Any news on S2 update?

#1

I know @jaswrks said that he was thinking of the future development of S2 in a topic a few months back.

Was just wondering if anyone knew if S2 was currently in an active development cycle right now.

It’s been very quiet for the last 3 WP releases.

Would LOVE to see some new S2 stuff in 2018! It’s still THE BEST membership system I have ever used with WP - and I totally rely on it for all of my sites.

Would be more than happy to pay good money for a new Pro version if necessary, to keep things up to date!

Ross :slight_smile:

#2

Good question, Ross!

It’s particularly pertinent because WP 5.0, supposedly due in April, is slated to include the monstrosity currently known as Gutenberg. This takes over the whole editing experience, including metaboxes, which are where level and ccap protections are set for each post and page in s2Member. Either these will need to be re-coded to work with Gutenberg, or else users of s2Member will have to opt for what is being called the “classic” interface (though it’s clear that the current plan is to drop that sooner rather than later).

I can’t find anything good in the Gutenberg concept – it’s flawed at its very core – and so I have already decided that I will not be updating to WP 5.0 for the foreseeable future. Instead, I will stick with 4.9.x. WP will keep providing security updates for that version for quite some time to come, and I have little doubt that it will prove much more stable than 5.0. (If you have seen the reviews of Gutenberg on wordpress.org, you will know why I say this – and it’s currently being tested on only a tiny proportion of WP sites.)

So maybe, Ross, you might be careful what you wish for! If s2Member is updated to try to work with WP 5.0, there could be quite a bumpy path ahead simply because WP 5.0 itself is likely to be highly problematic.

#3

I would love to know if s2 is being updated also. I just went to the wp.org repository and found this warning"

> This plugin hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress.

#4

I love the plugin myself, worked very well and most problems I ever had were user error and I used stripe which seems to have less issues. I decided to move on to another system memberpress which is decently simple but might confuse a former s2 user at first. It has a few things I really like with all the reports and prorating for upgrade/downgrade which is offered a bunch on my site. I had to make conditionals in s2 to give generic additional upgrade access time if they had bought a bunch of access time of a lower level etc. since there was no prorating.

Using these plugins and being the user here shows me how my website users might get if I am not adding posts or updating the site. Too bad s2 plugin doesn’t have dripped updates if that were a thing lol.

#5

@ryanb, glad you have worked out the best next step for you. MemberPress doesn’t work for me at all because it can’t handle HTML and SVG file downloads.

@Sonja, that message is just a generic message that is added automatically on wordpress.org when a plugin’s developers don’t update a tag. I always ignore it. A plugin that doesn’t show that message isn’t necessarily compatible with (the current version of) WordPress either. There is, after all, no verification process. It just means that the dev has updated a tag!

#6

@KTS915 certainly don’t think there’ll be a need to migrate membership plugins.

S2 has 30,000+ active installs and is still sold as a premium plugin for the Pro version.

@raamdev - I noticed you’ve been accepting tickets on github for the ‘next release’ milestone?

Any idea what that is and when that will be?

And are you guys working to make S2 compatible with WP 5.0 and Gutenberg?

I know the community would be more than happy to pay for updates.

:+1::grinning::+1:

#7

@KTS915 - I understand exactly what that message means and how it is generated.

I do not ignore it, but just consider it as one of many factors worth considering.

#8

@rossagrant - We do agree that we are not currently considering migrating existing clients away from s2member or s2member pro.

However, we are always gathering info to be used in making choices for new clients or existing clients adding membership. It would be nice to hear from @jaswrks or @raamdev about what is in the works.

#9

Hey @rossagrant @KTS915 @Sonja @ryanb :slight_smile:

It’s true that we have fallen behind quite a bit in the past few months as far as updates, but yes, s2Member is still being actively maintained and we’ll have an update out soon.

Regarding Gutenburg and WP 5.0: That’s something we’re still working out how to approach with s2Member and we’d love to hear some more feedback from the s2Member community around this. While I realize that these forums don’t represent the entire s2Member user base, we value the feedback of each and every user.

The thing that’s tough with updating s2Member is that there are so many users who rely on s2Member to run their business and many of those users have tweaks or customizations in place that we could inadvertently break by drastically changing the s2Member codebase, hence the reason that we try to be very careful with each update.

