First off, I'm a paying Feng Office customer. Originally I was looking for a free replacement for ProjectPier, and OpenGoo was both in active development as well as had paid support if I needed it. I've been here for about 10 months now, starting at v1.4 I think to the present.
At first the devs had participated in the forums a lot. There was a lot of buzz on the net about it. I know they've been working hard to squash bugs and improve usability. But to be honest, I'm starting to get disappointed in how development is getting bogged down with bugs & bugfixes instead of enriching the application. The devs are commenting less and less, and despite their willingness to accept help from other devs, I still see other developer posts go unanswered.
There has been no major functionality updates since I've been here. Functionality improvements yes, but big changes, no. This is just my opinion based on my own needs, you may disagree, but all you have to do is look at the Release_notes.txt that come with each version download. The v1.6.2. release notes are full of bug fixes, but look at the items marked "feature" since v1.5.3:
feature: Apply a task's assignee to all subtasks.
feature: Allow changing a user's personal workspace.
feature: Add comments to Contacts and Companies.
feature: User config option to hide quoted text added.
feature: Added a cron event to clear tmp folder.
feature: Added an experimental new search mechanism. It can be much slower but finds more results.
feature: Archive objects and workspaces.
feature: Mark as read/unread for all objects
feature: Share mail accounts among several users.
feature: Assign a workspace to a mail account to automatically classify email to that workspace
feature: Group emails into conversations.
feature: Email attachments from file system.
feature: Email Junk folder (mail classified as spam by your mail server is sent to a "Junk" folder)
feature: Emails are sent asynchronously (you can continue working on Feng Office while an email is being sent)
feature: Send emails as attachments from Feng Office
feature: Create a task from an email.
feature: Insert images into Feng Office documents and emails
feature: Allow events to span more than one day and support drag and drop for these events and repeating events.
feature: Upgraded document editor to CKEditor 3.0
feature: Editing Concurrency: warn user if object being edited was edited by someone else.
feature: Improved password recovery procedure.
feature: Config option to detect mime type from extension
feature: Option to autodetect timezone
feature: New toolbar menu to remove tags
feature: New type of parameter "User" for Templates.
feature: VCard Import
Are those really new features or are they simply basic "usability" items? I think the latter. The only really major new features are:
feature: Archive objects and workspaces.
feature: Share mail accounts among several users.
And that's it. The rest are usability items, that is, minor but significant things that should have been there in the first place.
What do I see as solid new features? How about this:
1. chat module
2. who's logged on
3. working spreadsheet
4. an email client with all the features people expect: rules, etc.
5. gantt charts
6. printing option for all objects
7. file viewers for other document types
8. a wiki
9. publicly publishable objects
10. a forum
11. customizable dashboard
12. IM integration
13. data exporting
14. custom tabs with custom content
15. A reporting module that actually does what it should
16. An integrated ticketing system
17. and the list goes on...
To me, THOSE are new features, not "feature: Upgraded document editor to CKEditor 3.0".
I'm posting this because even though many people have asked for a roadmap, it's never been posted. I understand the difficulties of running a business as well as the software development business, as I've done both. However, I also understand that satisfying customers is essential as well. I'll be honest, I'm disappointed in the lack of meaningful, significant updates and the fewer and fewer Feng staff posts. I've even put my money where my mouth is and offered to help pay for a couple of functionality changes that are not my first priority. I've even decided to pay for a Feng Office subscription even though I really didn't need to, I did this to show my support.
I'm not going to threaten to drop Feng for some other product, because that doesn't work, what I hopes does work is constructive discourse. I don't think Feng Office is really progressing. Do you?
I would love to hear your opinions.
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