Vantage Status, a Mea Culpa and a Sale

The end of the year is upon us and it looks like I’ll be eating banana slug stew. Vantage will not be ready by December 31.

Our development team has been burning the Vantage candle from both ends the last several months. We’re close – we just need a little more time. It’s important to us that we get it right before releasing it into the wild.

We understand that everyone has waited a long time for Vantage. As we come closer to completion, we are prepared to offer up a mea culpa. So here it goes:

30% Off All Themes

Next week, all our themes and Club packages will be on sale. 30% off ClassiPress, JobRoller, Quality Control or Clipper. Or take 30% off either of our Club packages. The sale starts at midnight January 1st thru January 7th (PST -8 GMT). Coupon code for the sale is: BANANASLUG

Any Love for Club Members?

That’s great for new customers, but what about all our loyal Club members that have been waiting patiently for Vantage to be released? Well, all AppThemes Club members will receive Vantage first. That’s right, you’ll have exclusive access to Vantage before we release it to the rest of the world. It’s the least we could do for our most devoted customers.

Another Sale Later

Finally, when we do release Vantage to everyone, we’ll be offering it at a 30% discount from our normal price.

We really do appreciate our customers and we’re very excited to offer Vantage to the world as soon as possible. We thank everyone for their patience while we complete the final details of what will be a great theme.

What about the Slug?

And lest you think we have forgotten, we’ll have more news on the fate of our friendly banana slug soon. Happy holidays and have a great New Years!

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 Comments (108)

  • customer
    wppete

    Really excited for the upcoming release. Im sure the people at appthemes will deliver a quality product. Been using classipress for 3 years now and love it.

    I’d be happy to be a Beta tester. Please contact me.

    Regards.

  • customer
    rich

    I’m looking forward to Vantage. It’s certainly better to for Appthemes to take a longer time to release a quality theme than to release a crap theme earlier. I hope Vantage is worth the wait.

  • Enadin

    I got domains. I do pages about us etc. I start seo now just wait to buy Vantage and start 🙂
    Please people i know its hard. But get more people to work on it.
    will there be one big map like on geo pleaces i like that widget where shows all places. But their theme is so BUGGY like my english 😀

  • customer
    3webd

    Hi there,

    We already use one of your themes at clasificadosmenorca.com but we would really like to know when Vantage will be ready so we can get ont with our next important project for the Island of Menorca.

    Keep up the good work guys and do not forget to keep us posted on any updates on Vantage.

    Thanks.

  • Roger

    Hi,

    When will Vantage be sold ? You wrote this month… Tic-tic-tic… This is the sound of this month running out…

    Regards,

    • Shannon

      Tic-tic-tic. March 5. Not quite this month – just a few days later.

      • Cosmin Popa

        And for non-menbers, when i can buy the Vantage theme? I understand, the March 5 for members of the club, but I want to buy only Vantage theme, when i can buy?

  • customer
    nightman21

    Pleaaaaaaase I have a big project planned with this script, do you have a specific date of release?

    Thanx in advance for your answer.

    Regards,
    Seb

    • Shannon

      March 5.

      • customer
        enrique_traun

        Shannon – I become club member in moment an exact day for vantage was published – so time is ticking …18:18 and nothing viewable… hopefully your promises are true MARCH 5.

  • customer
    mdfloyd21

    Any update on Vantage? Has it gone to your internal team for testing yet?

  • Vienna

    Okay, I have to ask:

    Is the Appthemes Development Team for Vantage and Classipress and these other themes USING their own Quality Control issue-tracking theme to work on your themes projects?

    • Shannon

      We already had issue tracking systems in place before introducing Quality Control and we have not moved our projects to it…yet. We will be using Quality Control to manage beta testing on Vantage. Eventually, all our projects will be on Quality Control.

  • Shannon

    Vantage beta release date is March 5.

    • Laura

      Thanks for the update, Shannon. Is Vantage going to be a quality release or is there a chance there could be bugs?

      • Shannon

        The release will be thoroughly tested but it is a beta release and has not been through the ultimate test. We already have a large team of beta testers ready to hack on the theme further. The lead dev team will be standing by to attack any issues that may come up. Compared to previous releases, I’m very confident that Vantage will be very robust.

  • wppete

    Thanks Shannon! Look forward to the release on March 5. Thanks for giving us a concrete date.

  • customer
    radlam

    Great to here that Vantage is only two weeks away.
    This has been a long time coming, and I have been waiting a year for this release. Glad I didn’t have a project with a deadline.
    Can you write a blog to give a rundown of the features that vantage will have? I understand Events Management is out for now, but it would be good for those waiting to get a picture of the features of Vantage so we can preplan on how to build out a site.
    I am particularly interested in the search feature and how filters could be used with this.

    • Shannon

      @radlam, We will have a blog post, but not in the next few days. We really are cranking hard on Vantage and have little time for anything else. We’ll post something as soon as we can. Thanks.

      • Sheila

        I am looking forward to Vantage. We have been looking for a directory theme that really works.

