At present I need 3 testers who may wish to get involved. Please email me leo [at] grfx.co

If you wish to test, this is al that is required:

• You must be an illustrator with stock illustrations.
• You must be moderately familiar with running a wordpress site.

Here is what you can expect:

• It runs on Wordpress.
• This installs as an extension of woocommerce, satisfying diverse payment gateway and tax needs. It inherits all functionality of woocommerce.
• It is a plugin, not a theme. Therefore it can be used with any theme of your choice -- preferably those compatible and designed with woocommerce in mind. Themeforest.net has some wonderful ones.
• Its very, very light-weight.

There is more to be said, but this is just an invite for testors, not a full-on ad.

Thank you in advance.  leo [at] grfx.co

NOTE: This is branched, distinct, and separate from Symbiostock. I've recently left Symbiostock in favor of specializing in serving illustrators. grfx is its own project, its own company. Once testing is complete, I will be creating a plugin to allow graphic artists and illustrators to easily convert over from Symbiostock to this simplified and more flexible system.

Sounds interesting. I'm not sure if I can run any testing right now (too much stuff going on), but I'm definitely curious to see how it goes.

hey leo,

how much time do you need from testers?

I have got a testing domain and can easily install it there.. the only issue is I am a little too busy right now..

Guys, I just played with this for a bit. Leo has something pretty cool here. If you are an illustrator looking for another option you might want to send him a note. Its still early but it is certainly worth finding out about.

How does it handle European VAT requirements? This would be important to know before even looking at it.

Testing it right now and I think the final product is going to be pretty good..

- one thing many of you are going to love is that this works with any theme you can have your site look exactly the way you like..

- licenses are a lot less complicated as well..

- there are shipping settings as well as a dedicated tab for taxes..

- download expiration is there too (you can set a time limit or a max number a file can be downloaded)
 

Thanks for jumping in guys.

The dedicated hosting solution is for people who can't launch a site easily. It functions like the "hub sites" that we spoke of back in the day. Everyone's site is independent and autonomous with their own search system, yet all the sites are joined by a central search engine.

When I launch it, there will be some detailed articles explaining each main element of grfx.

At present the main elements are:

• The free open source engine (which we are presently testing).
• The main hub site (presently testing).
• The central search engine (presently testing).
• The community support and fun site (easy! ).

In essence, this is the "hub site" system spoken of in those early days, now brought to light. And so far its working wonderfully. I don't think we are far of from launching them all.

EDIT: Its worth noting, especially, that this has been built with much care, and has hubsite support right out of the box. Yet one thing you cannot avoid - running a multisite network can be complex on the wordpress level iftself - but its perfectly supported by grfx. Ideally a person can launch a site in 5 minutes flat. (The host-your-own solution is equally capable, being the same thing, but of course its more complex building your own site)

Hi farbled!

I'm building a converter shortly after we've established some mileage with the new system. The system is intended for illustrators, keep in mind, and I cannot support photographers on the hub site. Robin of Symbiostock is taking care of photographers in general. He has a fairly interesting vision for them with your unique licensing and exposure needs in mind, so its worth giving him some time. He's taken on quite a project and I believe he has great potential.

With that said, this processes graphics with jpegs as the base element, so you are welcome to use it freely as you wish. Sadly though, I cannot support photographers directly, as Robin has gallantly taken over this area.

Thanks Leo, good to know. I'm happy with my current site as-is, but if there is a future plugin to make things easier and allow more theme options, then I will wait with bated breath.

I hear a lot of people say "holding my breath" and I can't say I blame them. The previous project was a rocky road. Technically this thing is finished - we are just polishing it up.