I’m a relatively new Sparkle user and am enjoying its very Mac-like approach.
We are looking for a webpages hosting site that is Sparkle friendly. Our needs are modest and include presenting a lot of text, using a feedback form to let readers critique us, providing a payment method for those who might want our consulting services, providing information about our podcasts, etc.
Kualo is amongst the candidates I’m considering. I recently had an email exchange with their sales department as shown.
(1) Me: “Can you accept ftp uploads of my Sparkle-produced files into a private directory/URL for my continued private development of our sites?”
(2) Kualo Sales: “While FTP access is supported across our servers and would allow you to upload files, the maintenance/updates may require extensive modifications after uploading your files. If you are referring to this website https://sparkleapp.com/(correct me if I’m wrong), it looks like it is a website builder which means the editor page will not be available on our server once you upload the files.”
(3) Kualo Sales: “our hosting plans come with a FREE website builder called ProSite. Considering the potential need for significant modifications if you upload your existing website from SparkleApp, another approach to consider is rebuilding your site using one of ProSite’s templates.”
I took a brief look at ProSite and found it awfully generic.
Question: Is the potential problem described in (2) above, “maintenance/updates may require extensive modifications” real? Has anyone experienced it?
Looking at Kualo it looks like you may have been speaking to the wrong sales team - the one that deals with the SiteBuilder product instead of the shared hosting one.
The hosting service I use is greenhost, which is inexpensive, reliable and has excellent sustainability credentials. I have no issues with it using FTP via Sparkle. However, if you search for hosting on this forum you will find other recommendations. My 100% Sparkle built main site is www.rosemaries.co.uk and is generally first page, top three entries on Google for my key searches. I use Ecwid for my store, which integrates very well with Sparkle.
When I hit the publish button in Sparkle it just all works! If you are not going to use ProSite then the fact the “editor page”, whatever that is, will not be available should not be an issue.
If Kualo cannot give you better answers this does not bode well for a productive ongoing relationship.
I work here in Australia with a hosting server and I have used Sparkle and it faultlessly for over three years… and just not only with my Sparkle websites, but with lots and lots of my clients’s Sparkle websites.
I guess Kualo in point 2 is referring to you not having an online CMS to further edit your online website. But in your case that is not needed as Sparkle is your local CMS and any edits you do to your project file you just republish to the server.
As @FreewayFugitive mentioned, a search of this forum will show you a number of hosts that could be just as good or better…
Hi @Marty1, that’s a very oddly phrased point, in that there isn’t really a reason to edit the files on the server, after uploading. Puzzling. With Sparkle you do all edits in Sparkle itself, click publish and a fresh set of files is uploaded. There never is a code-level modification.
If you create on the FTP server a private directory, you can publish to it with Sparkle.
Later, once site development is completed, change the settings in Sparkle to publish to the main FTP directory, usually “public_html” or similar.