        I can’t find how to become a Club member. Could you point me in the right direction?

      • customer
        radlam

        Understood Shannon.
        Two last things.
        1. Will Vantage use schema markup? or allow plugins that implement this?
        2. Will Vantage be responsive, and if so, to what screen size, mobile, smartphone, tablet, desktop?
        I believe these two innovations are crucial to a new website’s success going forward.
        I was on themeforest.net and only one theme had implemented schema markup [just now]. Nothing on Woothemes.

        • author
          Shannon

          1. It does not. Schema is not something that we have discussed. But now that you bring it up, I think we need to have that discussion.

          2. All our themes will eventually be responsive. Vantage beta is not responsive. Maybe v1 or shortly after will be responsive.

  • wppete

    Thanks Shannon. I would like to see a list of features also.

  • spartac

    Will the current customers wait so long after March,5 for vantage to be released to the public?

  • Shannon

    We do not have a timetable for releasing Vantage to the public at large. Right now, the only item scheduled is the beta release date of March 5. We’ll certainly post more info when we have it.

    • customer
      wppete

      Hi Shannon,

      I am a Appthemes Club Member and would like to have access to Vantage when released on March 5. Do all Club Members get access on March 5 ???

      Thank You

  • Enadin

    I earn money to buy club membership 🙂

    Cant wait anymore to get Vantage on my wp site 🙁

    HURRY HURRY HURRY UP 🙂

    10 days more…

    Give us at last demo to see.

  • ugohalu

    Club member can access soon but not for public.
    Can you list what of functions and features are included?
    I would like to prepare what do I need to ready to implement for vantage launch and no reason to hide them? I want to make decision whether Vantage it work or not my projects.
    Thanks.

  • Carson

    Hello everyone. I, like many others, have been waiting a long time for Vantage. There is definitely a demand for an out-of-the box solution for running a directory complete with user submission and payment, smart category management, search, maps and a really nice user experience. Nevermind event management for now (pushing luck). This isn’t just the WordPress Community. Joomla has Sobi2(or Pro) and Mosets Tree… And they are not totally stellar. Those projects are over 5 years old and still rolling. Drupal will work out of the box, but there is no “recipe” I know of available for those with limited time or knowledge to set up. You could try a custom script – good luck with that.

    I’ve been clamoring for Vantage. But I realized (even with my limited coding knowledge) I could be working on my own Vantage using custom post types, a robust form plugin (GravityForms to be exact) for front-end submission to custom fields, and various other plugins for maps, search and category display. Now, you can make any theme your *censored*.

    That may take longer, but a year has been a long wait.

    I will say that I am very anxious to see what this theme can do.

  • customer
    radlam

    Carson, I imagine that you could cobble something together, but you would need a theme to start with, and gravity forms alone will cost you more than than Vantage. Vantage is supposed to have a “you beaut” search function and be localized. That’s why I am waiting.
    And yes, Drupal is a full blown CMS and you can build anything with it. But how would you build what Vantage offers, and have the usability that WordPress offers users for $99? One thing I have noticed with Drupal. It’s either free or its expensive. There is no middle ground.

  • nabeel

    Hi,

    Can anyone tell or help if we could do this with this Vantage – WP theme?

    We want to provide users with web pages that include Yahoo ads along with other information relevant to the companies listed in the Yahoo ads. The website will only contain two template pages — the home page and a directory page.

    The directory page will be built dynamically by looking at the desired keyword (from the URL string), the geography (determined by looking at the users IP), and a look up from our database for the “At a glance” section, thumbnails from Thumbshots.com, plus reviews and other listings from Citygrid.com

    It’s important that we create a database that logs and parses incoming URL strings (traffic to the site) and outgoing URL strings (clicks out due to the user clicking on a Yahoo ad).

    Do we need to buy this theme really to achieve this?

    Thanks in advance!

    • author
      Shannon

      Vantage is not going to be able to do that without extensive and significant customization.

      • customer
        piplo

        Are you ready people? Because it’s the 5th of march today !!! O yeah baby. Move your body…

  • Matt

    March 5th! Woohoo!

    Is Vantage available if I buy a subscription to the site?

  • michael

    Bi-directional CRM integration.

    I’d like to manage the listings not through the WP admin, but through the CRM (possibly Sugar CE) interface. Much more robust and flexible if I want to sell more than “featured listing”.

  • wppete

    Will We see Vantage Today March 5 ?

    Look Forward to seeing it.
    Thanks

  • Laura

    If I hold my breath and longer in anticipation of Vantage’s release, I’m going to end up passing out soon, lol. So, give it up already, pleeeassse!

  • customer
    enrique_traun

    >We have a final developers meeting at 1pm PST. We will release shortly after that.

    ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
    Shortly after 1pm it’s alreday 6:30pm

  • customer
    ptyson31

    I’ve been at school all day. Ran out of Chm Lab at 10:05pm excited to see this new vantage theme and it’s not there. What’s up with that?

Discussion is closed.