First off, I found your site via the Unity Forums and thought that would be helpful to know - via CodeSatori's profile.

I am a web designer evaluating your platform and Dolphin 7 to use for a dating website for a client.  I was wondering if I coud share a few basic needs for the site before I consider downloading it and checking out the other options.  If you have these specific answers somewhere, please feel free to just point the way - I just could not find them.

I need to paid membership options for new users, ideally with:
- credit card acceptance (not just PayPal) - ie Authorize.net payment gateway with merchant account;
- auto renewal of membership fees as an option in sign-up;
- and auto renewal of membership functionality;
- ability to customize within modules per member level (ie a free member can view x number of profiles or send x number of emails, ... rather than a paid member who has unlimited access.

Sign-up forms - as a dating website, one core requirement would be to be able to customize the sign-up forms with multiple questions - and then allow users to be able to search by those same very criteria when searching for a potential match.  So the question would be, how customizable are the sign up forms and are they integrated with the search functions as such?

Template modification.  I am profitient with HTML and CSS.  How easy is it to modify the templates, and as part of that, if I want a design to have 90 degree angles on each of the modules and the overall design, is that going to be difficult? (I only ask becuase most of the screenshots and and this site all have that design look.)

Updating Software: wondering about your updating process from one version to the next, updates, patches, etc.  Do you have a built-in updater?  If not, can you explain the process or point me to instructions?

Thanks,

Hi US-WebDesigner, and welcome onboard!

As a prelude to the answers, I want to emphasize that our software is in a constant process of growth, and our development and release cycles are a great deal more flexible, accommodating and swift than the current development mode of Dolphin (which we all dig of course, no matter what). Since it's such a massive bundle of software we're talking about, we've been prioritizing features both based on our internal roadmaps, as well as based on user requests. They are equally important to us.

And we really want to make our software work for you and your clients, so whatever Wiccle feature requests you have that tie in with your real life needs, they are treated as priority — just list them out and we'll do the best we can to bring them to you as soon as possible.

Paid Membership Options

• Credit card acceptance (not just PayPal)

We currently have PayPal in, and we offer support for other popular gateways on-demand. I have code ready for Authorize.net and RealEx (used in Europe) that pretty much just needs to be plugged in. If you need a gateway and it's a commonly used gateway, we'll add it in to our software at the next possible opening.

• Auto renewal of membership fees as an option in sign-up;
• And auto renewal of membership functionality;

These are a part of the "premium member" upgrade to Wiccle Web Builder I have files open for in here, will be rolled out within the month.

• Ability to customize within modules per member level

We already support a great deal of flexibility for per-usergroup customization. You can control usergroups' module permissions using the permission grid in Admin CP > Usergroups. You can also control the display of each and every content unit on a per-usergroup basis using the Builder. When the "premium member" upgrade rolls live, the permission grid will extend into a parallel "pricing" grid that allows you to set charges for all this as well, and deduct it from member credit.

Sign-up Forms

• Customize the sign-up forms with multiple questions - and then allow users to be able to search by those same very criteria when searching for a potential match

You can already create all sorts of forms using the Form Builder in Admin CP. Adding this into the signup form is a simple rig (and supported out-of-the-box in the next release). Making them searchable is likewise a few lines of code away, and something I can code in pretty much whenever you want.

Template modification.

• I am profitient with HTML and CSS.  How easy is it to modify the templates

If you have HTML and CSS down, it shouldn't be hard at all. You can download the Templating Kit for a full reference, and look at a test templating case to get a feel of what's involved.

• If I want a design to have 90 degree angles on each of the modules and the overall design, is that going to be difficult

The default skin comes ready with 7 different content boxes (see demo page), which can be changed with the builder, and extended to whatever other shapes you may want to have using the templating system. You can also do more nifty stuff (see CSS demo page) to customize your units...

• I only ask becuase most of the screenshots and and this site all have that design look.

And this would be because I'm also the designer of most of these sites, and haven't been stepping too far outside the box to re-invent the wheel every time...

Updating process

• Wondering about your updating process from one version to the next, updates, patches, etc.  Do you have a built-in updater?  If not, can you explain the process or point me to instructions?

The built-in updater was something we hoped to release for v1.0 already, been on the roadmap long enough. In the meantime our upgrades are still manual, but they are quick and painless to apply. Depending on the upgrade, it will either just have a zip of fixed files to download and upload (such as you see in iWiccle 1.21.0->1.21.1 release), or an additional script you run once to upgrade the database. Our ugrades will not break your design or customizations — things are isolated enough — so nothing to worry there.

Also, if we discover bugs or annoyances before a new version is forthcoming, we release patches on our patch page to help you keep your system running smooth. You can get a general idea of our bug fixing attitude in the Bugs and Troubleshooting forum.

If you have any other questions, please let us know.

Thanks for the thorough and helpful answers.  So far it looks great as a solution for me and what I need now is my client to take the final step. 

Do give it a shot, and do a test install... I think you'll be positively surprised at the CMS power you get at your fingertips!

It's a 50 second install, and here's a tutorial / demo video on how easy it is to change things around. =)

I am super bummed that the client I had lined up to cover the costs for buying your enterprise plan with his project decided to "shelf his project".  I was looking forward to being able to buy and play around with your product on the cost and time of a paid project, considering I am otherwise super busy and broke at the same time (you know how a start-up is like). 

Oh well, on to the next one.  I have two current clients who have associations, )which I think is a perfect business type to benefit from a host a social connecting, interacting, etc tools) and I am going to re-review their projects and see if they can be oriented to this platform, and if not them, I have some other ideas cooking.

My best to you in the meantime.

Quick question - can one upgrade from iWiccle to Wiccle?  All I remember seeing on the relationship between the two was your chart of feature comparisons and I was wondering if they are the same product with certain features closed out in iWiccle, but able to be activated with a license?  ie - able to build a site with iWiccle and then when the money comes in, open the doors on the same product install/design and have the other features available?

Thanks

Sorry to hear that didn't pan out as expected.

Yes, you can upgrade iWiccle to Wiccle if you wish. We don't have an official converter yet, but given how close the two are structurally to each other, I can do a conversion for you whenever you want. All you need to do is copy the relevant database tables (and templates if any) over.

You can also import and export page layouts and layout sets between iWiccle and Wiccle (iWiccle 1.20 upward should be cross-compatible between WWB and iWiccle versions).

Features aren't really "closed out" in iWiccle — they are sliced out altogether to avoid unnecessary overhead. Both iWiccle and WWB run off our Wiccle CMS Framework core, so they are "same and different" so to say, main difference being in modules and admin areas. (They will be brancing off a bit more over time, right now they are very close to each other because we've been chopping iWiccles with extra  features out of our WWB development builds to keep people happy with the latest tech.)

If you start developing a site using WWB but run out of time with the 30 day trial, and your customer hasn't come forward with the license monies yet (but getting a license is the general idea), please feel free to contact me for a trial extension to save you from unnecessary hassle.