IPS - Jack of All Trades, Master of Two

[mat206]

I wanted to just quickly address some of my own concerns after having used your software throughout the 3.x revisions.

As a customer we are really far too in the dark about 4.0.. if a week passes without mentioning at least something about what you guys are doing that's probably a bit too much. 4.0 sounds awesome yet scary at the same time.. on one hand you are creating a new modern architecture that will support the software for years to come, on the other hand you are effectively ditching the core architecture and all mods used by customers today. This is *scary*.. like, scary to the point that I feel like I've wasted my time trying to build up a site with IPS software. If we want to follow a 4.0 upgrade path everything we've done is meaningless. Please appreciate that feeling because knowing so little about 4.0 and how it's kept under wraps doesn't help alleviate any concerns.

For me, I'm trying to bail on whatever software I can that you guys create from here on out.. Wordpress is better than your blogs, Magento/Prestashop/Opencart is better than IP.Nexus, Gallery has been continually disappointing. Your two strongest apps IMO are IP.Content (which looks like you could use it to create the blogs and gallery apps actually) and the Forums. The forums are by far your core app.

I hate to say this, but you guys just can't maintain this many apps *well* given your limited programmer staff. The problem isn't the upgrade path to 4.0, it's that you guys are competing in the same space as some major app developers. While you may be totally satisfied with the way each app has turned out I'm sure many customers would probably agree that some are lacking a HUGE number of features. What's worse is that you'll never ever ever keep up with Magento/Prestashop/Opencart and the huge number of addons available for it. IP.Nexus costs $35.. I'd pay double that for a Prestashop integration that works nicely (I chose Prestashop mainly because it is a little better in terms of code architecture and hell.. they already are a customer of yours).

Why can't you guys do a MUCH better job of focusing on what you are good at? Cut out the apps that are eating your time unless you can add more programmers to your staff. Create a KILLER ecommerce integration with Magento/Prestashop.. Create a KILLER integration with Wordpress. I'd swap out blog/nexus in a heartbeat and would pay you the same amount for the integration.

Wordpress has 26,000+ plugins.. Prestashop has 2,500+..

[Michael]

Wordpress has 26,000+ plugins.. Prestashop has 2,500+..

What does this matter? To me, if something has more plugins, then it sounds like it is missing a lot of features that people want.

[AndyF]

You could look at this in various ways.

Different clients will prioritise different apps as what they feel need more attention or features. Not everyone has all the applications either so their focus will be on the applications they use.

More developers hired would no doubt increase costs so (as just in my personal opinion nothing more) fee's may increase if more staff were taken on as IPS is a business and costs have to go "somewhere", more developers does not always mean a percentage relative increase in productivity either, its not always linear.

I would assume the reason there are no new Blog entries lately is simply because there is nothing really of general interest for them to post, nothing more than that. :)

[.Ian]

Agree with Andy.

I for example think that Downloads is a waste of time, because I do not use it, whereas content is excellent and could be improved with bits like fields for categories.

Others will disagree and quite rightly.

Developers will rotate what they work upon, having a developer dedicated to one app would not be cost effective. It would just push the price up.

I think we need to wait until V4 to see where IPS are going long term.

Having used many software products there is not too much wrong here - but then maybe I am just getting too old!!

[Charles]

I think that you may be getting a little shortsighted here :smile:

While I understand that you will certainly think that the apps you use are the most important, do not forget that many people use apps that you do not use. We cannot just focus on a couple apps to benefit you and leave everyone else out to dry.

As for updates on 4.0 and updates in general I'm surprised to read this. IPS is well known for keeping everyone up to date and communicating on what we're doing. We have posted a lot of blog entries on 4.0 already and will continue to do so. We actually have quite a few lined up and ready to post but these all reveal the look and feel of things so we want to hold off a bit. Once we reveal those sort of things people start to get pretty excited :smile:

You say things like "limited programmer staff" but, with respect, you don't know how we staff development. You pick arbitrary time frames like posting an update once a week but it just doesn't work that way. You compare to Wordpress which is a whole different sort of platform - one we don't try to compete with as the goals are different. You talk about sheer number of mods which I am actually fine with because it means our core platform has most features people want.

So, in summary, I understand that from your personal perspective things are all :frantics: but really things are totally :huggles: .

[bfarber]

I wanted to just quickly address some of my own concerns after having used your software throughout the 3.x revisions.

