July 29, 2015
Artisteer & Themler - Everything You Wished For
It's been a while since we had significant news to announce and we
apologize for the long delay. We actually didn't anticipate it could take
this long and we owe you an explanation, while wanting to make it up to you
as well.
We wrote the FAQ below which hopefully provides answers you've been
waiting for. The FAQ will continue to be updated as more information and
more questions come in.
In the upcoming days we will also send an email announcement to our
customers, pointing to this information.
Let's start with info about our past hiccups, then move onto the good news
about what we can do to help with your web-related efforts:
Why there were no major Artisteer news and releases in a long
time?
We've got caught up in a few failed efforts to implement features in
Artisteer that we just couldn't finalize due to limitations of such a
desktop product, and possibly our own. And frankly, we've been embarrassed
to write news about our failures, or promising you more things we may not be
able to deliver, as well as simply not wanting to bother you with spam,
trying to sell you minor upgrades, etc. Basically we don't like to be sold
fluff and we don't want to sell it to others.
At the same time we undertook major R&D efforts into solving some of the
Artisteer's limitations and creating new products that we were hoping to
release within a year, but which actually took three...
So what happened to Artisteer during that time?
As some of you may remember, a few years ago we've been offering Artisteer
Beta version for Mac which was dragging for a long time and we couldn't
overcome technical limitations to port the Windows version to Mac, thus
ultimately neglecting the Mac version altogether.
You may also remember us talking about e-commerce features within Artisteer,
which would support creating templates for e-commerce systems like Magento
and PrestaShop. Unfortunately after investing considerable efforts and
another year of time into this undertaking, we couldn't make sufficient
progress in this area as well. We've discovered that many e-commerce
features and other features you've been asking for, could not be implemented
without major restructuring of product's architecture. However, even with
attempts of major rewrite of Artisteer, the result would be a new bloated and
complex product that may be slower to work with while still not being
flexible enough to allow us to continually extend Artisteer. We've
realized that one of major problems is that Artisteer as a desktop
application is separated from the CMS like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal, and
we simply cannot guarantee that templates will work in
WordPress/Joomla/Drupal the same way we display them in Artisteer. We
could only generate templates without knowing how they will later interact
with the actual system, the plugins you may have installed, other themes,
etc. Another obstacle was displaying template output inside Artisteer
with variety of features that your CMS or e-commerce system may generate
inside the template. For example an e-commerce system is a program that
reads information from a database and displays it on the page, including
shopping buttons, cart and other features. And to be able to display the
same output inside Artisteer, we'd actually have to duplicate or load that
whole e-commerce program with all its features and plugins into Artisteer
and make it work inside Artisteer, so that it can display and show you how
the final design will look like. This just wouldn't make sense and
wouldn't be possible at all. Some of you also asked for supporting
Bootstrap framework, shortcodes, drag-and-drop from the menu, and various
dynamic features which would slowly turn Artisteer into a web application to
work correctly. Some things just aren't possible and although
Artisteer was a wonderful desktop product for creating great static designs
and converting them to themes and templates, we were stuck with limitations
and time wasted on things that in the end couldn't work.
However, we've seen an influx of various customizable WordPress themes,
which could achieve amazing levels of customization right within WordPress,
thanks to being integrated directly with WordPress and working inside
WordPress. Using those themes you could make various customizations and
instantly see the look of your website.
We've realized that this is the most powerful and most flexible approach to
designing themes and templates, at least for CMS and e-commerce systems. And
to be able to compete with those powerful themes or even simply move forward
and continue working on great features, Artisteer would have to become a
different product. Such product would need to become a type of a web
application, and it would need to look and work differently from Artisteer,
therefore it would need to be a different product... And thus our new
product was born: Themler.
Themler would need to work fully online, whether on a local desktop with web server or
an external website. It would need to fulfill advanced tasks and allow us and
you to go beyond any design limits. Part of our team moved onto working on
Themler, but as the time went by this turned into a tremendous undertaking
that required more and more time, and more resources. We decided to put more
of our resources into Themler, assuming we can finish it within a year or
so, just in time to become a possible upgrade for Artisteer users as well.
Unfortunately only now, three years later, we're nearing the finish of this
project.
Though to put this in perspective, a game like Grand Theft Auto IV took over 1000 people and more than three and a half years to complete, without other upgrades in between. And you can play GTA for couple of weeks, while spending months or years saving or making money with Artisteer and Themler!
What if I don't want to use WordPress or Joomla, just create
standard HTML websites?
Artisteer was and continues to be a lightweight, easy-to-use product that
can automatically generate nice templates, provide design suggestions, and
generate themes/templates or HTML pages. And we realize that Artisteer is
also used by many people for creating basic HTML websites without a CMS.
These users can continue utilizing Artisteer as they always did and there is
no need to move to Themler. However, Themler can act as a bridge to
learning variety of template systems, from HTML to CMS and e-Commerce.
Therefore we've decided to also support HTML website design within Themler
and you will be able to design individual pages inside Themler and export
complete HTML websites.
Is Artisteer still being developed?
