R12 era: Content-Type iso-8859-1 or UTF-8?

[NC Software]

Shouldn't we be using UTF-8 in the year 2016 and not iso-8859-1? Also the doctype just HTML and not -//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN

I would expect R12 to be HTML5 compliant and based, why are these the options set in the Base layouts?

[Katie]

I would expect R12 to be HTML5 compliant

On 28 October 2014, HTML5 was released. This was a month after we released Gold R9.

It's often hard to decide between backwards compatibility and moving ahead to newer technologies....maintaining backwards compatibility keeps existing customers happy But not jumping on all the latest technologies will hinder new sales. It can be tough.

[NC Software]

I don't know what your plans are but I suspect we'll just continue R* iterations for a long time ahead. At some point you need to stop and bring your platform up to date. Users upgrading from form R revisions will obviously see the changes in their merge and your release notes to test. In this day and age with mobile dominant it is vital to keep up with the latest standards as well as for security. Many of your dependencies are significantly outdated, the .NET framework needs to be brought up to the latest, the web standards should be HTML 5 and UTF-8, and the list goes on. I suggest an upcoming R cycle that you all focus on bringing your platform up to date. It's not a good selling point looking at HTML like this and the admin nonetheless and seeing the product looking obsolete at this point. I know I can and have made the changes on my end, my feedback here is to help you through my observations. SQL Server 2016 is the latest production as of this writing, you need to have information more specifically on required resources and configurations such as if compatibility modes are required i.e. I use SQL Server 2014 but can put it in SQL Server 2012 compat mode if needed. I doubt it is but this is what the documentation needs to spell out as well as collation requirements (case sensitive or not, etc.).

[NC Software]

I am also not thrilled with how scattered the resources are in trying to get a grip on using and designing GOLD. You have what seems to be three separate resources from documentation, a merchant design guide (and also a PDF) and the wiki. I cannot stress enough that this should be centralized and I highly recommend Atlassian's Confluence product to help you. I use it, I enjoy viewing documentation from others that use it, it is truly a great product.

[Katie]

We've been on Gold R.x for 4 years now. So, I don't think it's likely we'll be continuing for a "long time" ahead. We are looking at new technologies, but these are decisions that can't be made lightly. The features that our customers are asking for are equally as important.

- All the documentation on how to use AbleCommerce software is kept updated in the Merchant Guide.

- The Wiki is for developers only who are interested in customization.

- The help site is for technical information about software, which includes upgrades, hot patches, and software release info.

This is how we have it organized and it seems pretty good to me. Converting over a 1000 pages of online documentation would take a huge effort. Maybe someday...but right now we are focused on AC development.

Thanks,
Katie