Beat, replying two months after an important, documented feedback is certainly the best way to discourage contributors.
We don't monitor community forums. Please always keep in mind we're a team of 3. We can't monitor every single post. We only monitor support forums actively. I apologize for this, but we have to prioritize our time and our paying customers first and I wish we had time to maintain the community (free) forums like we used to, but we've just grown so much that it's impossible.
Moreover, statements like "so those limitations and issues should be solved", without entering into the details, are merely political correcteness. As everyone knows, the devil is in the details, and 99% of the forum activity is devoted to discussing such "details".
His statement is accurate. CB 2.0 is a complete rewrite from the ground up. It won't even be an upgrade, but a migration from CB 1.x. Everything is being rewritten and improved extensively. We can't provide details right now, because we're mid development of CB 2.0 framework (core engine code).
CB, as a framework on top of Joomla, is a questionable concept: languages, templates, behaviors, etc. being managed disctinctly, this definitely precludes any unified management of a profesional CB-based site.
CB isn't a framework right now, but it will be with CB 2.0. It will also utilize much better the CMS built in features such as Permissions, etc.. I don't have details for other core concepts at this time though as we're still in discussions.
but is very reluctant to failure recognition
I don't agree with this statement at all. A quick search of the support forums you'll see me admit numerous times causing a bug or a plugin lacking a use case then doing the best I can to fix the bug or implement the use case.
and to proper documentation. For instance, who can seriously understand substitutions which the documentation as it stands?
I admit I am a developer first and foremost. So documentation is not my strong suite. I apologize for this, but I have done the best I can to provide documentation (substitution tutorial, etc..). Nicks documentation is far superior to mine and he is very busy working on new tutorials, video lessons and other fantastic information delivery methods. With CB 2.0 we will also be redoing the documentation completely in a new manageable format.
Subsequently I would say that choosing CB as a community component for a Joomla site is a good, affordable choice for a first draft. But then, reaching professional quality requires a great deal of work.
I strongly disagree with this statement, but if this is how you feel then nothing I can say can convince you otherwise.
We have multiple users using CB for very professional websites. We of course can't disclose this information as we believe in user privacy, but for example Nick recently assisted with a very well done political site powered by Joomla and CB. Most of what was implemented was accomplished with CB, GJ, and CB Auto Actions; all hack-free implementations.
I do agree CB needs usability work and we'll be addressing that with CB 2.0, but that doesn't mean CB can't accomplish great things as is as it certainly can.
Also a heads up is CB 1.10.0 that I am currently working on. There are numerous massive improvements. Core plugins being upgraded to use professional plugins (e.g. Forum integration replaced by CB Forums, articles replaced by CB Articles, mamblog replaced by CB Blogs, and more!). You can monitor my progress below if you like. All of this is core CB so it's free to everyone.
forge.joomlapolis.com/projects/cb/issues
With that said users feedback is absolutely being heard. If we don't specifically use your feedback it's not an attack on you and it doesn't mean we don't care what you have to say. Not by a long shot. We absolutely love feedback and are constantly working to improve upon our selves and our products.
beat
