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Thread: Overall Assessment of 2013?

  1. #1
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    Default Overall Assessment of 2013?

    Been a while since I was here, I see a lot of familiar folks, many who have helped a lot in the past - Thanks!

    This sounds a little ranty, (and too long - sorry in advance) but really, I'm just very, very confused, and wondering if I need to, or should, update... or just hide under a rock - again. I all but gave up on my site updates last time, (when 12 was 'new'), I worked on several of the sub-sites, (because I have too much crap out there and databases can't seem to work right for all I want) and about the time I am almost finished with a 'look' a new version comes out that won't work with what I did. Right now I am using a ton of Multi Layout Regions, and tabs... and photo galleries, and photo rollovers, and video imbeds, anyone know if they work in (and import into) 2013? (if I recall, the photo galleries are a form of database that has inherent problems)

    I have been wandering through these posts about NOF 2013 and had to check to see if I was reading about NOF 8, 9, 10, or 11, or 12... I can see the updates are really looking bad (even the previously touted AU5). I see good posts before update 3, mostly, sort of.

    The e-mail I got was kinda like - if you keep using your NOF 11 your website is gonna get hacked and infect the entire internet (Ok, a little drama queen there), but it did sound like there was a serious security issue, and I should not use 11 ever again, since it was using old Java. It said "...version of Java that is now considered a security risk and it cannot be updated. Those older versions are also incompatible with Windows 7 and 8" Hmm, which is what I had when they were installed, and I still use... curious... I'm confused Steve... it sounded like I need to update my website... or there could be trouble. ...and, so why are they still selling NOF 12?

    I see very redundant issues here about 2013, that sound exactly like the same issues earlier versions had; as well as ones like, Vista is old, update to Windows 7, then to install NOF, you have to do a compatibility check, and say you are using Vista... ??? And the change view and crash... (used to be with databases - delete them and NOF is ok, and your site is toast), (or the assets weren't checked before the export)

    All the same issues if your using a database, the site won't transfer to the new version correctly, 1 pixel shifts on images... (extremely irritating to me over the years for it to never get fixed)

    Of all the things I see, the very worst thing, is NOF is relying on all the good folks here on the forums to do their support. I think that is simply appalling. I searched their Knowledge Base for updating, and got the WayBack Machine pages!! So very comforting, lol. I remember back in the NOF MX days, they were really great to deal with... ( I hate being old sometimes)

    But I still use it... just like Windows, drives me crazy, but I have to use it because it mostly works. All the really cool stuff won't quite work as expected, but I can check my e-mail, lol (with Eudora...) and write code to manually edit the NOF webpages by hand (used to have to do that to fix the Meta tags on pages etc) and try to get it to work (wrecking the best reasons to use NOF)

    Also, I had an issue previously, with not having IE, NOF wouldn't work, so I was forced to put it back. That was ok, because I needed to have it to test the site to be sure the NOF pages would work for internet folks to see my site - but it sounds like I need to remove it to make NOF operate correctly now...? (I can't go to down to IE9 on Win 7 Pro 64 I think)

    I'm so confused... I do realize there have been tons of issues that never effected me, but the databases sure might, and if it is just another facelift on the same NOF, is it really worth the $75 their asking? (if it is really that much faster, it should be either a new engine, or a lot of stuff was removed...)

    Thanks for listening, if you got this far...

  2. #2
    Senior Member gotFusion's Avatar
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    First time I've heard most of this.

    If you have specific problems post them and I am sure they can be resolved.

    It's best to deal with problems one at a time in their own thread.

    I've not found anything that can't be done (given the right instructions).

    As to your MS IE9 roll back question, here is the MS kb article on how to accomplish this

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2821327

    Not sure how far you can go back (IE 8, 7, etc) as I did not look.
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    gotFusion, I really appreciate your responses, and none of my negativity, or doubtfulness is directed to any of the folks here on the forum, I know you are all just trying to help folks out...

    This is kind of the same reason I never went to 12... that and the fact it looked like NetO was going out of business, lol. (All the issues I mentioned are stuff I read here from other folks on this forum.) I realize, some folks have some problems, not all folks have all the problems, lol. But I'm trying to decide if I want to buy the new NOF, if it has certain problems, because the last time I bought it (11) I had to down grade stuff to work with it, and I had to start from scratch with most of my sites (databases, and photo albums, ugh). I want to be able to use the same browser folks are going to use to view my site, which is for the most part, the newest IE. I keep hearing NOF 11 was built for XP, but when I bought it I think I had Win 7 Pro 64. I was unable to use IE 64, and had to fudge Windows to run my shiny new NOF 11. Windows was working amazingly well as it was a brand new machine. And as for the same old questions about Admin, run as Admin, etc, that is all standard issue for running stuff on any NT based M$ box, so yea... Like I said NOF 11 and 7 now both work on Win 7 here, I just see a lot of folks having issues with 2013 and Win 7, so before I jump in I was hoping to find out if it was really as necessary as Steve had eluded to in the e-mail. Plus it sounded like there was some loss of functionality, rather than added, as far as Java 'toys'. I really hate to start buying 3rd party add-ons for a new version, when I use the ones in the old one... (Had to go check, since I rarely use IE, I do have v9 on this) Mostly I use Chrome...