As a customer we are really far too in the dark about 4.0.. if a week passes without mentioning at least something about what you guys are doing that's probably a bit too much. 4.0 sounds awesome yet scary at the same time.. on one hand you are creating a new modern architecture that will support the software for years to come, on the other hand you are effectively ditching the core architecture and all mods used by customers today. This is *scary*.. like, scary to the point that I feel like I've wasted my time trying to build up a site with IPS software. If we want to follow a 4.0 upgrade path everything we've done is meaningless. Please appreciate that feeling because knowing so little about 4.0 and how it's kept under wraps doesn't help alleviate any concerns.

For me, I'm trying to bail on whatever software I can that you guys create from here on out.. Wordpress is better than your blogs, Magento/Prestashop/Opencart is better than IP.Nexus, Gallery has been continually disappointing. Your two strongest apps IMO are IP.Content (which looks like you could use it to create the blogs and gallery apps actually) and the Forums. The forums are by far your core app.

I hate to say this, but you guys just can't maintain this many apps *well* given your limited programmer staff. The problem isn't the upgrade path to 4.0, it's that you guys are competing in the same space as some major app developers. While you may be totally satisfied with the way each app has turned out I'm sure many customers would probably agree that some are lacking a HUGE number of features. What's worse is that you'll never ever ever keep up with Magento/Prestashop/Opencart and the huge number of addons available for it. IP.Nexus costs $35.. I'd pay double that for a Prestashop integration that works nicely (I chose Prestashop mainly because it is a little better in terms of code architecture and hell.. they already are a customer of yours).

Why can't you guys do a MUCH better job of focusing on what you are good at? Cut out the apps that are eating your time unless you can add more programmers to your staff. Create a KILLER ecommerce integration with Magento/Prestashop.. Create a KILLER integration with Wordpress. I'd swap out blog/nexus in a heartbeat and would pay you the same amount for the integration.

Wordpress has 26,000+ plugins.. Prestashop has 2,500+..

You show up as a Contributor - why not build out the integrations that you want (Prestashop, Wordpress, whatever it is you need) and sell them in the marketplace? If you feel there's a market for these integrations AND you'd pay double what we charge for our first party apps, this sounds like it could potentially be a money maker for you, no? :) Then you kill two birds with one stone - you use the products you want to use and you make some money for doing something you are already doing for your website anyways.

[Saiga]

Gallery has been continually disappointing.

That's just flat out wrong. I can't find any other gallery software that's as powerful and modern as this one. Can you?

[Shariq Ansari]

As for updates on 4.0 and updates in general I'm surprised to read this. IPS is well known for keeping everyone up to date and communicating on what we're doing. We have posted a lot of blog entries on 4.0 already and will continue to do so. We actually have quite a few lined up and ready to post but these all reveal the look and feel of things so we want to hold off a bit. Once we reveal those sort of things people start to get pretty excited :smile:

Well, if a 2013 release of any sort for IPS4 is still the plan, there are 4.5 months left... I personally am completely fine being excited and waiting in anticipation for that amount of time. If you're intentionally sitting on the information simply for psychological reasons (i.e. you don't want the natives to be restless), I kind of question that way of thinking...

[mat206]

What does this matter? To me, if something has more plugins, then it sounds like it is missing a lot of features that people want.

There is nothing incorrect about saying that.. but it doesn't mean anything though and especially doesn't imply that somehow IPS software is more feature complete. I'd wager if we do a critical side-by-side analysis of IP.Nexus vs Prestashop we'd see some pretty major differences right out of the box. That many plugins is more a measure of support for the platform. With IPS you have a teeny, tiny developer pool to do things for you.. and about 1500 modsskins total that are about to be obsolete. That type of stuff matters to someone running a site. I'm not a Prestashop fanboy, but I can spot the differences between a project like Prestashop and IP.Nexus in terms of product evolution.

That's just flat out wrong. I can't find any other gallery software that's as powerful and modern as this one. Can you?

Flickr, Facebook.. The tech exists to make really good and modern galleries even if there aren't suitable PHP counterparts. My take was that gallery isn't updated enough because they are doing too much for their size of company. My focus was in particular on stuff like IP.Nexus as an example, only because they are far outpaced. Do a line by line feature comparison between IP.Nexus and Magento, OpenCart, and Prestashop and see how it stacks up. This isn't an insult to the developers as all the software does work and is functional.. they just don't have the time and manpower to keep pace.

I think that you may be getting a little shortsighted here :smile:

While I understand that you will certainly think that the apps you use are the most important, do not forget that many people use apps that you do not use. We cannot just focus on a couple apps to benefit you and leave everyone else out to dry.

