However, it does put more of a burden on us to check out the items in our own portfolio from time to time to make sure the client hasn’t changed anything substantive or run amok with our carefully crafted design – at which point we’ll remove our credit from the site footer and delete it from the portfolio.

Ha, I know who you’re on about, as I was checking out your portfolio as a possible future collaboration, and I saw the design you had in the portfolio wasn’t the same as the Genesis one.

I do feel WordPress designers are incredibly undervalued, more likely to do with a mix of people still not taking WordPress seriously, and frameworks making promises that can’t possibly be met without some serious coding skills.

Here’s to frameworks making people’s lives easier; but here’s to the true stars of WordPress look and feel, the designers behind the coolness.

What he said about using a professional designer holds true, also, even though agreeing with him seems obviously self-serving – but I just hate to see businesspeople put hundreds of hours into a DIY website project – hours they could have spent BILLING in their own areas of expertise – when they could have delegated that to a qualified WP professional and moved on with the business of business. I think a lot of these frameworks that tout the DIY-ability of their products lure non-IT-skilled people into thinking they can “save” money by building their own site for their business – when really they end up pulling focus away from “making” money.

I’ve been enjoying the Envato ThemeForest marketplace, some amazing themes over there for all needs. It’ll be interesting to see if the Headway Marketplace can replicate any of this.

And as DRC mentions, I’ll continue to use a WP designer for my own blog when it comes to it’s next revamp, though that could be a while as my designer Lisa did such a great job last time around.

Speaking of great jobs, way to go on a truly evergreen post, Cynthia!!

(and as usual, aggressive comments-closing by their team when you can’t get an issue resolved)

I thought it was just me that had noticed that…. i never wanted to mention it in case i got banned or something.

ps – if the Headway team ever read this, i just wanted to point out i loved Headway 2.0 and would have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone…

I have battled headway for two years now, having given up on it when their javascript loading issues and content delivery would not play nice with my host. I think I may own the longest-standing ticket on Headway Support (and as usual, aggressive comments-closing by their team when you can’t get an issue resolved)

I have high hopes for Headway 3.0, though. You’d think I’d moved on. But I bought a developer license for BOTH Headway AND Thesis, and Thesis simply stays in the dark ages, while Headway at least attempts to move forward.

But I have yet to upgrade my site to 3.0. And I’ll say THANKFULLY. I only have one site on HW any longer, which is a non-profit site which has little concern about things not working properly, since it’s all free, as opposed to paying clients would have fired me a long time ago for the mess that HW has created with disappearing leafs, buggy design editor, and poor performance. I simply hired WP developers to make my sites work properly.

I might say then that this whole concept of frameworks such as HW, Pagelines, Thesis, has been a bit of a misnomer. You simply cannot just drag and drop. And if you can’t, well, you have to HOPE that the slight and under-attended table of contents just MIGHT help. Or you have to go to the forums and learn the tricks, go back and re- code, and spend a lot of time on support, hoping that since they moved to premium support you will get an answer from one of their expert users.

So, is this better than hiring a proper WP expert who can help you past all this, launch a standards-based, best-of-breed WP custom framework for your project WITHOUT the iffy performance and even iffier moods of the main team-members at HW?

It seems that HW 3.0 was indeed pushed out too early, and I’d like to think that their over-focus on add-ons, paid themes, and pricey plugins, extra support, and leafs, all while well and good (they should be able to do this), this focus tended to cloud their focus on building a great, stable product. They simply forgot that the folks with developer licenses were ALREADY premium customers, and they also TALK.

But proof of the early push-out and extraordinary anger from their clients was the following that was in an email sent to HW users this week:

“We would be remiss if we did not state there were some bumps in the road
with the release of Headway 3.0. There were and I can certainly take the
blame for those bumps. I pushed the Team to set a hard launch date and we
stuck to it. Not something we will do again as I am sure they will kick my
sorry butt if I even suggest it. And thanks to all of you who have
provided some great feedback and input. We are getting those bumps leveled
out and removed.

As Clay stated early on with the release of 3.0, we are on a very
aggressive update schedule with 3.0. Which is why you are already seeing
3.0.4. With the next update being worked on as I type this email.

Over the next few weeks, we will be bringing back some of those features
from 2.0.x many of you want. We are also making some changes which will
not only bring back features, but make them even better. 3.0 is a
completely new build and product and we want to make sure all of the
features included are the best they can be.

This is also why we have delayed pushing out our first selection of Headway
themes (child themes). Clay and his team wanted to make sure the new API
was up to the level it should be. And it is. AJ has been working on a
selection of what we plan to release as free child themes for those of you
who need a bit of a starting point to get going.

In addition, I have seen what a few of the 3rd party developers are working
on for child themes and they are amazing. Not only are they building some
incredible themes, I know of a couple who are building in custom Blocks for
their child themes too…. ”

***

So perhaps a bit of a mea-culpa. But with it also came more information about more in their “Marketplace”, which says to me their eye is on profits first, and I’ll take a guess that their priority was to get this up and running so they could sell stuff rather than let those of us who work on customization find the right answers with a stable product.

As I mention above, there is nothing wrong with this approach. Many companies do this. But they do it at their own peril.

Will customers leave? Perhaps. But I think the entire concept of this theme building using a WYSIWYG framework builder is not workable, and perhaps why Thesis has promised 2.0 for what, 10 years now?

HW may just find they are better off taking the Envato template model, but doing it properly with working, standards-based themes for sale. Same with Pagelines, and others, who have struggled with poor support as well. However, the design and UI portion is likely where they tend to fall short internally, so they press on.

Good luck in the new year to those still struggling. And I do hope that the team at HW can make their model work. Me, I’m watching and waiting and have decided to move on to doing what I do best and learning the insides on my own with the help of a real WP developer rather than buggy software that has it’s own Rube Goldberg approach to generating themes.

My .02, of course (and I mean nothing personal to anyone here, so would appreciate nothing personal back!)

anyway, rant over – i will be going back to Headway 2.0 until i can find a better alternative….SO dissapointed.

PS – if you haven’t actually tried it yet Sheila i guarantee that you will be driven to distraction having to wait for the thing to reload each time you switch between ‘grid’ ‘manage’ and ‘design’ tabs – all things i should point out you could achieve from the one tab in Headway 2.0