Hello,
The latest update implemented compatibility with the recent ACF 6.5+ version, and was released 2 days after the ACF patch. That’s not exactly a sign of being abandoned.
Regarding your ticket, I understand the answer time can be frustrating. It is explained by two factors:
During the holiday season, I take some rest, since I’m constantly working on this project the rest of the year. As a person, I have to maintain my sanity to keep working on this plugin for the years to come, and that’s one way I found to do it.
During that time, I keep monitoring tickets in the background, in case of breaking bugs. For your ticket it wasn’t the case, since it was a visual display bug and it couldn’t be reproduced on a blank WP install. So it was most likely because of some custom code. This is why it was considered as a low priority ticket for that period.
I should have probably give a quicker answer, like: “Your issue can’t be reproduced”. But I’m not a huge fan of that kind of responses, as they feel automated. I prefer manually crafted answers, with video demo showing the use case actually working as a proof, and interact with users as a human-being.
But I can see why users would prefer an automated answer rather than nothing. So this is something I should work on for the next holiday season.
Regarding the updates pace. You asked me the same question 3 years ago, when the development was more quiet. In my opinion, the development cycle of such project has different periods. There is a time for quick iterations and joy, and a time for silent boring ground work.
I can understand the passion, but it’s not like if the plugin was broken. Considering the large user base, and how vital this plugin is for developers, there would be constant spam of tickets if that was the case. Even users who use pirated & modified version of the plugin published reports here after the release of ACF 6.5.
As a final note, I would like to add something that I already mentioned in your ticket; I have a lot of things being worked on in the backlog, and they will be only released when ready. I refuse to rush releases for the sake of it.
If a user is not happy with the pace of development, he is free to stop his license/subscription. I’ll not compromise the software stability to chase new updates and stats growth. This plugin does zero marketing for a reason. That’s not my mindset.
Thanks.
Regards.