Artisteer is not going away and continues to be supported, and we continue
updating the templates it generates, especially whenever WordPress and
Joomla are being updated. But we've decided not to try to make a different
product out of Artisteer. Artisteer is great at generating web
designs and letting you create great HTML websites and medium-complex WordPress themes and Joomla templates. And Artisteer was never meant to be a full-blown WordPress/Joomla theme development platform, but a web design generator and web design software that then allows you to export your design in a few different formats. And Artisteer continues to have such capabilities, while there just aren't many more features that can be added
to such product, except those that would require changing its architecture and turning
it into a different product. And we too have been using various
desktop products for many years without needing or wanting to purchase new
versions, because those products simply work as they should, just like Artisteer does its job. However, we
may be able to bring some of the new experience from Themler back into
Artisteer in the future, therefore we may create larger updates when possible.
Our current goal for 2015 is to make Themler work as good and similarly
to Artisteer as possible, so that you will be able to use both products and
choose each one for different tasks, as well as help us decide later which
product to focus on.
Our goal is also to guide you into not only using Artisteer and Themler, but
helping you create the designs you have in mind and those you haven't
thought of yet.
I looked at Themler and it doesn't look anything like Artisteer or
an easy to use desktop product!
We realize that Themler looks and feels differently, it also works slower
when working within a CMS, and generally can have steeper learning
curve than Artisteer. However, it really can work very similarly to
Artisteer, it is quite fast when creating HTML websites, and we're doing
everything possible to make it even easier to use. We are also working
on a series of videos that will show you how quickly and easily you can
create new themes and templates using Themler. We want to guide you and you help
you use Themler, therefore please feel free to contact us with any
questions. For now, here is a video demonstrating how we've created
one of our themes using Themler:
https://vimeo.com/133549765 (the video shows a quick 1 minute preview
followed by a slower 10 minute demo). You can also view the final WordPress
theme created in that video at
https://templates.themler.io/Themes/Detail/1670461/Soccer-Club-Static
And for those of you who love creating static HTML websites, we've created a few
videos showing how to design a few sample HTML websites using Themler.
Sample videos showing how to create HTML websites are available here:
http://answers.themler.io/articles/15767/html-websites-and-artisteer-projects-artx-support-22-jul-2015
We are also working on letting you export your Artisteer projects into a special theme/template format that can be imported into Themler, and we have a Beta version for WordPress users, which requires this small Artisteer 4.3 update:
Artisteer 4.3.0.60818 (Artisteer 4.3 license is required). We'd
appreciate your help with testing this WordPress theme export into Themler. By end of August we will also have Artisteer updates for exporting your
Artisteer projects into HTML and Joomla template formats compatible with
Themler.
Please note that projects exported from Artisteer to Themler may look a bit differently as both products use different HTML structure and responsive standards. Therefore you may need to perfom minor adjustments after transferring your project into Themler.
So what's so great about Themler and what can it do that Artisteer
and other themes cannot?
A beta user of Themler, Shaul Hadar of Israeli based web development company S.H Media already created over 200 websites for his customers using Themler! Shaul told us: "Themler allowed us to quickly create a large number of standards-based, responsive websites for our clients. I cannot believe such software actually exists, a bootstrap based theme builder which integrates with the most popular CMS's. Themler made my life much easier and the support is just astounding."
Here is why Themler can be so great:
First, Themler is the only
product/theme/template in the world that can be installed into WordPress,
Joomla, Magento, wooCommerce, VirtueMart or PretaShop. Themler can be installed and work directly on your local or remote
website. This will allow you to design websites for almost any of your
clients, regardless which product they use. And just like in Artisteer, you
can continue saving and exporting your themes and templates, which you can
sell to your customers. Themler can also be installed on your Windows desktop,
and has a good chance to work on Mac and Linux desktops later. If you
install Themler on your Windows desktop, it will automatically install the
website hosting environment for you (WAMP), which will allow you to work
directly with WordPress, Joomla and other CMS's on your desktop.
Second, Themler has no limits. Either for us or for you. Now we
can continue extending it as much as we want, while you too can extend your
themes and templates as much as you like, while using Themler and having it
continually updated.
Third, Themler offers advanced features that you will not find in any other
products or customizable themes. Starting with supporting multiple templates
for multiple page types within a single theme, which also wasn't possible in
Artisteer, as well as supporting hundreds of elements and
options that allow you to customize every part of a fully responsive theme.
While various other customizable themes out there are always limited to customizing only some areas of that theme.
Themler also supports Boostrap, viewing your data and content live within the theme
while designing it, custom shortcodes for any controls, while with a little
coding knowledge you can create popping visual effects like transitions,
animations and parallax. Take a look at this example theme that could never be possible with Artisteer:
http://i2162320.wordpress.4.preview1-live.billiondigital.com/. For the list of main Themler's features refer to
http://themler.io/Features.
Fourth, Themler may be the lowest priced customizable theme/template on the market, as it is a combination of a theme/template and a visual web design and theme development tool that allows you to create as many themes as you like and sell them. In fact, this makes Themler the only theme that pays you! (as much as you collect from your customers)
Lastly, Themler allows us to work and make progress, rather than
getting stuck with some limits we were encountering in Artisteer, therefore
we will also be able to communicate and be proud of brining you new features
and visible progress again. We do strive to have better communication with
our customers and want to help you use our products better.