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#10

So awesome to hear @raamdev!

I’m going to test Gutenberg on my staging site and i’ll Report back about how it plays.

Overall, I’m incredibly happy with S2. It’s been brilliant.

The only improvements I would make, would be the couple of currently reported bugs around Stripe, and I would LOVE to see a Zapier integration.

That could be such a game-changer for S2 and open up a whole world of connectivity.

Apart from that, it’s pretty spot on as it is! :+1::grinning::+1:

#11

@rossagrant, I agree with everything you have said. I am not thinking of leaving s2Member at all. And, by sticking with WP 4.9.x, there should be no problems with s2Member compatibility.

@raamdev, I have three suggestions:

  1. Don’t attempt to do anything for Gutenberg yet. When 5.0 comes out, the reaction from WP users will be deafening. I would wait and see how that plays out, and rely meanwhile on Classic mode.

  2. Make s2Member forms WAI-ARIA compatible. I always build my own s2Member forms from scratch to ensure they are accessible, and I have added such compatibility to other plugins, so I would be happy to help with this.

  3. As Ross suggests, add Zapier functionality. I wouldn’t use this myself, but I know many others would because it would make s2Member work with a very wide range of payment processors.

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#12

Suggestions…



#13

About Gutenburg and WP 5.0, this is a good read imo. https://www.wpbeaverbuilder.com/future-web-gutenberg-facebook-wordpress-myspace/?utm_source=feedblitz-sp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=StudioPress%20Customers&utm_content=StudioPress%20Notes%20—%20February%202018

#14

Sorry, but that article on Gutenberg is just laughable – as is, for example, the Gutenberg developers’ decision to base the whole concept on HTML comments.

I am not against change if it’s well thought through. But Gutenberg’s architecture just invites disaster.

#15

My 2 takeaways from the article:

  1. I think Gutenberg has suffered a lot from this problem. I love the term, “skating to where the puck is going,” and I think a lot of the criticisms of Gutenberg come from a misunderstanding of the vision of where the future of the web (i.e., the puck) might be heading.

  2. Anyone who builds on top of someone else’s garden like WordPress, iOS, or Android knows that you will need to pivot and adapt to the direction of that platform. We knew this long ago and we’ve been adapting and tweaking Beaver Builder for every major WordPress update.

#16

I agree that’s what the article is saying. But it’s fundamentally missing the point.

Why does the REST API use JSON? Because it’s a structured language that can be used in an infinite number if ways by all sorts of tools using different programming languages.

So why doesn’t Gutenberg use JSON? That would be skating to where the puck is going.

Instead Gutenberg uses HTML comments! The puck left that mess behind years ago.

#17

I’m becoming quite concerned with the health of the s2member product. I’ve been using it pretty much since the first version and the lack of updates is really concerning. I also saw on Jason’s linkedin that he’s no longer with websharks???

My entire business relies on s2member and I’m willing to pay more than a 1 time fee for the pro version. Can we get an ETA on when the next release will drop?

Like Ross said, I’m more than happy to pay for a new Pro version, even make it recurring as long as its maintained.

#18

Sorry Raamdev, could not resist! If this is a good reason, then Wordpress would never be updated! I am sure many more business depend on Wordpress than s2member :slight_smile:

#19

Yes, and that’s why backwards compatibility is one of the most important things to WordPress Core development. :slight_smile:

For a little perspective, there are dozens of WP Core committers, with hundreds of contributors working on WordPress Core full-time, all making sure that WordPress backwards compatibility is maintained and that updates don’t break sites in a big way.

There are about 440,000 lines of code in WordPress Core.

s2Member Framework + s2Member Pro has about 315,000 lines of code.

It’s no small task to maintain backwards compatibility or to produce releases with big changes that take into consideration all possible outcomes. Yes, s2Member powers a lot of online businesses and that’s exactly why we take very seriously the responsibility of doing whatever we can to ensure that updates don’t break sites.

Yes, within the next few weeks.

#20

I did not mean to sound insensitive to the amount of work you and your team put in to maintain s2member and s2member Pro. You guys do a fantastic job on both and minimizing any disruptions with updates…Both plugins are rock solid - I do mean that. Earlier comment was just poking fun!

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