My problem isn't actually that you develop blog, gallery, downloads, content, forums, etc.. that's fine to have your own little ecosphere of apps. But you just end up with a bunch of "okay" apps rather than awesome. IMO developing for IPS is a waste of resources because the market is pretty small. Granted, the competition is smaller, but it's just not cost effective unless you keep your apps minimal. From a consumer perspective, it's like getting the new smartphone that nobody is developing for. Honestly, what do you do to attract developers? At least if you made serious well-supported integrations for other major software vendors out there those audiences would take notice and we'd have a larger developer pool to support us.

What do you think you do the best? I still think it's forums.. and you do it so well that I'd bet you tens of thousands of people would easily lay down the money to integrate it with some of the more popular platforms out there. It's almost comical to always see that a VBulletin integration exists but no IPS integration.

You show up as a Contributor - why not build out the integrations that you want (Prestashop, Wordpress, whatever it is you need) and sell them in the marketplace? If you feel there's a market for these integrations AND you'd pay double what we charge for our first party apps, this sounds like it could potentially be a money maker for you, no? :smile: Then you kill two birds with one stone - you use the products you want to use and you make some money for doing something you are already doing for your website anyways.

This highlights the problem with IPS.. the developer pool literally has to almost be DIY. And I'd be wasting my time anyway, as you threw out the existing API with 4.0. Sometimes I think you need to look at it from a different perspective.. well-supported integrations with these other major software packages opens the door for those customers to start using YOUR software. It makes me incredibly nervous to pin the operation of major site components on integrations that are done by some guy who happens to have enough time sitting in his basement to get out a version that works.

Who do you think people would think to be reliable.. the official IPS XYZ ecommerce platform integration or the mat206 integration?

[mat206]

Charles, here's one thing I'd love for you to take away.. build integrations and foster relationships with other similarly-sized companies. Make it easier for your software to interoperate with others out-of-the-box. Support standard APIs that do this and write your own where necessary.

I'd love to visit your site and start to see an ecosphere of actual well-staffed, well-supported companies that can do things like this (note how all these apps aren't developed by the same company) :

http://37signals.com/extras

The benefit comes because your software can openly be integrated with others and your product becomes better through the synergy you create. It benefits both of your companies AND the consumer.

[Tigratrus]

mat206,

Really sorry to see you moving out of the IPS areana as I really appreciated a lot of the work you did on IP.C databases and sharing lessons learned on using custom templates etc.

That said, I come FROM having spent literally years integrating other software systems (vBulletin 3.8, Photoplog Gallery, Joomla!, WordPress, PHPMyDirectory) into a single cohesive looking system for the members, and frankly it's not generally worth it IMO. You end up with a near total disconnect between the different content types on your site. It's very hard to leverage the capabilities of one system to improve the member experience in other areas. And on top of that you have a maintenance nightmare as the different systems develop in different ways and in different cycles.

We call such sites a "frankensite" and our decision to migrate to IPS was *specifically* to get AWAY from such a PITA.

IPS, (and even more so moving forward from what we're see/hearing about 4.0) allows us to leverage the different apps to make each other better. We're using IP.G to hold all uploaded images, esp ones used for IP.C Articles and other DB's. ALL comments and discussions will exist in the forums to consolidate all member interaction into a small number of topic focused forums to increase interaction and visibility/feeling of validation for members.

Virtually all content (Articles, Programs, Recipes, Reviews, Experts, Showcases etc) will be created in IP.C where the member can be walked through the creation process (via custom tabset based submission forms) to help encourage a well formed html output that's semantically correct. As an added benefit, having the individual elements of the content created as IP.C data fields allows us to wrap appropriate Microdata around them to provide for better SERP and rich format results in the search engines.

What it comes down to for us is this:

IPS is a PLATFORM not a single app. Having all the apps work together can provide an integrated community site with a gestalt that you simply cannot get by bridging disparate systems.

Abandoning all that current and future synergy in order to focus on one or two parts of the platform and bridges to totally different stove-piped systems seems like a step back if what you want is an improved COMMUNITY site. But that's just my $.02.

In any case thanks for all your contributions over the years! :)

James

[Saiga]

My take was that gallery isn't updated enough

That doesn't make it bad.

[Jυra]

What does this matter? To me, if something has more plugins, then it sounds like it is missing a lot of features that people want.

It means you have more choices on how you want something. If you don't like the implementation of one, you can try another. It also means...you know...having more.

[Ryan H.]

