Hi,

We must admit it.

CentovaCast is an excellent control panel, which has excellent features. But the skin (theme interface) is really horrible.

I have tried to change the skin several times. Doing this is frustrating. All files relating to the skin are spread across different folders. If you've tried changing the skin, you can sicken, really.

I think the skin should be designed differently. For example, a skin completely separate from the system files. When I say "separate", I mean really separate.

Currently, if I want to redesign a theme for CentovaCast, I have to modify the files in the "theme" folder, other files in the "system / templates" folder, and many more files in other folders. And all this to create a decent theme. If I want to change the page "login" (for example) I have to modify other files. And they are all separate and very poorly distributed.

The appearance of the current theme is simply old. The current theme is not a modern theme. Responsive? What is that?

I would suggest that the development team is adapted to modern times. It should not be difficult to create a modern, elegant and responsive theme. In this case, I recommend using bootstrap.

Bootstrap is responsive and allows you to create very beautiful themes. Easy to make, easy to modify.

Is it really so complicated?

Thank you very much and I hope my suggestion will be taken into consideration.

Regards.

It should not be difficult to create a modern, elegant and responsive theme.

Creating a modern, elegant, and responsive theme independent of Centova Cast is not difficult at all.  Integrating it with a project of this size, though?  That's another story.

Is it really so complicated?

Actually yes, it's massively complicated and a huge undertaking.

Bear in mind that Centova Cast has been in development for a decade now, and was originally designed before the term 'AJAX' even existed.  The UI was originally built in vanilla Javascript and HTML4.  We then ported it to jQuery and XHTML using best-practices at the time.  Now things are coming full-circle again and vanilla Javascript is once again what sites are trending toward, along with HTML5 and responsive layouts.

I'm more than familiar enough with the process to say with confidence exactly how difficult it is -- to adhere to modern HTML5/CSS standards, we're talking about modifying literally every HTML fragment and every bit of Javascript code in the project.  Much of our UI code, including the media library and file manager (which represent many thousands of lines of Javascript code on their own) would need a massive overhaul to be compatible with the new layout.  And that doesn't even begin to touch on the thousands of lines of jQuery-specific code we've created and which Centova Cast depends on, which -- if we're abandoning jQuery, per modern design conventions -- we'd need to rewrite as well.

Creating a nice RESTful architecture to sit behind it would require further major changes under-the-hood.

So yes, it's certainly possible.  It's not something we're going to drop all other development for, however.

That said, we ARE working on modernizing Centova Cast, but the first step is modernizing it under-the-hood.  We currently have an active development branch where we're refactoring Centova Cast to adhere to PSR standards (remember that Centova Cast was conceived back in 2005, when PHP4 was basically it) which, in the process, will dramatically improve ongoing maintainability and overall performance.  That's all under-the-hood, but once that's done we'll be overhauling a number of user-facing components, including the UI.  I won't go into further detail on that at this point, but suffice to say we've got a long list of plans to keep Centova Cast relevant moving forward.

Wow .. four years and still nothing. Is it time to start looking for a "modern" solution elsewhere? This is 2018 and mobile is KING. It is long past time for Centova to change with the times or go the way of the Dinosaurs.

and still waiting. CentovaCast every day closer to a Dinosaur!

The thing is the features are all there more or less.  We too would just love (and need) a modernisation of the skin and mobile compatibility.  Centova folks told me me two years ago that this was on top of their priorities however there is no further information two years later and no updates. 

There is only one way of rushing the developers, stop paying your centova cast licenses and pay it when they release a new version.

There is only one way of rushing the developers, stop paying your centova cast licenses and pay it when they release a new version.

That won't work that will just leave half my clients offline, Lets just keep our fingers crossed that centova are working on something  

and still waiting. CentovaCast every day closer to a Dinosaur!

that's right. Example : Everestcast, Cast Control they are even beautiful
Centova ech... old look. old dangerous! flash. flash ... XIX century. fine. HTML 5. I agree 100%
centova must change.

Everest  cast is full of bugs and not user friendly at the moment, centovacast is by far the best , i have created a custom start pages EG.
https://phoenix.radioflo.co.uk:2199/start/hekiw/


So thats not a problem but jesus evan trying to edit the main website its one massive pain i really do hope they update centova soon because companyies like radioco to radioking are now giving clients what we cant all we are asking for is a responsive skin change

I think us dedicated customers deserve at least an update from the Centova devs regarding if this is even something in the pipeline.   It's looking less likely day by day that it will.  Confirmation would just be great at this stage.

and still waiting. CentovaCast every day closer to a Dinosaur!

that's right. Example : Everestcast, Cast Control they are even beautiful

If you want to have a really beautiful, responsive and user-friendly control panel, then you should check out AzuraCast. No Flash, just pure HTML5 with some additional scripts, and it offers much more functionality (including support for PLS playlists with links to MP3s located on external servers - a very useful functionality, works like a charm!) than Centova Cast currently does. And another advantage is that it's completely free, since the only cost to incur is the cost of your VPS. It also has been more-or-less-completely translated to other languages, so not only English speakers will make use of it.

Not that I just came here to advertise AzuraCast I use Centova Cast on my main server. However, when I was translating AzuraCast to Polish and I learned about functions it offers, I realized how limited Centova Cast is. Of course, AzuraCast is a relatively new product that hasn't gained much popularity yet, however, Centova staff should really start working hard on improving their product before AzuraCast takes over the whole market ;-)