I like the component, despite all the problems caused by me. He detected the problem in less the 20 seconds faster than my microwave heating my coffee.
Thank you Phil.

When you read their forum you'll see that the speed of support is slow slow slow, which does not come in handy as this product gives a lot of problems to set up.

Read their refund policy very carefully

http://www.joomla-tags.com/kb/refund_policy/

as you most likely will be interested in, after waiting for any respond while having all sorts of problems.
Also, the statement about not giving 3rd party component integration compatibility and support, has not been stated by the developer with little reason.

I think the product when eventually implemented can be great, but the complete product, so speed of support included, is poor (I am amazed to see that other reviews tell the opposite?!)

Don't buy this product if you are in a hurry and don't like the risk of having implementation problems!

Owner's reply:
The reason other customers say they get great support is because they do get great support - as have you!



We investigate every report of incompatibility and DO PROVIDE REFUNDS as per our policy if we fail to make our product work in your environment.

We spend every day supporting customers - the forums are not the primary method of communication with our customers and those that contact us often - just like you did - get a very swift reply.

Yes the install can be tricky in some environments - thats why we offer to install it for you should you ask. Every server in the world is different, and Joomla sites vary greatly

Look at the other great reviews - we do our best!

This guy is a superhero

turning our simple sites into complex enriched features........

even with all the issues that are and could come..... Phil Taylor works hard to make great unique stuff....

nothing in the universe is perfect..... but Phil Taylor does his best...Phil will make my site clientsolutionspro.com have some great features... I am on bluehost so you know it works somewhere other than his demo.... just for those...who wonder does it work on other servers...

Thanks Phil for all the hard work........

And excellent extension with a superb interface and very easy to install.

Phil Taylor gives excellent, speedy support.

I have no hesitation in recommending this extentsion which has greatly improved my site.

We use Joomla Tags and we have been using some form of Phil's tagging software just about since the beginning. The software from Phil is always solid and the least of our worries and Phil's support is always very responsive and timely in extremis.

Let me put it this way: The whole experience of using Phil's software and support would be a bargain at twice the price.

It is well worth paying a per site fee.

When you install any component of Phil Taylors you can rest assured that it is a quality product. Joomla Tags is by far one of the best products i have used recently. It is well written and the support that Phil offers is second to none. I would be happy to recommend any of his products to everyone!

We had some problems installing Joomla Tags with php5 (now runs with php4) then with JoomlaComment and later with Fireboard and phpbb3 connector but support from Phil Taylor was always excellent and we should thank him for that. We recommend his services and components.

Joomla-tags is a must have for all joomla sites! I ran into some installation issues but Phil was very willing to help and he help me solved everything very quickly.

Awesome component with wonderful support from Phil!

thanks for the good work! keep it up!

I don't thing there are many other options out there like it. Many approach tagging from the built in meta tags but this goes much farther. Approaches tagging functionality found in wordpress. I have found it to be a bit buggy, but Phil is always ready to come in and fix it with no hassle. Templating of the system is getting better too, needs independent templates for component and module.

unlike the last reviewer, i have been able to get Joomla Tags working in Joomla 1.5.2. I had a small installation issue, like others have, but that was quickly resolved by Phil by advising me to change permissions on a few folders and modify the file bfTweaks.php (in this file there are a load of "tweaks")

I like the component a lot.

Joomla Tags broke all my templates - links to stories had code that should be hidden and this code was breaking the templates and going over the written text.

After installing the software the developer said it had a conflict with Joomsef. But that was not the whole problem. It was breaking my template.

The developer said he couldn't understand me, he couldn't see the problem and my English is bad.

Problems got even worse when I tried to unpublish the extension. The code kept breaking the template, preventing users to read the stories of the website, even when I unpublished the mambot. I had to uninstall the component completely.

Owner's reply:
Yes, this customer was a disaster, I agree

We spent several hours of our weekend trying to communicate effectively with this customer to overcome her alleged issues. All the emails we received from this customers were of the vain "It doesn't work - fix it", with no other details apart from some copy and paste text from her website articles... we repeatedly asked for screenshots or help in identifying what she believed to be the "problem" with the component - and all we received in reply was abusive emails time and time again - to the point where we gave several warnings and then refused to communicate with her again because of the abuse we were getting. She also refused us access to her site in order to investigate the issues she was reporting.