    So, basically I was looking for a consensus, like, most folks are doing fine with it, or if databases will be brought in correctly (external, through ODBC), and is there still an option for Photo Albums, and will mine import with the template. All this info should be on the NOF site.... but that's something we have been dealing with for some time now, lack of support, lol. I guess $75 is not a lot of money, but I hate to get into it and be all mad at me again. Loved MX, and 7, and 11 is growing on me as I learn all the toys, 12 sounded like a mess when it came out. Just not sure if the jury is back on this one yet.

  4. #4
    Senior Member gotFusion's Avatar
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    When the Fusion product came out back in the late 1990's the price was $695 (I believe) and for such a ground breaking piece of software it was a good value at that price. Over the years the price has gone down with each version released (mostly as competition entered and took some of the market). Now you can get a retail version of the current Fusion product for $130.

    There have been additions to the product over the years but most of these are just OK. The image manipulation palette and the picture galleries component are the one that stand out as the most obvious.

    There are a LOT of really good photo and graphic display programs out on the market and to expect something "tossed into" another software at "no cost" to compete with dedicated photo gallery software is a bit of a stretch. Fusion is NOT photoshop and it is NOT jAlbum or WoW. Fusion is an html code generator and still one of the cleanest ones on the market as far as the GUI and final code is concerned

    Now if NetO decided to place a photo gallery with the abilities of Jalbum or WoWslider AND toss in a database code generator I am sure they would not be able to keep the retail price at $130.

    Seeing you balk at a $74 upgrade price should give you the answer as to why this will never happen.

    I always suggest that anyone wanting a nice photo gallery display to look at the commercial products on the market and choose one of those for their photo manipulation.

    Minimum software required to be a good web creator (not even a designer just to create web pages that look better than what a 5 year old can do)

    Html editor software
    image editor software
    image display software

    The defacto standard over the years has been

    Dreamweaver:
    Photoshop:
    jAlbum or WoW slider

    This will run you around $500 to get started then another $400 a year if you want to continue using the Adobe products.

    Don't look forward to Fusion incorporating photoshop or one of the slick photo gallery programs within the GUI any time soon.

    As to databases. there have been a number of database code generators come and go over the years. Their main downfall is database programing is unique to each application and no piece of software that generates code can be that flexible (even Fusion has this failing). With html there are a number of ways to do the same thing but with a DB query and display the coding needs to be much more specific (and correct).

    There are a number of php centered code editors out on the market that are useful if you are working with that language but there is also ColdFusion, ASP and DOT net languages too.
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  5. #5
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    +1 to what Mike said. As a general overall statement, IMHO NoF is the best release yet (with AU5 - it took a while to get there), fast and stable, for creating static web site front ends. No single application will ever exist that can create entire web sites with all the necessary technology incorporated into the one program. That's the route that both Apple and Microsoft took with their operating systems, trying to make them an all-you-need PC software bundle. As a result, none of the bundled applications ever began to compete with standalone dedicated applications. And amazingly, neither of them have yet realised that what the user wants from an OS is simply that - a stable system that operates the various hardware bits of the computer and offers a simple interface into the system for application programmers. It's the reason that almost 50 years after its inception, UNIX is still so vastly superior to either Apple's or Microsoft's OSs. It's the mind set that's the difference, not the programming.

    While I'd disagree with Mike (slightly) on the list of necessary apps (I haven't used Dreamweaver since version 3 back around the turn of the millenium) his point is valid. You can't build a house with only a hammer; you need a whole range of tools. And if you're doing this professionally then you need to invest in the tools you need to build that house (or a commercial web site).

    IMHO again, NoF is seriously lacking in only one area - the ability to output Responsive web sites and supersites, both of which are rapidly becoming the standard for the web and which clients are demanding. This threatens to cut seriously into NO's professional market unless this changes PDQ. Xara Web Designer has already come out with these options in their latest release. Wysiwyg Web Designer 9 has a (sort of) ability to create a responsive site but it does require expert knowledge and a hack to make work. Which is why even though I have the program I don't use it. NoF needs to have it urgently and I'd bet my last pair of trousers their developers are hard at work on just this thing.

