Hello.
A few minutes ago i got an email from Osclasspoint about Osclass 4 release. I had a bought a theme from them once.
Any ideas what that is? version 4 ?
Thanks
Yeap, i got one email also today about it.
No idea what exactly is and what has been changed. I downloaded it, installed it, and got several errors from it.
It is late now, i will play with it tomorrow when i have some time.
Osclasspoint is a reputable developer for a long time, still i highly dislike that everyone puts our his own version of the dead Osclass body. Now we have 3 versions of Osclass, 3.9, 4.0 and 4.1/2.
This will lead to a failure for sure.
It is sad to see developers to come up with their "own" versions of Osclass 4 (?)."Splitting" the efforts was never a good idea. Most of them will fail one way or an other.
Since Osclass core is FREE and Open Source and they make NO money from it, they should stick to themes and plugins and support the FIRST AND BEST update of Osclass:
https://github.com/mindstellar/Osclass
The above is the most transparent and COMPATIBLE version and this is the way to go.
But i do understand why everybody want to come up with his own version: to get all the users CONNECTING and UPDATING via THEIR OWN MARKETPLACE and possibly get some clients for their plugins and themes.
Please to not use any other versions but the one from Github and that is Osclass 3.9.
https://github.com/mindstellar/Osclass
As for the version of Osclasspoint, i will not test further since i do NOT like what i read on their home page:
It has been some time already original osclass team stopped to release new versions and, unfortunately, community did not do good job as well. It is almost year there was last community release of osclass (v3.9) with just very small steps forward. There were created other branches of osclass those, again unfortunately, are just unprofessional attempt to somehow enhance osclass itself. So we put a lot of effort into something great...
"Community" ? Osclasspoint hasn't put out a single line of code for 3.9, all the HUGE work was done by Navjot Tommer with the help of 1-2 developers (at a later stage).
and this from Osclasspoint blog in 2019:
Once official market will be closed, OsclassPoint will be clearly biggest and most popular market for osclass. We've been building our market for years with dedication to client experience, providing fastest supports and super quick updates and we will not stop! We have released more than 12 products last year and 8 products already this year and currently having almost 60 osclass themes and plugins available at OsclassPoint market.
You and anyone else that wants to update/upgrade to the so called "4" version of Osclass:
What are the benefits? I see none. All i see is some more compatibilities issues. Oh, there is one benefit, it seems they have fixed some PHP 7.4 issues, still that is no reason to move to something else.
Instead of chasing updates and versions, work on your site to make it famous and get traffic. That's all you need to do. Running the latest of everything is not so important, the same goes also for Wordpress webmasters.
Also when deciding what to do, take into consideration the TRANSPARENCY of the script and of the developer, as @editor pointed out above. This is very important. Do you care WHERE your script connects, when, how and what exact data is exchanging?
I think all webmasters will have to choose what Osclass effort they will follow from now on. And i totally agree that
https://github.com/mindstellar/Osclass
is they safe way to go. A bit slow on versions and updates, still it is very very solid and stable and compatible (as of 3.9).
As for the rest of the "4x" versions, as they say "good luck with it".
Still my question is not answered fully. What are the changes (that we care about) in Osclass 4 from Osclasspoint.
Also reading your forums today, i see there is a third version called Osclass EVO 4.2 or something.
This is very very confusing. I use Osclass 3.9 without major issues (a couple of minnor issues with some plugin) and i ask myself what to do next.
Are all those 4x version use the 3.9 update as their "base" of code? Or it is something different?
If we update to 4 (manually i guess), can we go back to 3.9?
Download v4 from Osclasspoint and check the readme.doc or update.doc or whatever doc is included.
As far as i remember some visual updates are included (a new basic skin and some admin dashboard skin) and some fixes for PHP 7.4.
I haven't done any code comparison (we are not developers here) but i guess ... yes ... 3.9 IS where they started.
If you update, make SURE you have a GOOD and TESTED FULL backup of your live site, in case things go south. The best is to do all those tests in a subdomain and not on your production site.
As for the EVO version, i would definitely recommend to stay away from it, because it is not clear what exactly is and who makes it.
So basically they took Osclass 3.9, fixed a few things here and there, a new theme and named it v4?
Is that what you say? So there is no actual reason to update?