The year 2022 is slowly approaching its end. Therefore, we would now like to take the opportunity to look back and give a first outlook on the year 2023.
Changes in our product portfolio
This year, the development of our software products focused in particular on the necessary compatibility adjustments to VieCode Shop 8.0, WoltLab Suite™ 5.4 and 5.5, which we were able to complete very promptly. Furthermore, during the course of the year we decided to discontinue the development of the following software products with immediate effect for economic or technical reasons:
- User Synchronization to Pterodactyl (distributed only via Krymo Software)
- Management of Multilingualism per Forum (distributed only via Krymo Software)
- Login with Battle.net (distributed via Krymo Software and WoltLab Plugin-Store)
- VieCode Shop (Customer Area): Support Threads for Downloads / Licenses (distributed via Krymo Software and WoltLab Plugin-Store)
Affected customers of these software products still have access to the downloads via the customer area of Krymo Software or in the WoltLab Plugin-Store. No further versions of these software products will be released, unless the legal warranty obligation applies. Please note the compatibility information in the customer area of Krymo Software or in the WoltLab Plugin-Store.
In the medium term, we would like to concentrate our resources on software products that enjoy great popularity and can meet the quality demands of Krymo Software without being limited by external factors (for example, third-parties). We will focus more on this goal in the coming months.
Current situation in the WoltLab developer community
As should not have escaped the notice of most people in the WoltLab community, for a variety of reasons many developers of plugins and styles have ceased development and distribution in recent months or will cease distribution in the near future. This has unsettled many website operators and leaves gaps in some places that cannot be closed so easily.
At this point we would like to explicitly communicate that despite the discontinuation of some software products, we will not discontinue the operation of Krymo Software in the foreseeable future. The further development of our software products and customer support will continue in the usual quality.
To mitigate the impact on website operators, Krymo Software has decided to contribute to ensure the continued development of popular software products. As part of this, we have acquired the entire Game Server Viewer product line from tkirch.dev. More details on the acquisition will follow shortly in a separate announcement at Krymo Software and tkirch.dev.
Open Source Initiatives
The further development of many free plugins in the WoltLab community is sometimes based on the participation of third parties. For this purpose, the source code of these plugins is publicly accessible and anyone can suggest or directly make changes. These can be bug fixes, the implementation of new functionalities or simply the improvement of texts in language items. In the following, we would like to introduce you to some open source initiatives of the WoltLab developer community.
Simple FAQ
The free plugin Simple FAQ enjoys great popularity in the WoltLab Plugin-Store and was created in 2020 in the course of a cooperation between tkirch.dev, Hanashi Development and Krymo Software. In the past weeks we have made many adjustments to the plugin on GitHub. We would be very happy to welcome more contributors to this plugin.
Top Secret Z
Under the GitHub organization Top Secret Z you can find almost all plugins that have been developed and distributed by Udo Zaydowicz so far. Besides the continued paid versions by the developer who took over the plugins from Udo Zaydowicz, SoftCreatR.dev decided to offer free versions of these plugins, which had been possible thanks to the licence of the plugins. Since a single developer can hardly manage the further development of over 100 plugins alone, any kind of contribution is also very welcome here. This is the only way to ensure that these plugins will have a future as open source projects.
Our plans for the year 2023
Last but not least, we would like to announce some of our plans for 2023.
Plans for our product portfolio
In the past few days, the website of Krymo Software has upgraded from VieCode Shop 7.2 to VieCode Shop 8.0 and from WoltLab Suite™ 5.3 to WoltLab Suite™ 5.5. As the release of WoltLab Suite™ 6.0 is imminent in 2023, we will begin the corresponding technical preparations in the near future. This concerns both our own website and all our software products whose compatibility we have to establish with WoltLab Suite™ 6.0. This will be a time-consuming undertaking that will tie up a large part of our available resources for 2023.
It cannot be ruled out that in the course of the compatibility adjustments for WoltLab Suite™ 6.0 certain software products will become obsolete or technically no longer (reasonably) possible, which may lead to the discontinuation of further development of individual software products. However, this will only become apparent in the coming months when the finalization of WoltLab Suite™ 6.0 is close.
We would like to put another focus on the further development of the Game Server Viewer product line. Still in 2022, updates will be released that will fix numerous bugs and add support for new games. As part of the compatibility adjustments for WoltLab Suite™ 6.0, the implementation of new functionalities is also planned.
In addition, there are already ideas for new software products that might be implemented in 2023 and 2024.
Price changes
Unfortunately, price increases due to increased living and operating costs do not stop at us. We will therefore increase the prices of our software products in our store and in the WoltLab Plugin-Store from 1 January 2023. The exact price increases have not yet been fully worked out and will be individual per software product.
Organizational changes
Due to changes in my personal circumstances, I am planning to move within Germany in mid-2023. Accordingly, the address will change in all legally relevant documents. However, the operator will remain the same and this will have no further impact on customers of Krymo Software.
We hope that this post has answered your questions and we are, of course, always available to answer any further questions you may have.