Dante Feature Update – Expected Release Date?

[WamBam]

Dear Swiftideas theme,

when do you plan to release a feature update for Dante? Could you provide us with a roadmap of additional features that may be included?

While Dante is great already, I would really like to see additional features implemented to remain competitive.

Two simple features I would like to see:
– More professional/business team option/layout (add a team member type! layout with tabbed sidebar with team member types: management, engineering, board. Team member: photo + contact buttons + text bio)
– Small buttons with customisable icons (ex.: email, linkedin, twitter)

Best Regards.

[Kyle – SUPPORT]

Hi

It’s unlikely that we will do anymore big feature updates for Dante as we have released Cardinal. We will continue to update Dante for popular minor theme requests and theme bugs, but it’s unlikely that we will be adding any major features to Dante.

We can’t update all of our themes to include the latest features because then there would be no improvement or variety with our themes.

Hope you understand

– Kyle

[WamBam]

Dear Kyle,

thanks for your reply and explanation.

I was expecting a feature update for Dante since I read that you were preparing one in your forums. The pinned “Dante Feature Request” post gives the impression that you are listening to customers and thinking of adding additional features. I am surprised that you stop adding new features to Dante only 7 months after release.

On a separate question, if I buy the Cardinal theme, and apply it to my website running Dante, will all the content transfer without added work? Will all the pages built using Swift Page Builder work properly? Did you implement some of the feature requests from Dante in Cardinal?

Cheers

[Kyle – SUPPORT]

We will still be adding new features to Dante, and we do listen to people’s requests on that thread. If something is requested multiple times, we will consider adding it in an update.

What I meant was new features, that are seen as big features, will only be included in our latest theme, possibly Dante also, however our main focus is the new theme.

Yes you will be able migrate your site to Cardinal pretty easily, Ed’s currently writing up a guide on how to do so as there are a couple of steps you will need to make

– Kyle

[Sotiris]

Well just an idea and I don’t know how feasible it is but you could consider “Upgrade Packs” (not free). Nonetheless, you know that migrating to a new theme and breaking everything is not an option especially for sites that might have taken months to build.

Once your migration guide is ready I will consider buying Cardinal to test the migration on a localhost installation first to see how it goes although my site is getting more complex by the month and I don’t even want to think about doing it all over…

[Kyle – SUPPORT]

It would probably be easier just hiring a developer if you need additional features in Dante. I will check with the developer to see if the guide is ready

– Kyle

[Kyle – SUPPORT]

Ahhh, here it is! http://cardinal.swiftideas.com/documentation/kb/moving-from-dante-to-cardinal/

– Kyle

[Sotiris]

Interesting. It seems that it might be better to move to Cardinal BEFORE I launch my website since 90% of the pages are not done yet. However, a lot of work has gone to the menu (ubermenu) and some other customizations that could break in the CSS code.

I played around with Cardinal sandbox and it has several improvements from what I see with some really apparent such as the font selection.

As I said I will most probably get it to try it in a cloned localhost installation.

[Kyle – SUPPORT]

Ok no problem, we will be happy to assist you if you come across any problems

– Kyle

[WamBam]

Thank you Kyle. I’m also considering switching to Cardinal.

Before I start, I have a few questions:
1. Do you have settings in Cardinal that will easily reproduce the look of Dante? If I import my content into Cardinal, I would like to stay with the Dante theme look that I really like.

2. How long do you plan to support Cardinal with new feature updates? Do you expect to improve and maintain this theme longer than Dante? Especially since Cardinal looks to have many more options and possibilities.

3. Feature request: In the team member page, showing email and phone number explicitly is a security issue (it’s easy to harvest emails and phone numbers). Would it be possible to add a social button for email and phone (just like buttons for twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.)

Cheers

[Kyle – SUPPORT]

Hi

1) Cardinal has a lot of similarities to Dante in terms of layout, it has similar headers, page titles etc however it’s not exactly the same, so it’s unlikely that your site will look exactly the same with Cardinal as it does with Dante, but will be very similar

2) We still improve and maintain Dante? We’ve got an update coming next week. We’ve decided to bring in new functionality to Dante and will get it in as soon as we can. And yes, Cardinal will be improved and maintained for as long as it’s being used for. We’d only ever stop maintaining a theme if we wanted to discontinue it, which is unlikely.

3) Can’t see this being very usable, I’d say pretty much every website in the world has an email address and phone number somewhere in the content. I can’t see icons being something that people would understand

Hope this helps

– Kyle