That said, I come FROM having spent literally years integrating other software systems (vBulletin 3.8, Photoplog Gallery, Joomla!, WordPress, PHPMyDirectory) into a single cohesive looking system for the members, and frankly it's not generally worth it IMO. You end up with a near total disconnect between the different content types on your site. It's very hard to leverage the capabilities of one system to improve the member experience in other areas. And on top of that you have a maintenance nightmare as the different systems develop in different ways and in different cycles.

We call such sites a "frankensite" and our decision to migrate to IPS was *specifically* to get AWAY from such a PITA.

Very much this. Every platform has a specific target and strength, so yes, you certainly could throw together one piece of software for this and another for that. I deal with quite a few clients who have done that. The trouble is, every one of those systems also has its own member system, its own template system, its own administrative panel, security policies, security problems, user experience and style decisions, SEO handling, etc, etc. For raw functionality, sure, it's great, I guess. For coherence and consistency, though, it's a terrible approach. Even if you do have a good bridge from one to another, you still spend a significant amount more development time getting everything to look right and play according to your expectations. If you get packages that work within the same framework, that's not even a consideration.

37signals' offerings are business management software. It's barely comparable. It's not like IP.Board doesn't have an API, though, and I suspect that will expanded if anything come 4.0. If there's a lack of integrations, it's only because people aren't building them.

[mat206]

Very much this. Every platform has a specific target and strength, so yes, you certainly could throw together one piece of software for this and another for that. I deal with quite a few clients who have done that. The trouble is, every one of those systems also has its own member system, its own template system, its own administrative panel, security policies, security problems, user experience and style decisions, SEO handling, etc, etc. For raw functionality, sure, it's great, I guess. For coherence and consistency, though, it's a terrible approach. Even if you do have a good bridge from one to another, you still spend a significant amount more development time getting everything to look right and play according to your expectations. If you get packages that work within the same framework, that's not even a consideration.

37signals' offerings are business management software. It's barely comparable. It's not like IP.Board doesn't have an API, though, and I suspect that will expanded if anything come 4.0. If there's a lack of integrations, it's only because people aren't building them.

Which is an easier path though.. engineering a complete ecommerce application or tying into an existing one and creating a template that follows the core IPS CSS framework?

Getting hung up on 37 signals actual product offerings is not seeing the forest from the trees.. why can't a developer come to the IPS site and register an app like you do with Facebook or Twitter, get access to a free PHP devkit that will allow them to create basic apps they can sell? How do we improve the pool of viable software out there? Could we even create a RESTful API that would allow third-party companies to have hosted services that could interoperate with IPS?

If I step back and frame the problem it's that the viable app pool is just extraordinary limited and there is seemingly no commercial interest for anything but a lone wolf developer to make addons for IPS. How many 3rd-party apps are really high-quality? How do you solve these issues?

[Rheddy]

I don't know about the rest of you but it sounds like the OP has went off on a rag about IPB. :lol: I seem to recall, everytime IPS begins development on a new version of IPB, that there is that one person who needs detailed, minute by minute updates on the development phase. Ease up, dude. IPS takes its time developing the new versions and you simply need to cill out.

Hate to say it but whining about it won't make the updates come any faster and when IPS is ready to update the rest of us on the development, then they'll update. Who cares about the plugins as long as IPB, IPC, IPD, IPG, IPN all work the way they should, the rest of the stuff? It's like waiting for a fart on the wind. You know it's coming but you're reluctant to stand around and wait for it. :lol:

[Marcher Technologies]

Why can't a developer come to the IPS site and register an app like you do with Facebook or Twitter, get access to a free PHP devkit that will allow them to create basic apps they can sell?

Simply - because it's not free, it will never be free. That said, I would think >the >various >blog >entries >available would have convinced you by now the apps will nigh-basically write themselves - at the very least the barrier you speak of becomes lowered immensely.

[Tigratrus]

I don't know about the rest of you but it sounds like the OP has went off on a rag about IPB. :lol: I seem to recall, everytime IPS begins development on a new version of IPB, that there is that one person who needs detailed, minute by minute updates on the development phase. Ease up, dude. IPS takes its time developing the new versions and you simply need to cill out.

Hate to say it but whining about it won't make the updates come any faster and when IPS is ready to update the rest of us on the development, then they'll update. Who cares about the plugins as long as IPB, IPC, IPD, IPG, IPN all work the way they should, the rest of the stuff? It's like waiting for a fart on the wind. You know it's coming but you're reluctant to stand around and wait for it. :lol:

I don't know that that's fair take on mat206's point. I totally see where he's coming from, and I certainly agree with some of his concerns, but HAVING that cohesive platform outweighs the downsides by far for me. Ryan's point was dead on and exactly matches my experience.

