Is there any information online about how it will look migrating from the current to the new frontend? If payment extensions etc are only going to be compatible with the new front that means we should consider upgrading when the time is right correct?

I don't think we're recommending existing stores migrate.

Hmm.. that's kinda a bummer no?

Yes the idea is that you already have a custom store so it’s probably already better than what we can provide. The old frontend will still be available as a separate gem (solidus_frontend), it will just be a matter of using that gem in your gemfile and everything will be exactly as it is now.

Well -- i guess i've been a bit scared cause you go say the stripe gem and it's warnings about incompatibility with the previous frontend. -- If there are no hooks or ways for the extensions to "demo" the default capability of the extension, what would be the process of using the newest version of stripe, with the old frontend?

I can't speak to the Stripe gem specifically, but for most extensions using a solidus_starter_frontend-compatible gem with solidus_frontend, hooking them up will be roughly the same. The issue is more with gems that expect solidus_frontend, as those likely won't work at all with solidus_starter_frontend stores without some modification.

nice i mean i think that's an improvement, so then the last question on the transition would be, does

solidus_starter_frontend-compatible

more so mean, any frontend compatible (with some effort) -- vs the previous startend, yeah the extension just won't work at all cause potentially the frontend decorators are totally busted

That's more-or-less the idea. What remains to be seen is how well it gets executed. There will definitely be a bit of a split with some projects as we can enforce compatibility and there will inevitably be disconnects or projects that make decisions to choose to only support the new frontend.

for sure -- the thing that's not clicking is what:

to only support the new frontend

-- I understand how the old one couldn't support the new, but if the new extensions make no assumptions about the frontend, what's the compatibility with the new frontend they're supporting

I said "fewer assumptions", not "no assumptions". Where assumptions get made, I'm sure they'll be in favour of the starter frontend.

yeah I agree it's good to keep moving forward, in reality it always requires some legwork