These are miscellaneous tidbits of acceptance Tienda/Nooku/Anahita are gaining in the Joomla community.
My favourite example is the K2 extension's integration of Tienda.
Tienda templates: Here's one from JoomlaBamboo.
UPDATE (July 02/2010): Tienda templates in this months JoomlaPraise and RocketTheme templates. Very interesting the Joomla ecomm extensions that are omitted.
A client email:
Hi Bob,
Great to hear from you as well, thank you for your reply!
I know it was an eye opener for me when I read in your blog about your switch away from VM. I was aware for a long time of the shortcomings of VM, it's awkward coding and terrible or non existent templating, and it seems kinda stuck in a 'col de sac' ... but the great info on your site made me aware of Tienda and it's seemingly much superior architecture and ethics of the team behind, so that you convinced me that now is the time to switch away from old habits to new progress (emphasis mine, Bob).
The reason why I'm now still "staying with VM" is only for a couple clients that I built an online retail and wholesale solution starting a couple years back when VM seemed the only or "best" solution. Some of those sites even started with J! 1.0.x & VM 1.0.x and I took them through the transition to J! 1.5.x & VM 1.1.x, which was challenge enough considering heavy mods and customizations I made. Also those 2 specific sites were and are running quite well and successful with high traffic and retail customer base, so that I wouldn't want to disturb my clients and their established retail customers (going by the "If it works don't fix it" motto).
But that might change, I have to first familiarize myself with Tienda now and evaluate the task and implications of "Tienda'rizing" my so far happy clients and find the time, which also isn't easy to get paid for, as clients often are reluctant to (paid) change or don't deem it necessary (they too go by the motto "If it works and makes us money, don't fix it").So other than the obvious advantages for us developers, that Tienda has much better coding architecture, specially following the MVC and is or will be much more extensible and expandable, I hope that soon it will really outweigh VM on features and possibilities alone, which is mostly what convinces my clients to "change".
Having said that I just started a new client's site with VM, but as I'm still at the beginning stages I might decide to jump right into Tienda with that one, more and more convinced that this is the way to go and The future.
Thanks again, I appreciate your time to communicate with me.
The "J! and Beyond" conference at the end of May 2010 provides a visual of the waters growing around Virtuemart.
Check out the Sunday program. Two Tienda workshops and one pseudo-Virtuemart workshop. No, wait! This is the generic workshop, "It would be great to gather the developers of major / important ecommerce extensions like Virtuemart, Valanx, RedShop, Tienda, ... (excuse me if I have forgotten another important one, I can only think of Virtuemart) and present, discuss the strategies and features and answer questions about what will be". Pretty effing lame. If you want the future of ecommerce, just attend the first 2 Tienda workshops, and then get your ass to the Nooku seminars.
Check out the Monday program. Joomla 1.6 and Nooku workshops overshadown "Customize Virtuemart". This is straight from the horse's mouth: "This is a workshop about how to customize Virtuemart using the Virtuemart Themes and the new (since 1.1.4) User-Classes. I will show, how most of the extensions can be done without hacking the core code. There will be lots of live-examples with code shown and tips for best practice for fast and secure solutions. I will also cover the new Virtuemart 1.5. If it is released until the event, it can of course take a bigger part. It would be great if visitors who are interested in this workshop will submit questions before the event which we can use in the workshop" (emphasis mine). The only thing that matters is the new VM 1.5 MVC. I would assume that they would showcase it front-and-centre, with the usurping ecommerce extension on their doorstep -- literally!
Another client email:
On another note, Joomla Bamboo just posted a Tienda Joomla template - pretty
cool huh? Guess the word is getting out.
I hope that Joomlart starts migrating away from VM and Magento and starts
doing some templates for Tienda, they have some really cool templates.
Just announced: Anahita Social Engine Alpha 1 WOW! http://blog.anahitapolis.com/2010/05/anahita-the-alpha-girl-in-the-social-networking-universe/
(July 16) Another one: http://demo.joomlapraise.com/?t=fresa. Checkout their Tienda slideshow module!
