Akeeba Subscriptions enters public beta. Free download!
We are very pleased to announce the very first version of our subscriptions management component, Akeeba Subscriptions! Akeeba Subscriptions allows you to sell and manage subscriptions to your Joomla! 1.5, Joomla! 1.6, Nooku Server and Molajo sites. It is currently in public beta, which means that you are allowed to download, install and use it on as many sites as you please. Licensed under the GNU GPL version 3, it has no hidden costs or royalties no matter how many sites you use it on or how many subscriptions you sell with it. Even though it's announced as beta, it is stable enough to power our very own site's subscriptions handling.
Akeeba Subscriptions is based on the Nooku Framework, the "new brain for Joomla!". Nooku Framework is a rapid application development framework developed by Timble, the company started by Johan Janssens, Joomla! 1.5's lead developer. It allows us developers to develop Joomla! extensions in a blazing pace, while ensuring stability, maintenability and security. An assortment of extensions is already using Nooku Framework as their base, the most popular one being NinjaBoard. To this end, we have taken every step to ensure smooth operation on sites where NinjaBoard is installed alongside our subscriptions component. The same stability is also provided when running Akeeba Subscriptions along with other extensions using a compatible version of the Nooku Framework.
The public beta status of Akeeba Subscriptions means a few things. First, we consider it to be beta quality, that is it may still contain some undiscovered bugs. If you bump on one, do not hesitate to report it on our forum. Second, it is available to anyone –subscribers and non-subscribers– free of charge. In the future, when it will reach stability, Akeeba Subscriptions will be available in two editions: Akeeba Subscriptions Core will be available free of charge but have a limited feature set (roughly equivallent to what you get during the public beta) and Akeeba Subscriptions Professional with enhanced features. Third, the software is provided free of charge but support is not. If you are not a subscriber, you can only report bugs, contribute translations or submit feature requests. If you are a subscriber to any of our subscription plans, you can also request generic support regarding the setup and usage of the component during the public beta. When the software reaches stable, support will be available only to subscribers of its Professional release – and a generous discount will be made available for all subscribers to any of our other software's subscription plans.
As a side note, we'd like to remind you that we only offer limited Joomla! 1.6 support for all of our components. In the case of Akeeba Subscriptions we are aware of some Javascript issues which cause visual artifacts in the back-end which do not hamper your ability to use the component. We will not fix them in the foreseeable future. Their root cause is that Joomla! 1.6 is using mooTools 1.3, whereas Joomla! 1.5 is using mooTools 1.2. Fixing the issues for one Joomla! release will break the other and, for now, we're sticking with the current Long Term Support Joomla! release, which is 1.5. Moreover, we are aware of some installation issues with Joomla! 1.6. These are caused by unresolved bugs in the Joomla! core for which we have provided patches to the Joomla! development team. The indicated workarounds are mentioned, with step-by-step instructions, in our component's documentation.
So, without any further ado, you're welcome to download the component and start using it! Before installing it, we strongly advise you to read the documentation (it's just 15 coarsely written pages). If you're installing on Joomla! 1.5 please make sure that you have PHP 5.2.6 or later, your server supports the mysqli database driver and that you have enabled the "System - Mootools upgrade" plugin before installing the component. In any other case, the component will not work properly.
Enjoy!
Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos
Lead Developer, AkeebaBackup.com