**Mod edit: this announcement has been copied out from the original thread located here:
Attracta to become new feature in cPanel & WHM (Q & A)
We’d like to update this thread with several new developments directly and indirectly related to the comments and feedback we’ve received.
We've stepped back from this particular topic and examined the whole process of notifying our customers of important product changes. cPanel is certainly no stranger to new features, and we have no plans on slowing down in that regard. We feel it's especially important now to take a serious look at our process and come up with a better way of letting our customers know of new features and settings so that they can get the most out of our software.
cPanel has always tried to hold fast to a "do no harm" policy. But, sometimes a feature or security setting is too valuable to leave disabled. In those rare instances, new releases come out of the box with those key features enabled. We've never really liked that because we feel like your software configuration should be your choice. And we, probably more than anyone else in this industry, know how those newly enabled features can catch our customers off guard.
We know there's a better way to handle this while continuing to fast track new functionality into production environments.
Release notes and change logs don't seem to cut it. Its clear that not everyone has time to read these documents. While forum posts, news announcements, and press releases help, they are by no means 100% effective in getting the word out. It is ultimately frustrating for everyone when you don’t know about a change coming down the line.
Our plan is to present you with a new Setup Wizard screen in the WHM upon the first visit after an upgrade. You'll have an opportunity to learn about each new feature along with a clear and simple choice to enable it. Once you've made your decision, the Setup Wizard won't alert you about these new features again. You'll also have the option of skipping the Setup Wizard for the time being so that you can return to it once you're more prepared to make a decision.
Whether it's enabling the Advanced DNS Editor, Logaholic, the SMTP Tweak to prevent untracked mail messages, Brute Force Protection, IP Login Checking, Security Tokens, configuring Security Policy features, turning on MySQL slow query logging, and yes, even enabling (or not) our new Attracta Integration feature, our customers are going to have the final choice in how our software works for them. New functionality should be disabled by default, and our customers should have a clear and immediate choice to decide what works for them.
For the first version of this new Setup Wizard screen, we plan on presenting you with a list of several of the most important of these tools, settings and features that we’ve added over the last few years. We really feel they deserve a closer look, and we'll identify what we consider to be the ideal default. We're also going to provide command line tools and remote APIs for setting these values as well so that you can easily propagate out changes across multiple installs.
We genuinely hope that this new way of alerting you to product changes will empower you to make better decisions supported by clear information. We also believe that by adding this Setup Wizard to our WHM interface that we're providing a far simpler way for configuring new settings and ultimately making your life easier.
Our initial plans concerning the Attracta Integration were focused on ensuring as little impact as possible to our core product development schedule. After some deep thinking and further discussions with Attracta, we both agree that our mutual customers will be best served by delaying the Attracta integration in order to accommodate this new Setup Wizard Feature Control, as it provides value for every new feature. We hope you'll agree.
As always, we welcome your continued most valuable feedback, thank you.
Attracta to become new feature in cPanel & WHM (Q & A)
We’d like to update this thread with several new developments directly and indirectly related to the comments and feedback we’ve received.
We've stepped back from this particular topic and examined the whole process of notifying our customers of important product changes. cPanel is certainly no stranger to new features, and we have no plans on slowing down in that regard. We feel it's especially important now to take a serious look at our process and come up with a better way of letting our customers know of new features and settings so that they can get the most out of our software.
cPanel has always tried to hold fast to a "do no harm" policy. But, sometimes a feature or security setting is too valuable to leave disabled. In those rare instances, new releases come out of the box with those key features enabled. We've never really liked that because we feel like your software configuration should be your choice. And we, probably more than anyone else in this industry, know how those newly enabled features can catch our customers off guard.
We know there's a better way to handle this while continuing to fast track new functionality into production environments.
Release notes and change logs don't seem to cut it. Its clear that not everyone has time to read these documents. While forum posts, news announcements, and press releases help, they are by no means 100% effective in getting the word out. It is ultimately frustrating for everyone when you don’t know about a change coming down the line.
Our plan is to present you with a new Setup Wizard screen in the WHM upon the first visit after an upgrade. You'll have an opportunity to learn about each new feature along with a clear and simple choice to enable it. Once you've made your decision, the Setup Wizard won't alert you about these new features again. You'll also have the option of skipping the Setup Wizard for the time being so that you can return to it once you're more prepared to make a decision.
Whether it's enabling the Advanced DNS Editor, Logaholic, the SMTP Tweak to prevent untracked mail messages, Brute Force Protection, IP Login Checking, Security Tokens, configuring Security Policy features, turning on MySQL slow query logging, and yes, even enabling (or not) our new Attracta Integration feature, our customers are going to have the final choice in how our software works for them. New functionality should be disabled by default, and our customers should have a clear and immediate choice to decide what works for them.
For the first version of this new Setup Wizard screen, we plan on presenting you with a list of several of the most important of these tools, settings and features that we’ve added over the last few years. We really feel they deserve a closer look, and we'll identify what we consider to be the ideal default. We're also going to provide command line tools and remote APIs for setting these values as well so that you can easily propagate out changes across multiple installs.
We genuinely hope that this new way of alerting you to product changes will empower you to make better decisions supported by clear information. We also believe that by adding this Setup Wizard to our WHM interface that we're providing a far simpler way for configuring new settings and ultimately making your life easier.
Our initial plans concerning the Attracta Integration were focused on ensuring as little impact as possible to our core product development schedule. After some deep thinking and further discussions with Attracta, we both agree that our mutual customers will be best served by delaying the Attracta integration in order to accommodate this new Setup Wizard Feature Control, as it provides value for every new feature. We hope you'll agree.
As always, we welcome your continued most valuable feedback, thank you.
