Adding to Admin Tool

[ryanlynch]

Hi There -
We have created some additional functionality to KonaKart that we would like to manage through the KonaKart Admin tool -- is there anyway to add to the Admin tool or is this not possible?
Best,
Ryan

[ming]

Hi,

In the next release there will be a button on the customer panel that you can program (and label) that you may be able to use as a link to your admin functionality?   This probably only makes sense if your new functionality is related to customers.

In a future release we are planning to provide some blank panels within the Admin App that would give you the ability to add your own functionality in a more integrated fashion.  I don't know when this version will be available however...  (If any current customers on support contracts want this functionality please get in touch to discuss and this will raise the priority).

Regards,
Ming

[ryanlynch]

Are there plans to make this open-source --if so, is there a timeframe? If not, is the source available to your customers who have paid for support?

Just curious as to why this part of the product is not open-source, as we need to do some significant modifications.

Best,
Ryan

[ming]

Hi Ryan,

There are no plans to make the Admin App source available and it's not provided to customers on support either - however their enhancement requests for changes to it are prioritised.

What modifications do you need to make to it?

Regards,
Ming

[ryanlynch]

why is the admin code not being made available...isn't this the whole purpose of being open source?  just being frank, this seems quite customer unfriendly and makes you less attractive than other solutions out there as being open source is the primary reason we chose konakart in the first place so that we don't have to be dependent on a vendor everytime we need to make a change.  we are going to have ongoing enhancements so it is a pain to have to wait for someone else to develop it, especially if there is a critical business need to do so.

I would appreciate it if you would rethink your stance on this or at least explain why you have taken this position.

thx

[john]

Hello Ryan,

We've never claimed that KonaKart is 100% open source - see http://www.konakart.com/generalfaq.php

We've made available the source for the parts of KonaKart that we've considered to be the parts that most people will want to change (basically the main shop client) whilst retaining control of the engines.   We do this, and encourage people to program their solutions against the APIs, so that users have a much greater chance of being able to take updates to the KonaKart engines in the future and thereby taking advantage of bug fixes and new features as they arrive.   We try to ensure backwards compatibility at all times and our experience thus far is that people have indeed been able to upgrade their systems with new releases of KonaKart without modifying their clients.   Ensuring that we have a common KonaKart engine also enables us to provide a much  higher-quality support service.

The Admin App is not usually customer-facing and typically does not need changing.  As Ming mentioned below, we are planning to make it easier to add additional functionality to the Admin App in a future release.

John