Clover in HTML5
Hey everyone -
Even though we’re in the midst of working on our new product (Clover Donations), we wanted to give you a heads up on our direction as a company. In the middle of all the excitement around Clover Donations, we also have big plans for Clover Sites.
Here’s a little background:
We launched Clover three and a half years ago, and a lot has changed since then. At the time, Facebook was mostly being used by kids, mobile browsing was more a theory than a reality, and the most cutting-edge technology for websites was Flash (which is what we built our sites on). We’ve worked hard to add a ton of features over those years, and The Greenhouse is still the most amazing website management tool out there.
Over the past three years, though, other technologies have eclipsed Flash (especially in the mobile world). As valuable new technologies have become available, we’ve integrated them into Clover alongside Flash. We’ve always pushed hard to be on the forefront of technology and design.
So we wanted to let you know that the next phase for us will be transitioning Clover to HTML5. Right now, many pieces of your site are in HTML in the background, but we’ll be recreating the parts that are in Flash so everything will be completely made in HTML.
What this means is that your full website (not just a mobile version of your site) will be available on an iPhone, iPad, or any other mobile device. There will also be lots of little improvements, like faster loading times, better accessibility for visually-impaired visitors, and new options to embed code in your site. And as always, we’re super excited to give you yet another upgrade for free.
Over the years, we’ve worked in dozens of different programming languages, and we’ve enjoyed making Clover Donations in HTML5 (as some of you may have noticed). Our primary concern has always been creating a great user experience, and we finally think HTML is ready to provide that for you.
This transition will probably be a long process, but we wanted to give you an idea of where we’re headed. We’re really excited about this next season of Clover. Stay tuned, and we’ll keep you updated as things progress.
Posted on November 14th, 2011 under Company News by Ben with 48 comments.
48 Comments
I wanted to say THANK YOU to you all for all the hard work you’re putting into your websites. You have a fan for life here at Ridge Church. You’ve made our website experience an exciting one and one that we no longer dread. Thank you for making amazing websites and management tools! We look forward to seeing and using all the great new upgrades.
Will we be able to edit from an ipad then?
That’s great news guys! Look forward to the transition!
Love it! Thanks so much for all you do! Love Clover!
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You rock! Very excited, and thanks for keep looking towards the future!
This is really great news. Thank you so much for all you do for us – the end user. This is why I will be sticking with Clover!
…now if only we could create forms without having to create a forms page…..
Cool! The Clover Peeps keep rockin it.
And it proves the old saw… “No rest for the awesome…”
Just last week I was ‘selling’ your great product to a friend. He liked what he saw. I did take the time to tell him that it was built in flash which is a mixed bag these days… He expressed concern. I assured him that ‘these guys are smart…’ and that I was positive that they would be pushing beyond this concern before not too long…
All of which is to say, Thank You! You continue to deliver a top notch, forward thinking product!
I was just wondering if you would be making this switch. I Love that Clover does not rest on past success!
Sounds great guys! I figured it was only a matter of time for this announcement when Adobe disbanded the mobile flash. Ya’ll are always on top of things. Thanks for blessing us with the best product out there.
Keep the great user experience coming! Thanks for making website management so easy… it is one of the most obvious features you have the blow away the competition!
Cool. Will there be any new fees to cover the cost of this development?
Thank you guys for constantly updating your product and passing these updates along to your customers for free. The longer our church has a Clover site, the happier I am that we chose you over other companies. I’m excited about the HTML5 shift (especially if it means we can use the Greenhouse on iPad)!
This is awesome! Thanks for all you do!
Hey guys, thanks for all the encouragement. We’re always pumped to see how excited you all are.
About editing on the iPad/iPhone, yes, we’re definitely planning on making that work well.
And about any additional costs, nope, it’s going to be just like everything else we’ve released for our sites: free for all current customers!
Will the Greenhouse be ported to HTML5 or an alternative editor? What about compatibility in Internet Explorer for our website and editor? Thank you.
Thank you Clover! Our staff has been converting like crazy to iPads lately, and just today I had a discussion about little inconsistencies of the mobile version experience on that device versus our full site on a desktop or laptop. What a relief that Clover is always ten steps ahead of me when it comes to keeping up with the rapidly-changing landscape that is technology. otegear is right: There truly is no rest for the awesome
@H20 – Yeah, we’ll be moving the Greenhouse to HTML5 and we’ll be making our own beautiful html versions of everything that the Greenhouse does.
It’ll work just fine in Internet Explorer, too.
As a quick background, Internet Explorer has always been behind the other browsers, but in the last couple years the gap has widened tremendously. The nice thing is that most features fall back (or “degrade”) well in IE and older browsers. For example, a background may have a nice subtle gradient in modern browsers, but if an older one can’t support it, it’ll still show a solid color.
So in general, most good developers can limit the problems in IE and old browsers to stylistic issues, and all the functionality can still be there.
As another side note, if you ever come across a site that says you must use IE, run far, far away.
Thank you soooo much for everything you guys do. I am a HUGE fan of Cloversites as I now have a website that I am truly proud of. You guys are the BEST. Would love to see some of these websites of these responders.
