We want complete rewrite of iMacros, decent successor of iMacros 8.9.7!

Discussions and Tech Support specific to the iMacros Firefox add-on.
Forum rules
iMacros EOL - Attention!

The renewal maintenance has officially ended for Progress iMacros effective November 20, 2023 and all versions of iMacros are now considered EOL (End-of-Life). The iMacros products will no longer be supported by Progress (aside from customer license issues), and these forums will also no longer be moderated from the Progress side.

Thank you again for your business and support.

Sincerely,
The Progress Team

Before asking a question or reporting an issue:
1. Please review the list of FAQ's.
2. Use the search box (at the top of each forum page) to see if a similar problem or question has already been addressed.
3. Try searching the iMacros Wiki - it contains the complete iMacros reference as well as plenty of samples and tutorials.
4. We can respond much faster to your posts if you include the following information: CLICK HERE FOR IMPORTANT INFORMATION TO INCLUDE IN YOUR POST
Post Reply
acajo
Posts: 12
Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2015 12:43 pm

We want complete rewrite of iMacros, decent successor of iMacros 8.9.7!

Post by acajo » Wed Oct 21, 2020 11:25 am

I just can't emphasize enough, how wrong iMacros team is about the development and future of iMacros. You made hell for almost everyone who ever supported you, people left, others who stayed are still using iMacros 8.9.7 including me, but as websites become more and more complex, I think I will have to leave too, we are out of options, Pale Moon and Waterfox Classic already can't help us with some websites. I don't really understand that your choice not to listen to your community for almost 3-4 years and that your only option is to completely destroy iMacros. Maybe the peak of your ignorance is that you are asking us to pay for the "new" product that can't do a fraction of what iMacros 8.9.7 can do, plus the things it can do, it does with errors, completely unstable. You are on a wrong track and will completely destroying iMacros. Please, don't do it! I know that it sounds cumbersome and like a lot of work to completely rewrite iMacros, but that is the only option, this hard work needs to be done or iMacros will die. Everyone around is talking that iMacros is dead, feel free to read around the internet if you don't believe me, so please if you have at least some respect for your community, resurrect iMacros!
Last edited by acajo on Wed Oct 21, 2020 1:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
chivracq
Posts: 10301
Joined: Sat Apr 13, 2013 1:07 pm
Location: Amsterdam (NL)

Re: We want complete rewrite of iMacros, decent successor of iMacros 8.9.7!

Post by chivracq » Wed Oct 21, 2020 12:16 pm

acajo wrote:
Wed Oct 21, 2020 11:25 am
I just can't emphasize enough, how wrong iMacros team is about the development and future of iMacros. You made hell for almost everyone who ever supported you, people left, others who stayed are still using iMacros 8.9.7 including me, but as websites become more and more complex, I think I will have to leave too, we are out of options, Pale Moon and Waterfox Classic already can't help us with some websites.

I don't really understand that your choice not to listen to your community for almost 3-4 years and that your only option is to completely destroy iMacros. Maybe the peak of your ignorance is that you are asking us to pay for the "new" product that can't do a fraction of what iMacros 8.9.7 can do, plus the things it can do, it does with errors, completely unstable. You are on a wrong track and will completely destroying iMacros. Please, don't do it!

I know that it sounds cumbersome and like a lot of work to completely rewrite iMacros, but that is the only option, this hard work needs to be done or iMacros will die. Everyone around is talking that iMacros is dead, feel free to read around the internet if you don't believe me, so please if you have at least some respect for your community, resurrect iMacros!

+1...!!

(You have a Typo in your Thread Title, => "successor" with "ss", if you want to correct it...?)

Mitigating Point is that v8.9.7 for FF indeed still works on Browsers forked on FF and that didn't adopt the 'WebExtensions' Architecture, like 'Pale Moon' (=> v28), 'Waterfox' (=> v2020) and 'Basilisk' (v2020).
(I still use it on FF v55.0.3 myself... Other Advanced User @thecoder2012 prefers to use it on 'Basilisk'...)

