Using NOF 12? Please advise on the ugrade detail.

[F4 Web Design]

Hi. I would love to upgrade but I am hesitant. Without putting too finer point on it Netobjects are "sketchy" about the ACTUAL upgrades, and add to that there seems to be a few reports of instability in components.

So to convince me I would like to know if the following has been added to 12:

1. Gallery option that actually allows people to zoom out the picture they are viewing, and darkens the background.

2. The ability to create categories in the ecommerce tool, rather than just a great long list of products

3. Enhanced navigation options (.png support may fix this a little?) or maybe the ability to modify the look and feel or the multi layout regions (for example the "Togglepane" tab is set at a brown colour that cant be changed).

4. Live view of the site would be nice, but I can see from the forums that this isnt going to be there. I suppose I would settle for a "Preview" that actually shows the pages various components properly?

5. The BIG ONE for me, the ability to have 2 sites open at once so I can cut and paste layout regions over, and text over from one site to another without having to use notepad.

6. RSS that actually works.

7. Widgets - in their entirity.

Whilst i appreciate improving the code is very important (particulalry with the picture rollovers which always generate bad code) and one of the things that is tempting me... i think that Netobjects should be reminded that they are coming to market with a WYSIWIG product first and foremost... ie. The final website should be in keeping with what you see on the vast majority of modern day mainstream websites.

Thus the picture gallery options are hugely important, as is the stability of RSS, and creating widgets. Why should we need to to go to external free sites to get this code?

This may be ignored, or maybe someone senior at Netobjects will read it. I hope the latter. Sorry to point out the obvious... its 2011 guys and web sites look and feel very modern now!!

BTW I have used this product for many years since V7, and have enjoyed it. But this is the tipping point for me. 12 is way overdue when u consider the issues we had getting it to work on Windows 7, and maybe its time to learn Dreamweaver.

One senior forum member said that the pressure is on NOF to be updating 12 more regulalry and it seems that he is very correct.

Thanks for any comments and help in advance.

[adrian5750]

HI

The '300 improvements' that are mentioned in the NOF marketing fluff seem to be kept a closely-guarded secret - I've asked for details before and didn't get anywhere....

2) As far as I have heard, the ecommerce tool isn't changed from V11 - general advice from users is that, for a 'proper' ecommerce site you need to use a 3rd-party program...

5) Unless I'm misunderstanding the question - there's nothing to stop you from running two instances of NOF11 (or 12) - and copy/paste between them.... There's a 'paste unformatted' option when pasting text also.

On the other points, I don't have the experience to comment - but there are many folks here who have lots more experience than I do.

Contacting 'someone senior' at Netobjects isn't easy - there's a NOF support presence in this forum, but most of the help and support comes from users. You can try the 'Email Support' option - but (in my experience) this offers no access to anybody above first-line support, and so there's no way to get a message to anybody higher up the 'tree'....
I hope there's a nice view from up there <g> ! - but it's dangerous for senior management of any company to be that far out of touch with what's going on down here in 'userland'.....

Adrian