is PHP-Residence project still alive?

[rulez22]

Ok before I start I would like to say that I have absolute no intention to upset Marco or anyone else and I understand that PHP-Residence script is made under GPL licence.

The project is very good but it seems to be dead, Marco as the main developer only answers people's questions on forum, maybe the project has reached the level when "we just fixing bugs" and it satisfy every need, but it definitely needs an improvement (new features)
We would like to pay for these changes we require for our organisation or my IT guys can help Digitaldruid to continue developing it for free, we just do not know what the reason is for such delays in releasing new versions - how many people are currently working on the project? Do you dedicate all your time to it or is it just like a "once in a month time hobby"? You can answer this by pm if you like. Just need new features that I previously mentioned (on this message board) - such as curencies, second/third person's names on the booking form and would be just great to have bar(s)/restaurant(s) module to control epxenses, stock, etc.
Anyway, again - thanks for the great script - it helped us a lot!

[marco]

The project is not dead, I'm the only one working on it (as has always been) and will release the new version when it's ready (we are not even over the 12 months release cycle that php-residence has historically had for main releases). If you send me the detailed description of the changes you need I can send you an evaluation of money and time needed for each.

Marco

[rulez22]

I don't seem to get a response via email from you, so posting it here..

Here is the list of my ideas,
improvements that PHP-Residence needs (this is very briefly, so
please let me know if there is a solution to any of these):

-currency select (so people can book in Euros, Pounds, Dollars, etc.), make it possible to select which currencies
to show on availability template (if you think about it – it is possible with “ratetypes”), all currencies are
independent (not connected to each other), in database it will be just a number but next field in the table can
be “currencytype” and can be anything – USD, GBP, EUR, etc.. I have my own booking system and it proved for quite
some time that this solution is very flexible and doesn’t damage any other records.
I think if you make it live exchange based 1GPB=1.93532USD...etc. and have one currency as your main - it will screw
up all the old bookings (exchange rate change all the time) and in the backend of PHP-Residence where you setup
rates - rate types can be used for different currencies (there is up to 10 now and we use it now for the selling
rates, agent rates (fixed percent off the selling rate) and maintenance (cleaning, renovation, etc. with 0 price))

-on the online booking template when client choose how many people per apartment will be staying - is it possible
to make fields for other passenger's names? So let's say client choose 2 people – on the next page client will see
fields for 1st and second person names, select three people – will see three fields and so on..

-comments on every booking. This is really annoying when you have to copy/paste comments because comment field is
empty and comment generated from the database by PHP next to it, so you have to copy it, make changes and paste
back again, why not show it right there in the comment box?

-log for everything – logins, changes of bookings, etc.?

-agents login to the backoffice where they can make their own bookings online and see commission they made.
I am not sure if it possible with the current system. Or is it?

[marco]

I have answered by email now, I answer here just to ask if someone has more ideas about currencies as the change proposed would be very complex (new field in reservations table and not adding different currencies when calculating) if different currencies are needed only in internet templates.

Marco