    Other than that, except when a client wants RWD, I still stick with NoF for the reasons already mentioned - speed, stability and the ability to create pretty much anything I can envision without having to you a generic template to start with.

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    I think you misunderstood me a little... I'm not looking for NOF to be a photoshop/DW type thing, I was wanting clarification as to what I had heard on another thread about part of the Java tools being taken out that had been there for some time (they were calling it 'the Carousel'?). I used the Rotating Photo java tool in some pages, (which now doesn't work due to old Java and security issues I guess) so there is an error on the web page. I don't like Flash driven sites, although I used it (old Macromedia Flash) for a bit years ago. Do not want to deal with that again, thanks... lol. I have a simple design, don't really care if 'customers' find it, because it is for me, not for sales, therefore I am not going to make money from the site, per-se, so funding it with hundreds or thousands of dollars a year is out of the question. Sure, I'm certain there are stellar products to make the absolute best quality media site with the top notch graphics, etc. But if I am going to just make a site for my ancestry, so mom can look at the info, or just put up photo albums with pictures of the farm animals, or garden photos for the month, and old vacation pics, I hardly need that level of magnificence. Quick and dirty, WYSIWYG style - that is the part of NOF I like. It's redemption is in the site mgmt, which is what I want it for, if I have to manage all the links myself, I wouldn't need it, I could simply do it the way I used to way back, where I built html templates, and just edit in each page's content. I don't really have the time for that, as it no longer makes me money, lol. There are thousands of web pages in my sites, literally, (server says the file count is currently over 51,000) so if I lose the ability to import the older sections of the site, simply to update the java bits, to be secure, and work, I will simply have to delete them, and lose that part of the site, (which will make for broken link nightmares, due to having many sub-sites) If the 'fix' for the Java security issues was to simply remove those parts of the java features, I can just edit the site, and remove those parts and re-pub, but if it affects all the java - (like Nav bars?) I might have to upgrade or lose the entire site to security issues. Starting to hate Java as much as Flash...

    There has been a Photo Album in NOF for some time, I used it on many of my sub-sites. It has all the descriptions of the pictures, titles, dates, etc. If they do not import into the new version, I have to retype all that info into a new album, which is really time consuming, it would be nice for those to import, if not I will just dump that part of the site. I am not going to re-build all the vacation photos, all the holiday photos, all those descriptions, etc. Just not that important, but it would be nice for them to still be there, archived, for family members to remember, especially when some have passed. I like to look through the old camping trip photos and remember my late wife.

    I do not have database driven asp complete sites, like gotFusion was referring to. My content is not data delivered php friendly, tried that before. The database question is a matter of will my current NOF sites import into the new 2013. I have used the ODBC connector to build portions of sites, with stacked pages, some of the kid's artwork info, and archived info about other stuff from my previous life, etc. I have never had any luck getting these to import into a new version of NOF, and was curious if it will work with 2013, or will I have to rebuild all the data connectors all over, and rebuild the stacked pages and all the fields, layout, etc.

    I'm not looking for added functions, just need to know if the previous functions are forward compatible, so I don't have to start all over once again. I guess I could just buy it and toss it in the rubbish if it doesn't work, but that seems silly, if I can find out what the capabilities are.

  7. #7
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    You can use the free version of the WoW slider. It is branded/marked with their name whereas the commercial/retail version is not. Other than that there is no difference between them.

    You make the slide show in their software then generate an html page with the code blocks in it. Then all you need to do is copy/paste the code blocks into Fusion to display the completed show.

    I think you would be satisfied with this regardless of what you eventually use to generate or write the web pages with.

    As far as whether your existing components are forward compatible this is something you would need to find out after you make the move. I've not found any that are not other than very old nav bar components (prior to version 8)

    This is a screenshot of all of the photo components in Fusion 2013 maybe you can tell from their names if they are the same as what you are now using.

    Click image for larger version. 

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    Ah! yes, that menu looks very much like the one in 11. Rotating Picture and Photo Gallery are the ones I use most, as well as the External Data Source... very good. Thank you. I will also check out the WOW Slider.

  9. #9
    Senior Member gotFusion's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MikeOhlh View Post
    Ah! yes, that menu looks very much like the one in 11. Rotating Picture and Photo Gallery are the ones I use most, as well as the External Data Source... very good. Thank you. I will also check out the WOW Slider.
    WoW is pretty nice. I have a tutorial for using it with Fusion on the gotFusion site if you wan to go over it

    http://www.gotfusion.com/tutorials/tut.cfm?itemID=4090
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    Silly me, I was looking for the Like Button, Thanks,

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