What is missing from Themler and what can I expect in the future?
Themler supports creating HTML pages/content for static HTML websites but
doesn't support yet creating content for CMS's like WordPress and Joomla.
Theme/template is the overall look and feel of your website, while
content is what goes inside the
theme/template to display the full page. Therefore Themler currently lets you customize every possible part of a theme/templates around your content, while we're also working on helping you design the page content with drag-and-drop features for adding text and
images within your WordPress and Joomla pages.
OK, so what now? Do I need to buy Themler in addition to Artisteer?
The good news is: you will receive Themler Business for free if you've
purchased an Artisteer Standard upgrade within the last year and still qualify for
free upgrades. Therefore instead of getting just Artisteer Standard
upgrades, you will receive both Artisteer Standard and Themler Business.
And there is more, when using Themler you will also be able to utilize any of our 150,000 images from
www.BillionPhotos.com, within your Themler themes. Note: the images cannot be included in templates that are mass-distributed via the internet.
You will also receive full access to BillionPhotos photos website until end
of August 2015 to download images for any of your other projects (resolution
depends on your product level/edition).
However, if you did not purchase an Artisteer upgrade within the last year,
you'd need to purchase Artisteer/Themler upgrade for $59.95 to obtain the
latest version of Artisteer, Themler and BillionPhotos access within Themler. This will also
extend your free upgrade period for another year.
If you'd like to use the e-commerce features, you'd need to purchase an
upgrade to Themler Pro version, for $99.
You can also try Themler for free by downloading it from
http://themler.io/.
You just won't be able to export a theme without purchasing it or using your
active Artisteer license.
Is Themler a service or a subscription-based product?
Just like Artisteer, Themler is a one time software purchase that includes
one year of free upgrades. Please note that this is not a
subscription, but we simply don't want to nickel-and-dime you with every
upgrade. We remember paying for products and then finding that a new upgrade
is available couple months later at an extra cost. In case of
Artisteer and Themler we offer free upgrades for a year as a way to assure you
that you will not be charged for another upgrade a month after your purchase. In fact, you
can use our products for years without purchasing upgrades. However,
after a year of your use of the products, we feel it's fair to charge an
upgrade fee for any new/additional upgrades and our continual support,
research and working on new versions and products, even though it doesn't
always seem we make great progress.
Due to our bad past experience with software cracks both Artisteer and
Themler utilize an online licensing system to allow us to verify that you
are a valid license holder. We hope you understand that this is for your
benefit because both Artisteer and Themler would no longer exist if they
were distributed for free.
I see that Themler is in Beta. When will it be officially released?
Themler is 99% tested and ready for release, but we are watching for any additional possible issues and plan to quickly resolve them.
You can already start using Themler, while the official release is possible in the first or second week of August.
It's quite possible that we will simply remove the "Beta" label after confirming that the current version works as well as expected.
What is BillionPhotos and another product I heard about: Createer?
We work with investors who also invest into other startups/companies that
are working on products related to web design. BillionPhotos is a stock
photo company and now our photo division that produces photos for web
designs, mainly Themler, while also providing them to stock photo companies
like Adobe Stock (formerly Fotolia), Shutterstock and a new low-cost
subscription based stock photo company
LifetimeStock. BillionPhotos
recently became #1 contributor to Adobe Stock, therefore you'd be receiving
the same top images that Adobe offers. We are also the main contributor to LifetimeStock
where you will find more great images. If you, your organization or your
friends have additional graphics and web design needs outside of
Artisteer/Themler, we would like to recommend taking a look at LifetimeStock
(currently in Beta) that provides 250,000 amazing stock images (including
ours) for only 10 bucks per month. You can also receive 40% discount until end of August
2015: gH3S9Z
Createer is our other
investment and it is an online product for visually creating great
documents, sales pages, flyers, ads, posters, invitations and web content. It's a bit similar to Microsoft® Office and Adobe® tools, but works fully online. Createer
also provides WordPress and Joomla plugins that allow you to create great
content directly within your CMS. Createer is developed by a fully
separate, independent team, located in the US and Poland, which doesn't take
any time away from Artisteer or Themler.
You can check out Createer at
www.createer.com and use the following temporary coupon for a 40%
discount until the end of August 2015: ART1-40
We welcome your feedback and will utilize it to learn how to make both
Artisteer and Themler easier, better and more fun to use. Because working
with Artisteer and Themler should be fun.
Lastly, we'd like to thank you and our families for the long wait while we design and code, so that you don't have to.
We appreciate you reading this message and hope it was worth the read
and the wait!
Remember that you can check your eligibility for free product upgrades at
http://www.artisteer.com/?p=license_info
Yours,
Artisteer/Themler Team
PS.
Submit Artisteer questions, fedback or license recovery requests to Artisteer support.
Submit Themler related questions and wishes to
Themler forums and support.
Purchase a new Artisteer/Themler license
combo here:
http://www.artisteer.com/?p=purchase
And of course don't forget to tell your parents or troll your friends!: