onslaughtmusic
The reason I bought this is in the hopes of a better downloadable products system than the new VM2.0.
This seems to achieve that, but the rest of the component is barely functional on joomla 2.5. The thing that bugs me the most is how painfully ugly the default theme is, somehow they managed to come up with something worst than the VM default.
The 1000+ templates they advertise are pretty much opencart themes and out of 47 that I tried (just counted my downloads)not ONE works out of the box. (not suprised since this is pretty much opencart in a joomla wrapper). This is a fresh joomla install with the default theme, so no room for 3rd party conflicts by the way.
Moving on I go for the last option of making my own theme, however that seems to be near impossible at a productive rate. Why? Because of silly mandatory caheing on part of opencart's vqmod plugin which CANNOT be disabled and the clean cache option doesn't seem to work. Short of perfectly coding your template then uploading it this is just a nightmare!
OK, forget the fact that the store will resemble Freddy Krueger after a bottle of whiskey.
Everything else needs at least a few extra clicks and page loads to get it done due to the lack of an apply button.
This has the WORST!!! and i mean the worst file manager system that I have to use every time I want to add any sort of image or downloadable product. It reminds me of java apps and IE 6 from 2001.
Then I came in contact with the checkout process and what the customer might have to deal with on the front end.
More clunky JS drop downs and cart functions, 7 step check out process, where you need to place your order, verify your order, verify all your address and account information in separate steps, place your order and complete your payment.
Customer gets an e-mail with the expected "hey thanks for the order here's your link to download your purchase" But when you click on it it doesn't take you to the download but the order page, with the only option in a drop down to either add the product to your cart again or return the product. WHY ON EARTH do I need to prompt a customer to add the same product AGAIN or return a digital photo? Upon closer look it turns out I need to do some quite heavy modding on the core files to fix this reticulated option.
For the customer to actually download the thing they purchased then need to go to their account and select downloads from there. Unless you are a developer or a return customer there's just no way a normal visitor can figure all the red tape without help. I can already see the endless support e-mails filled with confusion on how people can get their products.
If you chose to use this for selling of physical products it might work for you better, but I guarantee you will have issues with styling. If you need just a store, go with the full and FREE opencart. This doesn't take advantage of any of joomla's functions just puts opencart in a wrapper. If you want your store better integrated with joomla go with VirtueMart.
Sadly reviews like this make it into JED.
It's factually wrong, doesn't reflect the level or majority of the component etc. and looking to your reviews for other extensions it still reflects unjustly on our component.
Shame on your for making reviews like this.
PS: You've added this review just 3 hours afer your purchase...
Many of the options like automatic invoicing, order processing and so on rely on the build in order forms and quote forms.
These forms are simply a NIGHTMARE!
They are hard to configure, and next to impossible to style. The drag and drop form builder creates everything in individual DIV tags making it impossible to line up things properly. Field positions in the builder and front end have next to no correlation to each other.
If (that's a big IF) you manage to create a functioning order form you have no styling options. There's no way to add a class to labels or input fields and instead you need to type in the CSS for EACH LABEL AND FIELD or if you want to use an external CSS you have to check your source code on the front end and note all the randomly generated ID tags.
This order form system is just not worth the time to deal with. It wouldn't be that big of a deal, but as I mention if you want to take advantage of some of the more advanced features you HAVE to use this system.
You can add an order manually from the back end however doing so won't generate any invoices, you have to manually generate them, and it won't keep track of any subscriptions. In the end if you don't use the order form you can't really use the component.
The statement "sell products and services online" by the author is simply misleading if not down right false. Using this component to sell a service or products is a sure way to drive your sales down.
Which customer want to fill out complicated online forms EVERY time they want to buy a product?
