Toolset Types Removed from WPORG – Where to Download and What’s Coming

   Amir

Announcements

April 7, 2019
28

Last week, we permanently removed Types plugin from the WordPress.org plugins repository. We wrote about it at the end of 2017 and it’s time for us to move on. All Toolset clients can download Types from their accounts. Of course, if you’re interested in Types, you’ll get it when you buy Toolset.

Why Move Away from The WordPress Repo

Moving away from the WordPress repository means moving away from the freemium model. This model has its advantages and disadvantages. After several years of running freemium, we decided that the disadvantages outweigh the advantages.

Going freemium means that you are getting “free marketing” and you can offer paid services to those people who try your free offering. It also means that you have an opportunity to impress people by your professional level and dedication before they make a decision to buy from you.

The freemium model also allows to position yourself as a market leader and allow an entire ecosystem to form around your free product.

Some of the most popular WordPress products have gone the freemium path and enjoy great success.

On the other hand, the freemium model also requires spending a considerable part of your resources into supporting people who will never pay you. It means that the (usually small) part of the clients who buy from you sponsor the engineering and support work that goes towards the majority who doesn’t buy. This means paying for marketing with engineering and support. When the marketing benefits that you receive are much bigger than the engineering and support cost, it makes sense.

For Types, we realized that it doesn’t make sense. So we made the decision to drop out of the WordPress plugins repository. We announced it at the end of 2017 and we’ve stopped updating Types there in the last few months.

Is this a Bad Sign for Types or Toolset?

Quite the opposite. Toolset powers tens of thousands of commercial websites and enjoys a solid reputation. We feel that we don’t depend on a free version for promotion, so we’ve decided to move away.

Our move to be 100% “premium” here on toolset.com will allow us to prioritize what our paying clients need.

What’s Coming to Types

Types is unique in WordPress because it offers everything for custom types, relationships, fields and taxonomy in one place. Other plugins allow to implement parts (and sometimes do it very well), but Types takes care of everything.

The big benefit in that is that Types allows much richer integration and control.

We are working on a new design for Types, which will allow you to really benefit from this integration. With the new Types design, you will be able to create custom post types, their fields and taxonomy from the same admin screen. There will not longer be separate management for custom post types, custom fields, taxonomy and relationships.

This is a very big project and it will take us a few more months to complete, but we believe that it’s the future of custom Types for WordPress.

Anything Else Coming to Toolset?

Spoiler alert – if you enjoy surprises, skip this section.

Today, you need to be pretty good at HTML and CSS to produce nice looking websites with Toolset. This is changing and the first public release is coming this week.

Feedback? Need Help?

If you ran any initiative that depended on the free Types from WPORG, please contact us. We’re sure that we can find a good solution together.

To leave your feedback, please add comments here and we’ll get back to you.

 

Comments 28 Responses

  1. For fact removing Types from WPORG is an important move for sure there will be more focus on development and quick technical support for us, I think it’s a good strategic step.

    As for the spoiler alert I can’t wait to see this implemented very SOON which is going to be a ground up change and upgrade for toolset with this (HTML/CSS) UX UI enhancement now toolset team really in the right direction for total flexibility and user friendly.

    My quick thought for the new drag-and-drop editor is to become the de facto standard for ALL toolset modules like (Types-Views) and deep integration with Gutenberg and Elementor.

    Well done Toolset team,

    Thanks

  2. I am so excited for the new changes with Toolset! I am so proud of you as a company and I think you are doing great things.

    I have learned to love and appreciate Toolset the way it is – you’ve helped me make a successful site that I love to work on. Any upgrades in the interface are gravy on top! I’m looking forward to the more streamlined process of working with Types and Custom Fields, etc.

    And thank you for making it easier to make great-looking sites with Toolset. I’ve had to learn to become “pretty good at HTML and CSS” to make my site work, and it hasn’t been pretty! Thank you for the new release that is coming.

    Way to go and don’t look back! We support you – f the freeloaders. 🙂

  3. I really hope, you will keep the option with HTML and CSS, beside the new features. This is what I like most on Toolset, the freedom and independence from Frameworks etc.

  4. These changes to Types will make Types look more professional. I have never had a problem with these different sections for fields etc, but I believe many others have.

    I guess this is the main reason (and views) why people prefer ACF or Pods, even thought Types and Views are, in my mind, a more complete solution.

    And all I can says about the expected release this week is WELCOME.

    This is my main trouble with Toolset. Not that I can’t do html and css, but in todays world with page builders it just seams so outdated, and slooow the way it is handled today.

    And I have trouble with elementor shortcodes (for templates) not beeing rendered in content templates. So I do look forward to this update this week.

    Hopefully my workflow will change for the better.

  5. I must say I’m excited about what’s coming! I understand your reasoning for moving away from WP.org and as outlined in this post, it makes sense for the business.

    If the move does indeed allow you to focus your efforts more acutely on the product, I’m 100% behind the move. I look forward to the future of Toolset.

  6. Well you asked so… I was pretty disappointed with the ending of the Toolset starter theme as it allowed people to use all of Toolset and really get down to using bootstrap in an almost blank space. At the end of last year I contacted the Pinegrow team with a request to allow Toolset some integration into Pinegrow (which has a WP Theme development option). A line of communication was established a Toolset employee and Pinegrow. The Toolset employee had since had other priorities and so I have now twice contacted and provided info regarding this to Toolset staff, I have received no answer on each occasion! So an update (as I took the time and effort to start the ball rolling) would be much appreciated.

