Anyone on the forums have contact with Nick Cates?
Many will know that he has moved on from Rapidweaver development - and I’d be the first to thank him for his products over the years and wish him well.
However, users of his Depth theme are somewhat left in the lurch with the parallax built into the stacks not working with Safari 14 and looking pretty crap. I don’t think it’s too much to expect that he keeps his products working for a while, particularly as they were still being marketed and sold just a few months back.
However, after a week I’ve not even had an acknowledgement of my email and tagged posts on this forum have produced nothing. Hence the request.
And the message on his site implies that ongoing support will be very limited.
THANK YOU to everyone in the RapidWeaver community for the years of kind words and support of my work. At this time, I’m ending the sale and production of my RapidWeaver add-ons. Product support will limited to Knowledge Base and general setup inquiries. For premium RapidWeaver add-ons, I fully endorse Joe Workman, Elixir Graphics, Yabdab, and Yourhead Software. Going forward, my focus is dedicated to FALCON Design. Thank you.
Yes I’m aware but if so this is pretty lousy behaviour. Nobody’s asking for new features but it is entirely reasonable to expect a product to be functional for a good period of time after purchase - and some will have bought Depth pretty recently.
Of course, I might be jumping the gun; maybe he is away or hasn’t seen this issue raised for some other reason. That’s why it would be good to know how to get in touch.
There’s A contact dropdown menu item on the falcon design webpage above. That includes an email and phone number. Yes, it’s old school, but you could try giving a call.
It sure would have been nice if he had been able to turned over his diverse RapidWeaver lineup to another developer. Maybe there weren’t any takers. Falling short of another developer taking over the products maybe he could post the source onto GitHub and make it open source.
I agree.I don’t understand this behavior. If they, for whatever reason, lost interest or, more specifically, stop development and preferably wanting to stop supporting, then why don’t they give their code to another developer who does want to continue? Of course they could sell, but if no developer wants to (because either the product isn’t worth the investment or the price too steep - and there are other solutions obviously, like licensing) then why not hand it over? They made their money already on the sale that includes maintenance and now they’re defaulting on that last part. That’s just bad business and even worse ethics.
I don’t care much about Depth, but Nick’s Photo (v.1) was my gallery of choice. Now, Photo v.2 was “slightly” overpriced, but I’d be happy to purchase it – either from Nick or from his hypothetical successor.
Parallax effect on Depth is already broken - on Safari 14. Everything else, including animations, is fine. I’m pretty sure Depth uses the open source Jarallax javascript library and this is where the problem occurred.
If you have parallax activated in any Depth Section, I’d recommend turning it off (set to zero) at least for now. Alternatively you could put an “incompatible with latest Safari” notice up.
Thanks for the tip. Like I said, I am not a pro, just a guy who makes a web site for his small, local business.
Any recommendations for a new theme for www.rjhoney.com? I use RapidCart because we are local pick up only. I guess I need to do it sooner rather than later.
I’ve sent two emails without reply - first one about 6 weeks ago. I’ve spent a lot of money on his products and to suddenly have no support is extremely concerning. I’m not happy.
He wound his RW operation down in the most fair way possible. He chose not to release his stuff for free out of respect for fairness to the other developers. His leaving the RW community is going to be a loss going forward, and calling his products overpriced is ridiculous. As are any expectations he should be bound to support his legacy products forever (or for whatever the magical period of time is acceptable). His knowledge base is still online, but moving forward as parts start to break because of external software and coding changes, he won’t be continuing to update the products.
Maybe it would have been better if someone took over his work. Other’s have done that in the past. Perhaps a developer could chime in whether that would be a good thing, if they were not the one chosen to take on the work, and/or the profits going forward. He was pretty clear on why he did what he did, and I respect the wisdom of his decision. Keeping a business, or business segment viable, is hard work. It doesn’t always work out, and some are lured to greener pastures elsewhere. Folks have to eat.
I have no clue what led him to move away from RW, but perhaps he was chasing ever increasingly fleeting dollars. Also, the community here has changed a bit for the worse, and also become fractured as some developers chose to operate their own support forums. It looks like some accounts are created for the sole purpose of trashing some of the developers, which reflects poorly on us as a community. I have been using RW professionally since its earliest versions, and have seen quite a few talented developers choose to jump ship or disappear. As much as we carp, if you go through some of the themes and add-ons here on the RM website, there are a bunch of folks being pushed still selling products that haven’t been actively in business for years. I know, as I have bought many of their work. It sucks to lose talent. Period.
I suggest we all try and treat each other, and especially the talented developers we have left a bit nicer. If they have to set their pricing beyond free, and have to charge a bit more to make a living, let it go… or buy another product. That’s how the free market works. Otherwise we may lose Isiah, Adam, and all the many others who choose to develop for this platform.
So if you purchased ‘Depth’ in say June of this year, and now just 3 months later in September this problem arose, would you be happy that the developer refused to fix it?
I don’ t want to get in an extended pissing match with you. Like you I am an end user. Would I be thrilled? No. Has it happened to me? Yes. Are there STILL products pushed here online from ghost companies? (with no indication they are defunct). Yes. (and frankly RM could do a bit of clean-up on what they are linking to)
Nick is not the first person to decide that RW is not a viable niche for him anymore. Instead of ghosting, like many others have done, he was pretty upfront of the path forward (or the lack thereof). The doggy piling that goes on here in the forums these days may be another reason folks decide to find greener pastures. The timing of a browser coding change was not in Nick’s control. The product still works, with one feature not working (and I think Adam provided a one time fix for that). However, you can expect that other little bits may start to fall apart going into the future as external coding changes break what was once working. That’s just reality. Also, I have the Depth theme myself.
If your knickers are that twisted try reaching out for a refund, or partial refund. But, I think he was pretty straight forward about what is a less than ideal situation. Do I think he intentionally set put to defraud customers? Absolutely not! Comments saying his stuff was overpriced are ridiculous, as perhaps if he charged more he may have opted to stick around. Comments going after his professional ethics also are not fair. I am sure that this was not an easy decision to make for him, and none of us know what led him to pull the plug.
I have dealt with Nick for many years and always found him responsive, and his work among the best. Out of respect for that, I can only wish him the best. Websites I work on with his work will have to transition away from them, much as I have done with many of the other themes, plug-ins, and stacks over the years. The only constant is change, and not all of them are good.