As a gesture of goodwill we refunded this customer in full, and waived our refund policy. Having spoken to PayPal, this is not the first time this customer has had refunds...

Joomla Tags never messes with templates at all, there is no code in Joomla Tags that modifies or overwrites any template in Joomla. An uninstallation of Joomla Tags removes every trace of the component (Except the database tables).

To this day, I still have no idea what this customer was complaining about !!

Hello, I am amazed that nobody has pointed this issue out yet.

When Joomla Tags is installed, users with author access are not able to submit articles from the front end. If you attempt to save an article as an author, it will not save. You will lose your content, and the site redirects to the article submission page.

I do not see how this is compatible with 1.5, so please be aware that you will most likely come across these issues (even though it is published as 1.5 compatible). Also, it is impossible to get a refund response from the developer, even though he supplies a product that does not work on your site.

Owner's reply:
Hi coolwillye.



Thanks for taking the time to leave this review, I note we have also corresponded about this by email.



Due to rapid changes in Joomla 1.5.x codebase we found it hard to keep up to date with our integration, however we have now caught up and have ensured 100% compatibility with Joomla! 1.5.2.



The issue you encountered is now FULLY RESOLVED in Joomla Tags v0.1.1833



As for refunds, we have a very clear refund policy on our site, in this instance we offered you a refund and you refused it pending the above changes to our code - thank you.



Now lets get back to Tagging our content!



Phil Taylor

Ive been a long time user of this package. and been using joomla sine the very first release after mambo....

But always used the joomla-tags package on joomla prior to 1.5.
But I decided to make my new site on joomla 1.5 so I installed the component and ran into some problems i haven't been having with this package before.

( Component not working after install and file permissions not right... )

I wrote Phill and explained the errors and he fixed it for me right away.
(after he's coffee..) :) and now i am up running 1.5 with Joomla-Tags installed..!!

THIS GOTTA BE THE BEST SUPPORT ON THE NET!!!

And i am pretty sure the problems actually was with my server and not the package, but he fixed it and now i can start tagging away!!

I can only recommend this to any one who wants tagging ore is suffering under the no sub-category issue!!!

Alex

This component isn't cheap, particularly at current exchange rates if you're using US dollars to get it. That said it's the only Tag component available, and so I too the leap and got it. The one major complaint I have is there is no users manual, no read-me file, no help file, nothing...no information what so ever in it. So, if it doesn't install right, as mine didn't, you can't even trouble shoot it. So I went to the help forums and Phil's website to try and get help. It take about 5 days, and I did get some passing the buck, but eventually, he jumped on board and went in and fixed it and got it all working for me: and he stayed very polite even though I was getting a bit snippy and frustrated. And frankly, it's a really super cool program,and the admin interface is quite nice and easy to figure out. It's exactly what I needed on my website to make it more user friendly and searchable. It's great. So, I think it's over-priced, but worth the money if you really need something like this, and eventually you will get good customer support if it's not working...you just have to submit all his help forms and send emails.

Owner's reply:
Hi Michelle - for the record we exchanged 17 emails over many days and the root cause of your issues were 1) Incorrect file permissions on your files and folders 2) conflict with fireboard. We personally investigated your issues and changed the file permissions for you, furthermore we investigate the conflict with fireboard and provided you with a working solution so that you could use both components on the same site. I trust you are happy with the outcome from our support.



There are a lot of forum posts and FAQ posts on installation issues, and the problems you encountered, that I mention above, could have been sorted if you had read those - the actions I took have been taken by other users without the need for contacting us for support :-) :-) but I understand not all customers are as technical as we are :-)



Kindest regards Phil.

This is a great component fully functional with Joomla 1.5
The owner offers a great support and responds fast to issues you might encounter.

There is also a very well documented set of instructions for both the components but also solutions to problems related to Joomla and/or specific server related problems.

I recommend Phil Taylor's component to any Joomla user and administrator.

john higham