Hi Youjoomla Team,
First I must say congratulations on building a great framework. I have been using it for the past 11 months building free, custom and commercial templates for my business, URL="http://www.pixelpointcreative.com"] Pixel Point Creative[/url]. With this much daily use I am have really come to appreciate this framework and its features. When shopping for a framework, I chose Yougrids because of the nice mix of features and the powerful, but user friendly interface. I wanted something that wouldn't overwhelm the average Joomla user. After using it and supporting it I have several suggestions. Many are my own and many are from our customer base. Common forum and support ticket questions were a good basis to see what people want and need. I am going to break down my suggestions by category.
OVERVIEW
Over all you guys did a fantastic job providing a solid, versatile framework. It has nice mobile features. The mega menu is very nice with lots of options. (Two biggest selling points in my selection) The grid structure is important for consistent layout and you provide a wealth of module positions and nice built in features like analytics, column selection, SEO, RTL to LTR, Font etc. I think a few improvements can be made to really take this framework to the next level.
System Check
This is a nice feature. It lets you know the status of your Mega menu plugin, component disabled status and the staus of the framework. Good stuff. My only suggestion here is to create a dual installer that automatically installs and enables the mega menu plugin when you install the template. One less step for the end user.
Style Setting
Again, this is well done. A nice amount of adjustments can be made, but not too many as to overwhelm. The custom CSS file is a great way to allow the users to override without changing the core files so upgrades would be easier. My suggestion has to do with cufon and font overrides in general. I would love to see multiple font overrides. This has been requested many times
from our users. This would allow separate nice fonts to be used in a few different areas. IE. One for the menu, one for the headings, etc. Two sets of overrides would be great but three would be awesome.
Logo and Header block
Probably the most frequent question has to do with changing the logo. Even with FAQ's and forum posts, people still often ask this simple question. My suggestion is to take the mystery out and add a built in an image uploader to the logo section for the user to upload their logo in the template manager.
Top Mega Menu Settings
This is a tough one. I am torn between the built in menu and a menu module for flexibility in multi lingual sites and placement. If you stay with a built in route, I suggest adding another module position below the menu called "custommenu" and providing a template parameter that allows the user to "Completely Disable the built in Menu" and at the same time enabled the custom menu position. We have this built in to our templates now. There is a top menus disable selection now, but it doesn't work for non-menu pages, so disabling completely allows for the flexibility to add another menu module.
Mobile Template
Overall this is a great addition to the framework and very important moving forward. I would only love to see sub menu ability in the mobile menu. Other wise I think it is great.
Bugs I have encountered with base framework:
CABND cufon doesn't work. Case problem in the filename,
Typos in language files
cufon-yui.js needs updated for IE9
Few issues with Com Contact HTML overrides and language file.
That is very few. This is a solid piece of work
Other suggestions:
Better, no refresh, font sizer with images and more options.
A vertical mega menu mod. If you broke out the mega menu into a module this could be added.
Remove template name from footer.
Allow end user to edit text in footer.
Overall I would be delighted to aid in any updates in any way I can. After all I am using this fine framework for my business, and I am very grateful to have it. Please let me know how I can help.
Many Thanks
Dan Riefstahl
Linear Mode