I will "soft-alert" @TechSup, to make sure they "see" your Thread, (they don't "monitor" actively the 'iMacros for FF' Sub-Forum), if they "feel" like reacting, they had posted an Update/News a few weeks ago, about some new Version of iMB being currently "in the Make", which would be based on 'Chromium', and that would already be a "major Rewrite", concerning iMB thus, no word about FF, and I guess that's where all @Dev's Efforts are going to, "at the moment"... :|
- (F)CI(M) = (Full) Config Info (Missing): iMacros + Browser + OS (+ all 3 Versions + 'Free'/'PE'/'Trial').
- FCI not mentioned: I don't even read the Qt...! (or only to catch Spam!)
- Script & URL help a lot for more "educated" Help...
acajo
Posts: 12
Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2015 12:43 pm

Re: We want complete rewrite of iMacros, decent successor of iMacros 8.9.7!

Post by acajo » Wed Oct 21, 2020 1:54 pm

Thanks for the typo correction. iMacros team need to be more involved with community, they would made more money, just imagine an army of users who left... I have an impression that Chivracq did more for this community than anyone on their team. For example, he made a thread about enhancement proposals, bug that need to be fixed, gave help to newbies, thats all their job. What I want to say they have a very nice people here and they don't want to collaborate.
Tom, Tech Support
Posts: 3834
Joined: Mon May 31, 2010 4:59 pm

Re: We want complete rewrite of iMacros, decent successor of iMacros 8.9.7!

Post by Tom, Tech Support » Thu Oct 22, 2020 8:56 am

Hi acajo,

Thank you for your very valuable feedback. I can certainly empathize with much of what you have to say, and have very much felt the same way myself in many regards. The "legacy" version of iMacros for Firefox, specifically 8.9.7, was/is no doubt one of the most feature-rich, powerful, and performant incarnations of iMacros to date. I continue to use it myself for personal tasks as well as on larger customer projects, simply because for some specific sites and tasks, it gets the job done better than any other browser or version of iMacros.

All that functionality and flexibility was being given away for free, including to commercial/business users. You don't need an MBA to understand how this can cannibalize sales of the Enterprise and Professional editions. And without those sales, there can be no further development of any version of iMacros. So it did not take long for some of the bean counters at Ipswitch to conclude that we needed to monetize more of our offerings and hence introduce the Personal edition and limit the functionality of the freeware versions. That was a difficult decision and the transition was definitely a bit painful for all involved, not just users and customers but also tech support, development, customer service, etc. Whether or not it was the right or best decision can still be debated, but also keep in mind that you lack the insight of actual sales numbers to be able to make an informed judgement, at least in that regard.

Your observations and comments about the current state of iMacros are certainly valid however. Again, it's hard to understand why things are the way they are without intimate knowledge of what goes on behind the scenes. And now that we have become a part of Progress, a public company, there are even more restrictions about what we can communicate publicly. Did you notice I just mentioned two different parent companies? The transition from iOpus to Ipswitch to Progress have all happened in a relatively short time frame, and I'm sure you can imagine that there are numerous organizational and personnel changes that go along with that. Let's just say that it has been a bumpy ride, and those remaining from the original iMacros team continue striving to do our best to support and develop this product that we all love and are passionate about, but sometimes our hands are tied.

As chivracq mentioned, I did recently disclose that development has been working on a rewrite of the flagship iMacros browser (included with Professional and Enterprise editions) that is based on Chromium. Even in an early alpha build, one of the tests I ran with it actually performed faster than iMacros for Firefox 8.9.7, which I was quite surprised and delighted about (this was some weeks ago already and just keep in mind that results are likely to change by the time it gets released). One of the things I love about iMacros is that there is rarely (I could count on one hand) a job that I cannot complete using some version of iMacros. If one thing is not working well in one browser, I can easily go try it in a different browser. Granted, it's become a bit more difficult with some recent sites/projects to achieve those same results, but I can always find a way with iMacros and that should only get better with the release of the new browser. Development also continues on the browser extensions, albeit not at a pace that we would all prefer.

But the important thing is that it IS continuing. And we do see and hear and take note of the feedback that happens here and elsewhere, even though we may not always respond directly. We are doing the best we can with the resources we have, and we appreciate every user who has and continues to support iMacros.
Regards,

Tom, iMacros Support
acajo
Posts: 12
Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2015 12:43 pm

Re: We want complete rewrite of iMacros, decent successor of iMacros 8.9.7!

Post by acajo » Sat Oct 24, 2020 5:33 pm

Thank you Tom for your detailed and honest answer.
Post Reply