets/opensource/bootstrap-multiple-columns/

[noname8]

I didn't read the german posts
but i'd like to ask that how do you make the EDITING of the bootstrap content possible?
I mean the default backend does not support it at all - multicolumn editing with wysiwyg.
Of course i could edit the html directly but the customers cant!

[Tez Oner]

Eeey,

WP is cute for 'template' websites, but WB is much more solid to build
secure website, check:

http://www.mywebsitebaker.com

and some cool one I made:
https://bodymentors.com
http://revamds.com

Cheerz,

Tez Oner

[Mallepree]

Removed; totally off-topic and useless information.

Forum Administrator

[fischstäbchenbrenner]

WebsiteBaker ist einfach völlig zum Stillstand gekommen. OK, das geht ein weilchen, aber wenn dann nicht irgendwann wieder was passiert, rennen die Leute davon.

WBCE ist WB mit Bewegung drin. Immerhin mal.
Kann sein, dass bei WB irgendwann wieder mal was weitergeht. Kann sein, dass WBCE die bessere Alternative ist.

Ich sehe hier weniger Konkurrenzverhältnis als man glaubt. Solange bei WBCE halbwegs was geschieht, ist auch WB nicht ganz tot - und umgekehrt.

Für den Core interessiert sich in Wahrheit kein Mensch, solange er halbwegs funktioniert und sicher ist. Ob OOP oder Spaghetti oder alles dazwischen - völlig egal. Wenn ich (fast) problemlos von WB nach WBCE und wieder zurück wechseln kann, ist alles gut.

Worum es viel mehr geht, sind die Module und (natürlich deutlich weniger) die freien Templates.  Solange man als Modulentwickler noch irgendeine Zielgruppe sieht - egal ob WB oder WBCE - wird man den Krempel nicht so schnell wegschmeißen.

Und davon profitieren beide Systeme.

[dbs]

Ich kann nur hoffen, dass die Community-Version bald ganz doll erfolgreich ist damit hier diese armseligen Werbungs-Versuche aufhören. 

[Gast]

dein gutes Recht
allerdings stell ich mir schon die Frage nach dem Sinn deines Postings hier, wenn du hier nach deiner eigenen Einschätzung falsch bist 

[Mallepree]

@jacobi22

Sorry, i guess i completely missed the point in your post ...?!?

Wordpress is no option, its horrible , bloated , bad code , unsecure, and each uprgrade brings tons of incompatibilities.
Joomla is even worse.

WB was different from other CMS thats why i loved it. And thats why i like WBCE, cause they seem to continue the tradition of being different but still try to cleanup the mess of spagettis.

It just feels right for me... 

[Argos]

Still, your own site is in WB

It is, and it's rather outdated. I am working on a new site. In Wordpress...

[CodeALot]

Personally I don't WB anymore for new projects. I switched to Wordpress a year ago and although it's not perfect either, its features, possibilities, documentation, active development, addons, themes, and popularity makes it incomparable to WB. It's the de facto standard for small to midsized websites now, and with good reason. I still have a warm heart for WB, but unless a miracle happens, I think its days as a tool for professional website builders are over.

Still, your own site is in WB

I too have looked at WordPress. But soon found that with my experience with WB-based systems, it's way too much work to make a truly unique website. By the time I finished changing and tweaking an 'off the shelf' WP-theme, I could have done it 3 times from scratch in WB.

So: WB it is. And I sure as hell consider myself a professional website builder.