Heya @lukemeehan, thanks mate for reaching out! Truly appreciate it! To be honest, and I think most authors I’ve spoken to agree, that frame is obsolete, it has been for a long, long time.
You guys provide an amazing API, check my item frame for example, I can pull name, sales, link to previews, everything my heart desires to show potential customers using your awesome API. The current frame is
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- Large, obtrusive and highly rigid ( literally 0 customization options )
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- It serves absolutely no purpose to an author that can create his own. Literally no purpose.
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- I understand that you guys have tons of Analytics embedded in your frames, that can be added by authors in the frame as well. Give this feature to Elites for example, they’re sure not to mess things up. We can import a script from Envato’s server, you guys can modify whatever you want, problem solved.
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- It’s a paradox. Really. Items open in a new tab, but the bar takes you back to the item in the same window. So now you have the item open in 2 windows. And the last purpose, is to remove the bar itself… Wouldn’t it be easier to have it gone alltogheter or allow a more flexible solution ( custom author built )
The thing is, in the past, before the CDN was added, hundreds of authors used images in their item previews. Let’s say you add an image under the preview “Item X released | Item Y Updated” and point that to a redirect.html that sends you to your item on Envato. Then the CDN came along. We have no way to clear the CDN cache, and therefore, a very, very, very valuable marketing tool was removed. For me, editing 150 items to add an image to advertise a new product or an update… well … it would take an eternity.
To answer your questions.
1. What is the main reason for form escaping?
Rigidity. It serves to go back to the item, and delete itself. So, basically, it serves to go back to the item. We’re doing that with our frames. Plus we can also
- Add an item list.
- Pull information via API automatically
- Advertise updates (see CDN and images above )
- Advertise discounts
- Get comprehensive analytics ourselves for our items
- Add Responsive Controls (my case mobile frames, in 99.99% of authors here buttons for desktop/tablet/mobile )
2. If frame escaping was not an option what changes would you request we make to the Envato header bar?
I think this bar has had it’s day. Competitive marketplaces don’t use these things. I understand it once had a purpose, but now it is a relic to a past that no longer suits any purpose. That bar is there to go back to the item ( which opens in a new tab by the way, the item isn’t going anywhere ) and to self destruct / remove itself. Regarding the analytics codes you guys require, I’m sure everyone can add a script to their frames, and add classes to the close buttons and buy now buttons to track clicks and other information you need.
To be honest, being at the mercy of the browsers, is very nasty, but Envato isn’t at the mercy of the browsers, the authors are due to the limits imposed by the frame…
This entire problem could be solved in a second, literally, there wouldn’t have to be thousands of items edited for thousands upon thousands of authors. Remove that bar, and everyone is happy and all problems with the browser are solved in a heartbeat… 
What Envato could add to it? Well, again it would severely limit our customization options.
- You could add an item switcher, but that will be based on images already existing on Envato, the 590 previews in my case and many other authors are useless.
- Add a dropdown with theme names, that works for guys like Avada or The7 or BeTheme or other monsters, but for other authors, their product names don’t really represent a known brand, clickthrough rates would be totally ineffective.
- Add sales info and ratings … yeah, that would, help, but with the above mentioning points, that wouldn’t help a lot. Top sellers would keep selling, new items would die.
There really isn’t much you guys can do to cater of the masses, other than allow authors via a review system or sales rank or Elite rank to add their own frames, conditioned on adding your own tracking codes to it to server you and serve us.
I for one, would add whatever codes you guys would want, just as long as I could advertise my items in the way I discovered sales and brings customers. Not all methods would work for all people, and that makes the existing Envato bar obsolete.
Thoughts?