I have reported this review, as it does NOT relate to nBill Lite, which is the product listed here. In case the moderators decide not to remove it, I will respond to the points raised:
"The drag and drop form builder creates everything in individual DIV tags making it impossible to line up things properly." - Individual DIV tags are the only way of allowing a drag-and-drop editor as drag-and-drop relies on absolute positioning. It is certainly not impossible to line things up properly, in fact, the snap-to-grid feature forces fields to line up. If your template seriously messes up the form, you can always use the table renderer instead (see below).
"Field positions in the builder and front end have next to no correlation to each other." The form is rendered in exactly the same way in the front-end as it is in the back end, so they correlate EXACTLY. The differences are caused by the styling rules in the template(s) used, and you may indeed have to adjust things to fit the rules imposed by your template. Using the table renderer (which is a page property) is an option which yields more consistent layout results across different templates if you get stuck, although that does impose some limitations on positioning.
"If (that's a big IF) you manage to create a functioning order form you have no styling options." Most people have functioning order forms, so not such a big IF. The styling options are unlimited, as you can use CSS.
"There's no way to add a class to labels or input fields and instead you need to type in the CSS for EACH LABEL AND FIELD or if you want to use an external CSS you have to check your source code on the front end and note all the randomly generated ID tags." That is not true - most elements output by nBill have classes and IDs or are within tags that have classes and IDs, so can be styled quite easily with CSS.
"You can add an order manually from the back end however doing so won't generate any invoices, you have to manually generate them, and it won't keep track of any subscriptions." This is another false statement. Manually created orders do generate invoices, and subscriptions are dealt with in exactly the same way whether the order was created manually or not.
"Which customer want to fill out complicated online forms EVERY time they want to buy a product?" From the end-user's perspective, the forms are as complicated as you make them. Some businesses are suited to using order forms, others are more suited to using a shopping cart. If you are trying to use nBill for something it was not designed to do, the fault is not with the software, you just need to pick the right tool for the job.
If you had requested support with the problems you encountered, rather than just leaving a bad review on a listing for a different product, it might have been possible to resolve the issues!
Templating and layout is also a problem for me. The default template is simply awful, bulky icons that don't display well in dark background, boxy and poorly aligned elements and customization is a pain with messy CSS files and missing element class/ID tags.
Tried out a different component and was pleased to have comments display in my category view in less than 5 minutes with easy styling options.
Tabber was ready to go in no time. Plug was even enabled after install by default. (nice little touch in my opinion.)
The editor button is quite useful too, saves time memorizing the syntax or having to copy paste it all the time.
The .CSS is easy to read and edit. Some elements I feel are a bit outdated as far as CSS formating goes but I suppose that is a personal preference.
It always makes me happy when I come across a well designed and functioning extension and this is one of the best in it's category.
Great job devs and thank you for sharing!
Thank you very much for your positive words :)
Please contact me on the CSS stuff you think can use some un-outdating. Always interested in improving code...
Hi,
it is not intended to get the same results for each form mode. We state that clearly in the description:
- QuickMode: Regular users
- EasyMode: Designers
- ClassicMode: Programmers
If you don't like the results of Easy- and ClassicMode, the QuickMode will satisfy your needs. And when you read about the experiences of others here, you will see this is the most used one.
For people who find "easy" means being quick, then the QuickMode is _the_ way to create forms.
Regards,
Markus
Seriously? Why no-repeat twice? Makes it useless in FF and IE, gracefully chrome ignores the stupidity of inserting no-repeat twice.
It gets 2 stars for a well designed layout and interface.
Sadly reviews like this make it into JED.
Its factually wrong - doesnt reflect the level or majority of the component etc. but yet it makes it in here and no matter that we have tons and tons of happy users and noone looking on our forums or the amount of support we do for both redSHOP and redSHOP light users it still reflects unjustly on our component.
Shame on your for making reviews like this.
At 1st I was ok waiting 10-15 seconds for the editor to load in the back end, I figured it just takes a bit for all the rich functions to load. I was using this editor for about 3 weeks and I started noticing that page loading on the front end is considerably slowed down as well.