My understanding of 4.0 is that it's going to be a watershed refactoring; a major, MASSIVE improvement on the consistency and efficiency of the development environment. Which means that 3rd party devs will have a much easier time creating quality mods/apps of their own.

I ABSOLUTELY agree that fostering those 3rd party devs should be huge priority for IPS, I know several specific professional admins that I've tried to convince to give IPS a try vs. XF that have all told me that the lack of available people to hire to build custom solutions for the IPS platform is a deal breaker for them. There are a few, but nowhere near the 3rd party dev ecosystem that used to be on vB and that is currently growing on XF. That's a problem.

Hopefully 4.0 and the "Projects" system here will help make some inroads on that, but it's still pretty thin now.

James

[TracyIsland]

That's just flat out wrong. I can't find any other gallery software that's as powerful and modern as this one. Can you?

Yes, 4images is better.

Why? Our members can create their own [person] galleries and subcategories, and there are an infinite number of categories and subcategories for our community images. There are rss feeds for every category or subcategory.

Like an image and want to feature it in a ip blog, an ip content news article, or in a topic? Just copy and paste the code that is provided for our members below the image ... they don't have to know what bbc means ... they just copy and paste and it works, plain and simple.

[TracyIsland]

Thanks @James for defining our community's site design: frankensite. Yes, that is what we have. We had been using wordpress but dropped it in favor IP Content but we still use 4images for our gallery and will be using Prestashop for our ecommerce instead of our homegrown one. We use aMember for membership access software.

Why Prestashop? For all the reasons @Mat206 has said and for one other key reason: guests can use it to purchase items without having to become members of our community. IP Nexus forces everyone to be a member of the community and there are those who simply do not want to register in order to buy a t-shirt.

[Ford Doctor]

I also developed and ran a "Frankensite" for many years and I will agree totally that making 3rd party programs and scripts run together is challenging and sometimes very limiting. As a webmaster that is not a programmer by any stretch of the imagination there are many people like myself who can effectively use software and put websites together but not necessarily understand the software. We can easily get into trouble when it comes to playing around with integration and customizations. Furthermore, I came from UBB Threads which I LOVED using however it is all but dead... it was a daunting decision to abandon UBB but it was necessary. I searched and researched my options and landed here at IPB BECAUSE of all the available apps that seamlessly integrate and look like they belong. The word "gestalt" was used perfectly here.

There are many features in IPS I never had available to me and yes there are some I wish we had. I love the fact that IPB and all of it's apps appear to constantly be in development. One thing that OP's post brings out that users like myself fear is that will future changes in the software create difficulties for us "less technical" users? I am new here and I am still learning the software. If Version 4 comes out will all the apps and hooks and customizations throw my world into a tizzy? Sure, I can continue to run version 3.X for the foreseeable future but I would love to be able to take advantage of improvements and new features and functionality.

I hope I am not way off topic...

[mat206]

Guys.. this post isn't a rant. While IPS has a well-documented API historically what it still lacks for a platform it size is a strong developer pool. When you can essentially list about 5 lone wolf guys that make up the core 3rd party developers for your platform we have a problem. IPS uses it's own framework (instead of Zend, Symfony, CodeIgniter, FuelPHP, Yii, etc).. If they used even just one of those frameworks you'd get tons of instant addons to extend your software. If IP.Board was a Drupal addon or something you'd get thousands of apps. IPS uses it's own CSS framework.. If it used any major CSS framework you'd get out-of-box templates from hundreds of places on the net. And nobody can even integrate their apps with IPS unless they throw down the money to do it.. the IPS market isn't huge, so how do they attract developers if the commercial incentive is so small?

My point is that I want to see more off-the-shelf pluggability of other big, well-developed, and well-maintained apps. We keep bringing up the idea of Frankensites but I'm talking about actual clean integrations with bigger software packages. My biggest concern is ecommerce, since IP.Nexus is vastly underdeveloped. Rather than all the true ecommerce tools you need to conduct a business their last major addon for IP.Nexus was for web hosting.

Tell me that it's an awesome feeling to know that the best apps in the IPS Marketplace all depend on one single developer to continue to maintain them and that they don't really have all that much of an incentive to continually push out major updates so most "big" app dev times are slow.