    I was also wondering (as I believe it has been mentioned already) if there is any update regarding the development of a Toolset calendar? This is a feature that people have been crying out for and unfortunately imposes some serious restrictions on options for using Toolset in many other applications. Drag an drop is fine and I see why that might attract more users if the GUI is easier to use. At a personal level I would prioritize a calendar before anything else and I am sure that other users have a different wish to mine on implementing over GUI.

    • + 1 for calendar!
      And also (it was mentioned in a blog post last year) more features for the toolset access plugin, such as expiration dates for users etc. Please take a look at competitors like Rstrict Content Pro etc.
      Also, I would like to see deeper integration into Oxygen Site-Builder as I use it right now over Elementor and I think it will be the future.

  8. And where to download…?

    Currently having issues getting Types onto a customer’s site because it’s bigger that max upload size for that server and that can’t be changed! Any possibility of some sort of installer plugin so we can just use the Commercial Plugins tab in the admin area to install directly from there?

    • Im currently experiencing this also
      Request Entity Too LargeThe requested resource/wp-admin/update.php
      does not allow request data with GET requests, or the amount of data provided in the request exceeds the capacity limit.
      Additionally, a 413 Request Entity Too Large error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
      Ive done put in a ticket for this. Got this message while trying to upload types.3.2.7.zip

      • Could you try uploading Types through FTP for the first time (or whatever direct access to files on the server you have available)? Just extract the ZIP file and upload the “types” directory into “wp-content/plugins” of your site. Then, you should see the Types plugin on the Plugins page and activate it.

        Types comes with an embedded Installer component that takes care of updating the plugin after you have entered a site registration key, so the FTP upload should be only an one-time thing.

        I hope this helps.

  10. I honestly hope Toolset won’t go in the direction of some “pagebuilder”. Toolset has encouraged me to up my game with HTML/CSS and I am very grateful for that. HTML/CSS is relatively simple to learn. I dumped Bootstrap, because there is no need for that in most cases.

    The last thing that I need would be some pagebuilder bloat with its impact on performance and potential for conflicts.

    There are lots of existing pagebuilders and also Gutenberg for those who need them.
    No need to re-invent the wheel. In my personal opinion, Toolset interface is just fine the way it is. No complaints.

    I think it would be better if the Toolset team focused on fixing known issues and performance improvements rather adding possible bloat. Replacing jQuery with Vanilla JS would be a huge thing. Pagebuilder stuff – not really.

    As for moving away from WP repository, if you think it is better, then great 🙂
    Cheers 🙂

    • First, we have no plans to discontinue the option to build everything using HTML. HTML editing gives you complete control over the output. I don’t think that you’ll be disappointed with our new development. And, if you don’t want to use a visual builder, you’ll be happy to see that it’s all in a new plugin. This means that there’s no code bloat for anyone staying with HTML editing.

      • Amir, doing it in a new, separate plugin is of course great. Nevertheless, I am a little afraid that maintaining a new plugin will be an additional burden for the developers. And in my personal view, it fixes a problem which is not really a problem – if people have been able to use third-party visual builders with Toolset (I have never used them, so don’t know what the integration is like).

        Meanwhile, an issue in Views that I had reported was escalated to 2-nd Tier support over a month ago, and there is still no solution… (missing filter options in search results archives when Relevanssi is used)

        I understand that such a visual builder might attract some new customers to Toolset. But speaking of attracting new customers: after recent changes in Google Maps pricing many people must be confused and desperately looking for alternatives.

        Now, I know that Toolset has integrated Azure Maps, but after a brief test, I could not find a single advantage over GM, only disadvantages, including a rather complex pricing model. In East Asia it didn’t even support street addresses, the last time I checked a few months ago.

        There was a feature request for OpenStreetMap integration, but the page with feature requests seems to have been deleted, so I can no longer see the status of that request.

        As I understand it, there are multiple providers of OpenStreetMap data (Mapbox, OpenMapTiles, etc) and they offer more attractive conditions than Google Maps/Azure. If Toolset could integrate one of the OpenStreetMap solutions, it would have very little competition in that field as far as WordPress plugins are concerned. I’m not even aware of any WP plugins that can do it. Could it attract new customers? I have a feeling it could…
        Cheers

          • Another vote for OpenStreetMap. It’s not just a cost issue either. I don’t mind paying for what I use. But the big G & M already knows enough about us all. It’d be nice not to always be tied to them.

  11. The Toolset team are amazing. Sure there are some things I’d like to see as new releases but the support is second to none and the product rocks.

  12. It’s great that you focus on development and support only for those who are willing to pay for good Software.

    Our company has been working with Toolset for 2 years, and we implement it in a few sites since we know that we can deliver and focus on only one main application (toolset).

    But this quote is VERY wrong:

    “Other plugins allow to implement parts (and sometimes do it very well), but Types takes care of everything.

    The big benefit in that is that Types allows much richer integration and control.”

    Types does not take care of everything, since it doesn’t even have a basic multi-upload field.

    Sure it has a lot of features… but seriously, a multi-upload field?

    We already had to move on to other platforms in specific projects because of this, and we are certainly not the only ones.

    If we get a reply to this comment, it will certainly mention that it’s on the roadmap, but this was already mentioned several months ago and still no go.

  13. Please release a Timepicker field. I noticed that ACF had this field available. And associated with Types, allow nested repeater fields in frontend Forms. That’ll do for now 😉

  14. Amir, how about creating a roadmap using tools like Trello ? at least all subscriber will be aware of the roadmap and what to expect and whats not.

    you can out-rightly reject any suggestion in trello so that you wont have 100s of thread asking for the same request.

    • I’m all for having better visibility so that you can see what we’re planning and when. I’m not a big fan of project boards for this purpose, but I understand the basic need. I’ll try to include a short “what’s coming” section in announcement posts, so that it’s always clear what we’re doing for the short term and longer term.