Has the Roadmap Been Abandoned?
By Mark H on Saturday, 26 April 2014
Posted in General Issues
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The EasySocial Roadmap (http://stackideas.com/roadmap/easysocial) seems to have been abandoned

1. It is out of date

2. The Roadmaps list has seemingly random and completely out of sync dates

3. There doesn't appear to be much activity in regards to 1.3 progress being shown (although I'm sure work is progressing in the background).

If I am completely honest, I purchased EasySocial based on the fact that the Roadmap fitted in with features I wanted and needed, an invite system and events being two key ones), both of which were on the original Roadmap as being expected by now. Paid Memberships is another, which when I last looked seemed to have been removed entirely.

The Roadmap was one of the things that most attracted me to EasySocial, having used JomSocial and Community Builder in the past, where the work on upcoming features wasn't so transparent and easy to follow. I even mentioned this in my review on JED (which you have a screenshot of on the EasySocial Feature page)

I had even allowed for development delays in my timescales, which is to be expected, but now we seem to have no idea what is coming, when.

If I were I buyer today, the state of the current Roadmap would put me off, or at least give me some doubts, whereas before, it was a source of confidence and encouragement.

I don't want to be harsh (you know I love you guys ), but this really needs urgent attention.
Hey guys,

I have updated the "scheduled dates" accordingly on the roadmap and we're going to keep a 2 month cycle release (However, please, do factor in beta's etc and have your own estimation instead of purely relying on the dates there).
Mark
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Sunday, 27 April 2014 15:37
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I agree with the roadmap needing an entire update. I know is slipped back badly during the completion of 1.2 but that was worth the wait. I think to fix it and be more generous with your completion dates might be a lot better, anyone worth their salt knew that the original dates were going to be nearly impossible to meet or end up with buggy software, you chose to give us solid software, which is what we have come to expect from you guys, so please just amend the schedule and looking through completed tasks at the moment, I see that my most awaited feature, handling videos in program is still not started, so I would put the delivery date for 1.3 back at July/Aug and then just scale the other releases with enough time between releases based on what you learned by the time taken to get 1.2 out the door
This is not a complaint, just agreeing with Mark H that looking at the roadmap at the moment would be very confusing and may put off potential buyers who did not know your representation or first class service and solid software!
Jeff Wilson
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Saturday, 26 April 2014 15:14
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I too, have been quite curious as to what's been going on with the Roadmap? Why is 1.4.0 set for August whereas 1.5.0 is set for April and so forth when 1.3.0. isn't even out yet?

I know you guys are busy, but I, too, like to rely on the roadmap as to what to expect and when and that's impossible to do currently.
Sean
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Saturday, 26 April 2014 15:17
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Hey guys,

Thanks for the heads up on this. I will be working on the roadmap over the weekend but there's an issue with our roadmap system because currently it only works with EasySocial and not our products. I was trying to get it to work with EasyBlog, EasyDiscuss and Komento as well but had to put it on hold to launch our new site first.

As always, stay tune for more updates
Mark
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Sunday, 27 April 2014 03:55
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Like Sean said, it was a bit strange with the dates set between some of the versions (1.5 before 1.4?).

As others stated, it's better to be on the safer side and give yourselves more time on mapping ideas. If the release happens to come early from the conservative guess, great! Beta phases should go into consideration. So from what I've observed give it at least a week or two (maybe more depending on the release) time for beta testing. So if you expect a release to be in beta 1 by mid May, set the expected date to June.

While the release of ES 1.3 sounds very exciting, I'm wondering about ES 1.2.9. It has some important fixes that would make it in my opinion the most stable release of the 1.2 series.
Josh Lewis
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Sunday, 27 April 2014 05:08
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Mark wrote:

Hey guys,

Thanks for the heads up on this. I will be working on the roadmap over the weekend...


That's good to know Mark and thanks for the update.
Mark H
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Sunday, 27 April 2014 05:48
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I agree with what was already said and hope things get back on track. A bit disappointed that we will not get to see ES as scheduled but that was expected from the aggressive time frame listed.
Peter
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Sunday, 27 April 2014 10:52
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Hello Peter,

I do apologize for that but you also need to understand that we have included over 400+ new features on 1.2 and we are actually still trying to address all the "instability" issues earlier but it looks like everything seems be pretty solid already right now
Mark
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Sunday, 27 April 2014 13:58
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Right, which the stabilization phase goes greatly appreciated! While I too was eager for ES 1.3, I was glad extra steps were made to ensure the stability of ES. I know you guys had a lot of things to work out, and I'm very pleased that all pretty much all the issues of the ES 1.2 series have been resolved (or will be in the next minor release).

So in other words, I was happy with the approach the stacked team did. The roadmap is the only part that I can be a critic on. Keep in mind that the stacked team have a full plate, within a day they have to deal with a lot of support issues. Most developers would get overwhelmed, at least from what I've observed.
Josh Lewis
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Sunday, 27 April 2014 14:33
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Thanks Mark, now it's looking more realistic. ES 1.1 came in pretty swiftly as the schedule suggested, but once a bunch of features came around is when things got a little haywire. Regardless to that, I was very pleased about ES 1.2! The rapid additions were incredible.
Josh Lewis
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Sunday, 27 April 2014 15:52
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Hi Mark,

Thank you so much for updating. Like Josh said, this is far more realistic and will hopefully allow you to have less sleepless nights

Events for EasySocial
In Progress
Category: Events


This made my day!
Mark H
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Sunday, 27 April 2014 16:17
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Mark, just a couple of things I have noticed:

1. Roadmap version 1.7 (February 2015) already has most of its features either completed or in progress. Will you be bring this release, or any of the completed features forward? Email templates for example would be useful to people building their sites now.

2. What has happened to Paid Memberships? This used to be on the 1.6 roadmap and is after all the forth most popular suggestion on the Voices page: http://stackideas.com/voices/item/98 it is now nowhere to be seen!

Thanks again for what I've always thought are some of the best Joomla extensions available.
Mark H
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Sunday, 27 April 2014 16:29
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Awesome work, Mark!
Sean
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Sunday, 27 April 2014 16:54
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Hey guys,

Some of the features may have been already completed because we actually brought forward some of the features from 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6,1.7 to 1.2 . Hence, some features that you see there might be a little redundant (Needs a little housekeeping which I am going to do pretty soon).
Mark
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Sunday, 27 April 2014 18:05
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Ah, makes sense!
Mark H
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Sunday, 27 April 2014 18:14
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Thanks
Mark
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Sunday, 27 April 2014 22:41
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thanks mark for you and the team great work
loïc
loic
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Monday, 28 April 2014 01:12
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You are most welcome
Mark
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Monday, 28 April 2014 02:30
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In ES 1.7 it has listed "Ratings field". This could theoretically be applied to photos. This way photos could have a rating option if the admin chose to have this.
Josh Lewis
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Monday, 28 April 2014 03:53
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Mark wrote:

Hello Peter,

I do apologize for that but you also need to understand that we have included over 400+ new features on 1.2 and we are actually still trying to address all the "instability" issues earlier but it looks like everything seems be pretty solid already right now


Hi Mark

Totally understand the delay in future releases. Thanks and keep up the good work!!
Peter
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Monday, 28 April 2014 10:54
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Thanks Peter
Mark
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Monday, 28 April 2014 12:18
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