[mat206]

Simply - because it's not free, it will never be free. That said, I would think >the >various >blog >entries >available would have convinced you by now the apps will nigh-basically write themselves - at the very least the barrier you speak of becomes lowered immensely.

Marcher, how does this address the lack of integrations with companies that create products that are on the same level as IP.Board? Or that no actual company similarly sized to IPS will touch the platform to make apps? Apple, Microsoft, Google all know it's not the platform that matters.. it's the apps.

IPS is a 6 app platform.. Board, Gallery, Blogs, Content, Downloads, Nexus.. everything else comes with a big risk to adopt

[Tigratrus]

I have to say I agree with a lot of what mat206 is saying. I've said before and I have never stopped thinking that the biggest thing holding IPS back from wider adoption is the lack of a large-enough-to-be-viable 3rd party dev community. While there ARE some very good 3rd party devs they are way too few to provide a potential customer who is a pro admin with a comfort level that he can hire the help he needs.

A lot of devs bailing out from vB are moving to XF, and they are taking their paying customers with them.

IP.Content and IP.Nexus are potential jewels in the IPS platform but they remain in a somewhat unpolished state when compared to other options that can be found elsewhere. I've talked to fellow pro admins about trying IPS because they can readily BUILD a Review system, a customized Article system, a Video system, a Collectibles system etc. I get two answers:

1. It's too complicated, I don't see how I could possibly spend enough time to learn all that and still do what I need to keep focused on doing to run my site. Which means I need to hire someone to do it for me, and WHO is available to do the job(s)?
2. If I do any extensive development of custom usage of IP.C/IP.N functionality then *I* am on the hook for the maintenance every time IPS changes the platform and breaks it all. Again, I don't have time to do it all myself, and there is nobody available to hire.

Those are key and, I think, legitimate questions.

Personally Susan and I do most of the dev load on our projects, we generally just need occasional hired-gun help to work out the syntax for what we have already decided is a solution. We LOVE what IPS brings to the table and as we've been in limbo for 2 years due to a soul-sucking swamp of a legal morass, we've been able to stick it out till we can see 4.0 bringing a much better more productive admin/dev environment. :smile:

James

[Marcher Technologies]

Guys.. this post isn't a rant. While IPS has a well-documented API historically what it still lacks for a platform it size is a strong developer pool. When you can essentially list about 5 lone wolf guys that make up the core 3rd party developers for your platform we have a problem. IPS uses it's own framework (instead of Zend, Symfony, CodeIgniter, FuelPHP, Yii, etc).. If they used even just one of those frameworks you'd get tons of instant addons to extend your software. If IP.Board was a Drupal addon or something you'd get thousands of apps. IPS uses it's own CSS framework.. If it used any major CSS framework you'd get out-of-box templates from hundreds of places on the net. And nobody can even integrate their apps with IPS unless they throw down the money to do it.. the IPS market isn't huge, so how do they attract developers if the commercial incentive is so small?

My point is that I want to see more off-the-shelf pluggability of other big, well-developed, and well-maintained apps. We keep bringing up the idea of Frankensites but I'm talking about actual clean integrations with bigger software packages. My biggest concern is ecommerce, since IP.Nexus is vastly underdeveloped. Rather than all the true ecommerce tools you need to conduct a business their last major addon for IP.Nexus was for web hosting.

I would encourage you to post your feedback on nexus in individual topics in the nexus forum.
I can tell where you consider me, I am doing no further good in this topic as any argument I could possibly provide will be shot down with 'you are one of the lone wolfs, you know nothing'.
I must simply say this - IPB will not ever be free. This means that the developer pool will not ever swell to the epic proportions wordpress and prestashop have, and with reason, you compare apples and oranges, free to commercial software.
Upon the subject of modders and third-party, the fact you ask for an official Wordpress integration where an unofficial one exists, and speak of paying double the app cost, and I do not have you as a customer, I doubt any attempt to stimulate the third-party developer pool and economy is your real goal here - you expect IPS to provide it? Also, for reference, Wordpress is the exact opposite of the definition of clean code, still stuck in PHP 4.
On the subject of prestashop, and other member bridges, why ever do you think ipsconnect was created? Do you really expect IPS to maintain, debug and support the literal utter hell of a bridge to any/every large third-party framework in existence, or merely provide the ability to have such created as needed?

You strongly oppose the decision to once again use a hand-built CSS/PHP framework - I get that. You have made the argument loud and clear all around the forums, >the reasons for doing so regardless. I'm out.