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I would like to start this thread to discuss the sustainability of design for sites created with WPB.
WPB 11.0 included a change of the design template concept. As a consequence, some customers with sites created before WPB 11.0 experienced some broken layouts, see for example http://forum.parallels.com/showthre...ic-text-and-sitewide-text-options-removed-why.
To some degree designers are used to unexpected changes due to the evolution of browsers and web standards. From time to time web sites need to be fixed to look well in the latest generations of browsers. Usually designers can charge their customers for such small fixes because it's sort of "force majeure". That's a little different if the changes are caused by the CMS that was rented from a hoster or a designer.
As with every major release, my hoster informed me about when the upgrade took place and that the new version of WBP would bring improvements and new features. However, no one exptected that some web sites looked differently afterwards. Some of my customers contacted me (as their designer) and asked me to urgently fix their sites. Some of them kept cool while others were more furious. Luckily my portfolio of clients is manageable, so it took me a couple of hours to fix all of these sites. For larger hosters and design agencies it's more extra work. As we could see from the above mentioned thread the topic was charged with emotions.
I understand that from Parallels' point of view these changes in WPB 11.0 were necessary to achieve the new design template concept. My customers on their part like reliability and as a service provider I like to plan my resources - and above all I like happy customers. So, if a major change of design is going to happen we should be informed well in advance, shouldn't we? Designers, hosters and end consumers can then assign resources and agree on who is going to pay for the fixes.
This thread is less about how flexible or restricted WPB's design capabilities are or should be. I am just wondering how others (service providers, end consumers) manage these situations and would like to see what can be done to get more sustainability of design in WPB and how to improve information.
WPB 11.0 included a change of the design template concept. As a consequence, some customers with sites created before WPB 11.0 experienced some broken layouts, see for example http://forum.parallels.com/showthre...ic-text-and-sitewide-text-options-removed-why.
To some degree designers are used to unexpected changes due to the evolution of browsers and web standards. From time to time web sites need to be fixed to look well in the latest generations of browsers. Usually designers can charge their customers for such small fixes because it's sort of "force majeure". That's a little different if the changes are caused by the CMS that was rented from a hoster or a designer.
As with every major release, my hoster informed me about when the upgrade took place and that the new version of WBP would bring improvements and new features. However, no one exptected that some web sites looked differently afterwards. Some of my customers contacted me (as their designer) and asked me to urgently fix their sites. Some of them kept cool while others were more furious. Luckily my portfolio of clients is manageable, so it took me a couple of hours to fix all of these sites. For larger hosters and design agencies it's more extra work. As we could see from the above mentioned thread the topic was charged with emotions.
I understand that from Parallels' point of view these changes in WPB 11.0 were necessary to achieve the new design template concept. My customers on their part like reliability and as a service provider I like to plan my resources - and above all I like happy customers. So, if a major change of design is going to happen we should be informed well in advance, shouldn't we? Designers, hosters and end consumers can then assign resources and agree on who is going to pay for the fixes.
This thread is less about how flexible or restricted WPB's design capabilities are or should be. I am just wondering how others (service providers, end consumers) manage these situations and would like to see what can be done to get more sustainability of design in WPB and how to improve information.
