Fixing All The Things

We’re currently planning the next milestone release of Perch – version 2.4. It can be too easy to constantly look ahead to what features to add next, when that’s not necessarily the ideal way to make Perch better. Our slogan for this release is fix all the things, and its focus is on revisiting lots of the existing core functionality to make sure it’s as good as it can be.

Let me give you an example. We added Search functionality to Perch back in v1.7, over two years ago. The search is simple and works fine for most common configurations, but it’s not really great. In some circumstances we’ve seen it return poor excerpts, and the listing isn’t configurable to make full use of all the available content. This is a perfect example of something we need to stop and improve before we push ahead with new features. Things like search aren’t glamorous, but they’re important and if they don’t work right they’ll annoy your clients.

Another case in point is the creation of new pages. At the moment, Perch enables you to select a folder for subpages to be created in for any given page. What it doesn’t offer is the ability to create new subfolders. Why? Simply because we need to stop and go back over those features and make sure they offer practical options that help you do your job. So that’s what we’re doing.

But we need your help.

We’re aware of a lot of these small bumps in the road that can be improved. We’ve seen them ourselves when using Perch, and we’ve heard about some of them from you in the forums. I’m sure there are things that go unreported, simply because they’re not a major issue – you just step over them and carry on. We don’t want you to have to keep stepping over the bumps, so we want to hear about them and get them fixed.

The best way to let us know is via the Suggestions for Perch section in our forum. If there’s something you’d like to see fixed or improved, post a new topic in that section. If you see issues you’ve encountered mentioned by others, add a comment with any additional information or use-cases that might help us solve the problem. (And if we ask why do you want that? it’s so we can understand the problem, not because we object to the request!)

We’re planning out Perch 2.4 now, so this is the perfect time to make your voice heard and help fix anything that bothers you or would make your life easier.