I made a template for a customer, uploaded no problems and I figured instead of editing each article in dreamweaver or typing out all the code I can shave off some time by using all the functions JCE provides. Load times trippled, and sometimes pages would just load forever. Since there was no other components installed by process of elimination JCE was responsible. I uninstalled it and load times are now near instantaneous, as they should be for a simple article layout.
I went back and removed the component from other web sites I've used it and all sites showed a considerable improvement on loading times.
Quite unfortunate since this offers a lot of flexibility while working with joomla. They structure and layout of the editor is brilliant but I can't afford to sacrifice such long loading times on the front end.
The JCE Editor is only loaded when an article is edited so there is no way that the editor could be responsible for slowing down your site front-end when not editing an article.
It doesn't display news it displays manually typed in text.
Rename it to Text Ticker and then this module will do what it says.
Might be useful for some other applications but not for news display.
The fade effect is a bit on the "not so good" side too. It fades in nicely to a point but when it switches to the next section it pops up without an effect. So you get a fade out -pop in effect instead of a more stylish fade in - fade out.
If you have an image to display this way it's a bit of an eye sore.
This works well so far and I like the little extra functionality where you can change the appearance to a few different rating skins.
To the developer: Don't put other languages in the GB english file just looks silly :)
Besides that it seems to work pretty well :) Good job.
This is just BRILLIANT, installs no problems, works no problems, Displays No problems.
My eventlist component is so heavily modified it's almost like a completely different application. I was about to start working on the exact same thing from scratch since so many other plugins/modules are not happy with my version of eventlist when something fot me to do a search and found this plug in.
It's an absolute must!! for an eventlist/cb website.
It saved me a few hours worth of coding so I'll go hunt the donate button and buy the developer a beer!
Event will be: Private Public
Enable registration: no yes
Allow overbooking: no yes
Show guests that registered: no yes
Automatically approve users: no yes
Allow users to comment:
I don't need any of these, they just clump the page and make it more complicated for a user to add the event AND the comment option is always disabled by default...really annoying as I have to go check all the events on daily basis and manually switch it on, since users don't pay attention to endless, useless radio check boxes. On top of that repeating events are only accessible from the back end, once again another daily task for me to check if there event is repeating or not so i can set it right. If you don't use an editor by default when you add a description for an event the text goes over the side menu of the event and makes an eye sore, the same with an image if it's original size is too big it will cover the entire page including all the event options like "edit event" So you have to go in the back end use whatever editor you have to place it in a table so it fits the template. It wouldn't be so bad if there was actually support available. Those should be fairly easy fixes but the forum they have set up is useless, all you get is an automated message that the forum is not monitored and to use their support system. Ok so they probably want to answer the same question over and over again instead of just making it public for everyone to see on the forum. If that's the case then do it, I've been waiting for 3 days to get a reply on the issue of images and text overlapping the event menu. Finally received an answer to put it all in a table....yes I KNOW that...I told you in my question that this is my solution. Another thing....when adding an event you HAVE to select a location...from a drop down filtered by whatever you type in a little search box. No sorting option or the ability to just enter an address, That is just stupid, considering you don't even have a good option of displaying all the venues. Users are creating multiple entries for the same venue over and over with the same name and information just spamming the database even more with repeating venues. The latest events module has only one option...latest event added to the database, so you can't have it show latest events by date, WHICH I think would be the most useful. If you need an event component for more than a handful of events RSEvents will make your head hurt with a clustered interface. If you only need something for a couple of events then you should save your self the 39 euros and use something else.
The only thing that you do here is to express your frustration because we didn't give you a refund. And we cannot give you a refund since the extension works as it is stock.
Further more, we offered to help you make customizations, but it seems like that too is not enough!
You really think you own everything once you are a customer? That is not correct! We treated you with respect and offered our help, but if you are too lazy even to accept that, then you should go somewhere else.