I am SOLD 100% with what you guys are doing and will continue to recommend you 100%. Keep up the great work.
this feels a little like you’re teasing us, though… if it’s gonna take a “long time,” i’d almost rather not know and just be amazingly surprised when you roll it out! now i’m going to be checking your blog every week and getting anxious until it’s here
So psyched for all the updates – especially embedding code. Any idea how long we’ll have to wait? And thanks!
This is totally awesome! You guys are so great at keeping Cloversites always on the cutting edge. That is the primary reason our church moved to Clover.
Will this improve our Google rankings?
@Lance – Google rankings are super-complicated. We’ve worked really hard to make sure our current sites are highly optimized for google and every other search engine. I think our new sites will be at least as good, and maybe better. One big thing that we want to do, though, is provide more education about what you can do as a site owner to improve your search ranking. We’ll try to get to that someday…
@Amy – About the timeline, we really don’t have a good estimate. Once we get more into the development, we should begin to know better and we’ll keep you updated. As always, we’d rather take a bit more time and release a fantastic product than cut corners and release it sooner.
Thanks again, Clover, for being simply radtastic!
And, for all those iPad users out there, check out the iSwifter app – NOT flawless but pretty sweet if you’re like me and just HAVE to see your true Clover site on your iPad. You can actually even do a little editing with it too!
Excellent! Very, very excited to hear this. I was honestly getting a bit concerned and was starting to research other non-flash alternatives to Clover. The current mobile version of our Clover site…just doesn’t look good…and I know a significant portion of our audience is viewing from iOS devices. However, I am a huge fan of the Clover desktop experience and Greenhouse editor. I’ll definitely be sticking with you guys now that I’m aware of your HTML5 transition goal. Thank you!
Thanks, I wasn’t convinced Clover was a good choice for us until I read this. Please update when you have a general timeline for switching over to HTML5!
Can’t wait for the code option!
Bravo guys! Not being able to tweak code here or there has always been one of my pet peeves about clover sites even though I’m supremely satisfied with the product and always recommend it to friends and family.As always I’ll be keeping my ear to the ground on when this one goes live!
h2church is so thankful for Clover! You guys put technology in our reach and in doing so we have been able to bring the gospel in reach of so many more people. Keep on improving it means a lot to the Kingdom of God advancing.
I must know when!?
Very nice! Wouldn’t say it’s completely free, since we do a subscription service with you, unlike something like Google Docs. But, still nice to see your accelerated updates!
Hey Bret,
Happy to give more details as we get into development a bit further. Still in the very early stages and putting most all of our focus on the release of Clover Donations!
We’re very excited and will keep you posted!
Thanks for all the work and for staying on top of things! Clover has been such an amazingly affordable and workable solution for our church!
This is great news, Clover. Thank you!
Do you know if this will give us the ability to write some custom CSS? Also, are there any plans to give us the ability to add some custom landing pages that are separate from the site itself (and fall outside of the Greenhouse editor).
YOU GUYS ROCK!
My experience with clover has been outstanding! Yet I held the concern about “flash” being dated and was a little disappointed in the mobile version of our site. In a couple of interactions with customer service, I made mention of how I wold really like to see a switch to HTML5. You guys were already there. Although I didn’t get an answer from the reps as to your going in that direction, this says it all. Thanks Guys! Keep up the exceptional work!
Hey Dan,
Yes, we will almost certainly allow custom CSS! We are always super happy to provide easy to use tools for those who don’t know any tech stuff, and also super flexible and powerful tools for those who do. Very exciting things coming! Happy to say too that there will be custom CSS available with Clover Donations!
No current plans for separate landing pages. Hopefully that will still work out well for you ~
I am also very excited about this move. I would also echo the desire to have landing pages that do not show up in the menus. Maybe that already exists, but I haven’t been able to figure it out. But either way, thank you thank you.
Will this make it possible to switch templates and port all of the data over to the new template? I feel like we’re stuck in a somewhat out-of-date look.
Hey Marc,
Happy to say that you can change designs now and have us move everything over for you! Not sure if you knew that? For $200, you can have a brand new site with all of your content. We’ll move everything over for you (including all of your media, calendar, photo albums, etc.!).
Kind of a cool way to have a new look, but keep the same CMS you’ve come to know & love (we hope!).
Let us know if we can help you with that ~
Clover, I cannot begin to say enough about your company. You guys stay on top of things and are always ready to help out customers. With every customer service call, I become more and more confident about Clover (Luke, you rock!!!). I have been telling everyone about you guys and will continue to do so. Thanks so much for your hard work.
Hey Adam,
Thanks so much for sending this. We are always happy to hear if you’re happy!
im so excited about this! im late but its still as awesome months later!
When we switch to HTML 5, will Calendar pages be a single click rather than a link to another page to click? Does this makes sense? Anyway, you have an amazing product and your constant tech updates keep us from ever looking at any other web company!!
Hey Jeffrey,
Thanks so much for the compliments. We always appreciate that:)
When things are transitioned to HTML5, the calendar feature will most likely still be accessed with a Launch Calendar button opening a new window. It’s still pretty early to say exactly, but that is the current idea.
Hope that helps!