Templateer 4.2 review / thoughts? |
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speedyp
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Hoping some of you with artisteer 4.2 will be able to share your thoughts or findings on the new 4.2 templateer release.
My artisteer subscription lapsed before 4.2 and I'd like to know your thoughts before renewing.
Cheers
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MikeC
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My Artisteer also expired after the release of 4.2 beta but my Templateer is still good for a while.
I was very disappoint with Artisteer 4.2 because it didn't really offer any significant new features and still left some bugs. The js libraries in 4.2 are still outdated. Forget the whole online exporting, that's been discussed to death.
I look at 4.2 and think, this is the best they could do over a 5-6 month period?
As such, I've switched over to a couple of frameworks (Genesis is one) and I can now build those really cool and amazing sites that are on the top of ThemeForest and the type of sites that are pretty much impossible to build with Aritsteer. It's really upped my game, so to speak.
Yes, using frameworks takes long but not significantly longer. If an Aristeer theme takes me 1 hour, frameworks will usually take 1.5 to 2 hours but also give me a significantly better theme.
We're quickly coming to the end of 2013 and I now look at Artisteer as the new FrontPage. Personally, I never used FrontPage because it was almost embarrassing as a professional web designer to do so. I now feel the same way with Artisteer.
Artisteer themes are generic, at best. Compare the best you've seen come out of Artisteer to the popular themes in ThemeFores and it's no contest.
I know a lot of "web designers" did well creating FrontPage designs but, personally, that's not my market.
So, the bottom line is this: despite all the controversy with online exporting, Artisteer 4.2 hasn't offered enough features and functionality to keep it in the game. You create a super, cutting edge design in 4.2 and I can pretty much match it in 4.1.
Instead of paying the Artisteer and/or Templateer upgrade, buy the $60 or $350 w/ themes Genesis lifetime license and now you can make magic happen.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents.
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Trevor
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Ya really. Templateer 4.2 works offline but will it always? We don't know cause no one ever explains anything in full. Getting the complete story here is really difficult. At least with Genesis or any other framework you also get all the source code. While I still think you can get a perfectly fine and great looking design out of Artisteer, it's ease of use does attract a lot of non designers and people just startkng out or non professionals, which leads to more poorly designed and built sites.
One thing I don't like about Templateer 4.2 is that it makes a duplicate of the site in a subdirectory called design. It includes the base Artisteer html css javascript and all images from the design. That bloat will just about double the size of the themes.
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Nick
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Some valid points guys. These are my quick observations with Templateer 4.2.
1. It managed to swell the theme size from 300kb to almost 3MB. That is a big size difference.
2. It seems that besides making it compatible with Artisteer 4.2, nothing has been done to it. The same Woocommerce incompatibility problem still exists, which is really a 20 second fix. For the record, a few months ago, the woocommerce.php file was fully compatible with Woocommerce. But after a woocommerce update sometime in April or May, made this templateer file not compatible. All that needs to be done is to delete the line that contains the "title" in it, and you are good.
3. Compared to Artisteer themes, Templateer 4.1 themes were much slower, a good second or so. I can't say that is still the case though with templateer 4.2. I need to do some actual benchmarking, but the impression last night was that, templateer 4.2 themes work as fast as regular Artisteer themes...
4. You don't need to be online to export the themes.
5. There is a huge problem with some plugins. There are many plugins that my theme installer suggests to be installed when one of my themes get activated. One of them is "Simnor shortcodes". Now this particular plugin works fine with Artisteer 4.2 themes, however with Templateer 4.2 themes, it breaks the theme. If I decide to start using Templateer 4.2, I will have to replace this plugin with another one, "olevmedia-shortcodes" is working with Templateer 4.2. So, not all plugins are fully compatible with Artisteer themes, and the list of incompatible plugins increases even more with Templateer themes. Since I will be making my themes for distribution, and not just for my clients sites, this is a sure recipe for disaster, support and branding nightmare. It will be a matter of time, when Templateer 4.2 will make me look like bad, with no way to fix things.
All is not lost though. There are dev. plans for Templateer 4.2, and hopefully the plugins problem will be solved. In the meantime, I will very soon start "production", using Artisteer to export the themes. since August, i had devised my own manual coding methods to replace many of the templateer functions, thus a lot of value and functions are added to the plain old Artisteer themes, and I mean a lot.
My real hope is that WP Tuxedo develops very soon, with all the planned features. If we can also export the themes without being online, is a big plus of course. The most important thing as a theme developer is that the WP Tuxedo themes pass the "theme check", thus unlike Artisteer, and Templateer themes, the code is clean and up to Wordpress standards, meaning that plugin incompatibilities with my themes will be a thing of the past. For the record, even Elegant Themes themes, don't pass the theme check, so it can be a big marketing point.
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Unglood
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Quote Trevor:
Ya really. Templateer 4.2 works offline but will it always? We don't know cause no one ever explains anything in full.
This. +2
Quote Trevor:
While I still think you can get a perfectly fine and great looking design out of Artisteer, it's ease of use does attract a lot of non designers and people just startkng out or non professionals, which leads to more poorly designed and built sites.
perhaps if design Q&A were on a quantitive par with technical Q&A then that would go some way to mitigating 'more poorly designed and built sites'. Why do so few ask design related Q's?
I often wonder about the overwhelming dominance of technical issues - on most forums...
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ddye
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I saw saw that about WP Tuxedo, it looks promising. But does it also work with Artisteer 4, in addition to Artisteer 4.1?
Doug
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Nick
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I just tested it for you ddye, and yes, WP Tuxedo works with Artisteer 4.1. Sorry, I don't have Art. 4.0 installed in my computer anymore.
Also, be aware that if your Artisteer subscription has expired, and if you install any plugins, the Artisteer installation will revert to "Trial mode", and you will need to update your subscription. In that case, you might as well use 4.2RC, since it's the best version to date, and you can bypass being online with Templateer 4.2, and hopefully very soon, with WP tuxedo.
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speedyp
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Thanks for the feedback folks.
Do all the templates work as expected, especially mag3r & "multi" templates???
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Nick
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No problems with mag3r and multi templates. Again the 2 things that stand out for me is the fact that the themes are much faster than the templateer themes made with Artisteer 4.1, which is good, but the number of plugin conflicts problem with the themes are now increased, which is bad.
Personally, because I'm making my themes for distribution, I can't use templateer 4.2 because of the plugin conflict issues. I can work around the other bugs, those are not big deals. I have to stick with Art. 4.2RC, until templateer fixes the issues in the future, or until WP Tuxedo becomes mature enough for me to use it as a starting foundation in creating my themes. Let's hope and see if this week's awaited release will be the time that WP Tuxedo starts the maturing process... I have very high hopes for this plugin.
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speedyp
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Thanks Nick
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