This is overall a great extension. That's why I rated it by 4 stars. It has a lot of what you need on it to promote business and that was what I was looking for what I bought this product. A bit high, especially for only 3 months of support and upgrades. There are a few pros and cons that you should defiantly consider before purchasing the product. I normally dot write reviews that lean towards the negative however, with the problems I experienced, I thought you may want to know as a buyer beware before you purchase.
I did however run into some issues when I installed this product. First problem I ran into was, it does not get along with the K2 extension if you have it installed on your site. I currently use K2 because of its vast amount of features for articles. When I installed it, id did not work and threw up errors and would not load. So, I searched the internet for any related issues. I found a small forum post about it on the vendor's website and it really was not clear as to how to resolve the issue. Apparently, if your running K2, you have to have a patch to their product that this vendor provides to resolve the issue, but you have to ask them for it and then they e-mail it to you. Apparently, the vendor blames the coding in K2 is flawed/out dated and that was causing the Directory not to work. So, once I got that patch and installed it (into K2's directory) the JBusinessDirectory stared working. Frustrated with what I had to go through to get it to work, I suggested to the vendor in his support forums that he should add that patch to their website to download or, fix the issue inside their product so it doesn't conflict with another products coding causing your product to not work. I also asked for a few other items as well. I was alarmed to find that the vendor deleted my post from the website and responded to the effect that, "The problem is with K2, and they have been contacted about it and they needed to fix it with their coding, not us". I should have noticed the red flag there, but I was happy it was working and let it go at that point. The vendor pretty much passed the blame of their own product not working properly on someone else instead of resolving it on their side.
Next, Joomla released 3.2.0. The only problem I had to deal with unfortunately was with JBusinessDirectory. The prodcut stopped working again. So, I questioned in their support forum as to if anyone knew what was going on. I got a response again and was told I needed to download a newer version of jlist and install it on my side and it should work. So, I did and the problem fixed. I suggested the vendor should make an update so that this issue wont come up again for others, again, I find the post deleted. I asked what happened to the post, and the vendor responded that "it was not relevant to the problem". Wow, that told me a lot. So, what was happening is, all the problems and issues being reported was being deleted by the vendor/admin so that no-one would see what was previously reported so they knew how to fix it. If you look at their support forums, you can confirm, its very clean and not very many posts. I was satisfied that I was getting the problem resolve, just was a bit frustrated with the vendors responses to the request for help.
The final straw was when they released an update to their product, JBusinessDirectory 3.0.0 Beta as listed on thier website. I'm thinking YES!, finally an update that fixes the issues, as well as brings some new features. So I started trying to find it on the site to download, I looked in my profile for it, and search the section where it allows you to download product that you have purchased. I clicked it to find out it was still the old version. So, I looked on the website and just found some posted where people where already asking about it and posted an question on how to get it. A few hours later, I get a e-mail with the update. That was weird because the other extension product that I have, you re-download it from their site under your account profile. Not with this vendor apparently. So, I got it off the e-mail, uploaded and installed it and, the product stops working again. Frustrated again, I contact the vendor with the issue VIA the support forums (because basically that's the only place you CAN go). I explained the issue and made suggestions to help better the product. Again, I find the post is deleted again. I get a email from the vendor saying, "If you have an issue with the product, you should have just e-mailed us". Really? What was the support forum for then? Anyways, so the 2 problems this time was 1) The lists were blank & 2) the grids were not showing up at all. So, the vendor DID fix the grids issue and that started working but the data was not showing up at all. So, then the vendor wanted FTP access to my site to fix the issue. I am VERY cautious in doing that, you don't know who your dealing with and they can potentially damage your site. Still frustrated, I let him have limited temp access (I quickly deleted it soon afterwards). I then get a response back that the new events section of their product has a table conflict with another product I use which is called DT Register. He said that he could fix the table, but would take time or disable the events. So I asked him if he could please fix the table so I could get it backup running because it was a key part of my site. I got back from the vendor what I thought was a smart type remark that said "You could always just disable the events". What kind of response was that? Needless to say, the customer support I received was horrible in my book.
So, in summery of my experience, buyer be aware!
Pros: This is a GREAT product, when it works right and when they get the bugs out of it. It has many options and potential to become a great class A product.
Cons: 1) The price is a bit high for what you get. The product support is only 3 months long and that includes upgrades, and support. Most vendors I have dealt with have a 1 year product support and update, especially if you are paying $100 USD for it. 2) The product still has a LOT of bugs in it. Its advertised as a clean code product, and that may be true but it is a bit buggy. Once those bugs are squashed on their end, it will be an awesome product. 3) My experience with the customer support was horrible. I find it hard to believe there are such great reviews of this product but I assume some didn't post here. You wont find a complaint on their website though, the vendor/admin deletes everything negative on his website, event the reviews. 4) The process to receive upgraded new releases is ridiculous. You have to ask for it and wait for an email. I have other paid products and they are all accessible for download on your profile under your purchased items on their site. This one is not that way making it difficult to obtain it instead of accessing it yourself.
Again, this is a GREAT product. Don't take this review as being a denture from buying it. Just be aware of what your going to run into. Good luck and hope this review helps in the purchase of this product.
If you have questions about anything I have posted, please just send me a message.
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