Little bit stunned to be honest – disappointed in fact

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  • swissa Friend
    May 18, 2012 at 10:02 pm #177242

    Hi Hung, Hi Team,

    I think a lot of you guys, I think a lot of Lens and Wall but I have to say today I don’t think you have either done yourselves or your customers much good. :((

    Wall has been hyped for a long time. A lot of people have been very excited by this. Me included and luckily I have been a beta tester so have just a little more experience than maybe some others.

    this is new for you, new for us and what’s more it’s at a premium price. So, please come on. I’m a big fan of JA and I try to help as many people as I can but if I had launched a new product that was “off the Wall” I would have had my technical and support staff all the over the thing like a sexual rash. I have seen so few JA staff online since the launch it is embarrassing. Really the only moderator to respond has been John Brett – well done mate, but I can’t blame them – train them.

    please, Hung, support this like a heart attack victim, get all your doctors out there and give first aid to the customer base. You know once people like me, Shannon, Steinar, usw, the mods like TomC etc know the answers we’ll take care of it but the lead has to come from you. Don’t let this get bad press through lack of support mate. Defibrillate it and give it the life it deserves. 🙂

    Merci vielmols

    swissa

    5 users say Thank You to swissa for this useful post

    1. Hung Dinh
    2. John Wesley Brett
    3. cybernun
    4. JA Developer
    5. impy2101
    Aratype Friend
    May 18, 2012 at 10:19 pm #453728

    Hi Swissa, wie geht’s…

    Take the new product, take the time to understand it first…. take the time to appreciate, imagine and evaluate its possibilities…. Start then your project and ask….

    I started the RtLizing process and I think it will be ready on the next week!

    Temporary link: http://www.targamat.com/alam/

    Freundliche Grüsse 🙂

    swissa Friend
    May 18, 2012 at 10:41 pm #453732

    <em>@aratype 320620 wrote:</em><blockquote>Hi Swissa, wie geht’s…

    Take the new product, take the time to understand it first…. take the time to appreciate, imagine and evaluate its possibilities…. Start then your project and ask….

    I started the RtLizing process and I think it will be ready on the next week!

    Temporary link: http://www.targamat.com/alam/

    Freundliche Grüsse :-)</blockquote>

    Salu aratype,

    Toll! Well done, très bien, Gut gemacht!

    You have a direct line to Hung, we do not! :p

    As you know, I have been here only 6 months and I hope I have contributed to the forum – only to the best of my limited abilities I know – but I feel for a new product I would have had the troops out in force for this. Still no-one has answered simple questions like logo, and still many people have problems with quickstart. This should be jumped on quick. Idiots like me can help with the low level stuff but it is always good for new customers confidence to see the ‘big boys’ out there answering questions from us mere mortals!! :laugh:

    You’re doing a great job there with the rtl mon amie.

    Bon weekend et à bientôt!

    swissa Friend
    May 18, 2012 at 11:03 pm #453734

    <em>@swissa 320624 wrote:</em><blockquote> Idiots like me can help with the low level stuff </blockquote> Just to confirm that no-one mentioned in my previous post is an idiot!! :p

    tfosnom Friend
    May 19, 2012 at 1:10 am #453738

    /* Genuine Gentle Critisism with some praise thrown in – on —*/

    I hear what you’re saying,Bro.

    For me, I think the lack of a comprehensive pdf user guide is the biggest omission, it’s a new direction & quite complex, do a decent user guide is essential. Like basic questions like the whereabouts of the LOGO text should have been anticipated, as this is probably the singlemost basic thing that gets changed first.

    I think JA rushed this a bit, “over three months in development”, but no one thinks in the planning stages to ensure the docs ALWAYS get written first? I guess cashflow comes first and then comes things like updates, I realise the timezone thing can catch us out. But the countdown was 0 for at least an hour before I downloaded, only to get a RC version which caused me so much frustration, many posts and finally deletion re download a day later and reinstallation. and no one could tell me why. Yes I SHOULD have looked at the files and saw initially they were RC2, but ja has a habit of updating download files and leaving previous numbering alone 🙂

    At the professional level we expect from JA, how can this happen, a stable release must indeed be checked, double checked and test downloaded,expanded installed first by the developer who worked on it to absolutely ensure the correct version is there. It’s not rocket science, JA, just careful planning.

    The template is great and innovative, the moderators and JA staff have worked their butts off and try ever so hard to answer/accomodate users, But all that great work is down the tube if JA doesn’t pay attn to the zip, or product version.

    Ok, who in JA takes responsibility for the fail? No one! I guess, over 5 yrs with JA I’ve seen them rush to pat themselves on head whenever they do well, advertise in big letters testimonials for new stuff. But admitting they scewed up?

    Yes they are starting to . . . but the negative ‘testimonials’ are never acknowledged outside a members forum, never public, and NEVER in big letters.:D I like JA and the staff product range, I hate lack of ‘offline’ documentation and rushed products to get money approach.

    /* Genuine Gentle Critisism with some praise thrown in – off–*/

    dave_logic Friend
    May 19, 2012 at 1:13 pm #453777

    I’ve had my ups and downs with JA since I started here in December 2011 and in fact dropped all project work with JA in favor of Gavick, RT, Yootheme etc however when I started getting the mail outs regarding JA_Wall I got really exited and pre-ordered the template immediately…Whilst waiting for the release of the template on 17th May I checked the forum 2 / 3 times a day checking for bugs etc and made some posts based on issues I could already see on the JA Demo and errors in the documentation. Some of these were answered within the day others not however what I am VERY surprised is (as already mentioned above) is the serious lack of moderator support during possibly one of the biggest template marketing ploys I’ve seen in recent times. ! As a premium template (maybe the first of many) there should be at a least one dedicated moderator even over the w/end IMHO….

    My overall opinion of JA_Wall to date is, yes this is a revolutionary template which looks nice however it is limited in its use. I’m really not knocking the hard work put into this template by JA_Art however as a paying customer I can have my opinion…This template should have everything that a JA template club template has plus $49 worth of “responsive” design.

    Having just a handful of module positions with VERY little styling support is what really limits this template. Even the Joomla out of the box free templates are less limited.The argument is that this may break the responsive nature of the template however this is not strictly true…The K2 Blog page illustrates this….An extra choice of left or right aside positions plus top / bottom positions above mainbody and even a footer position are easily possible and should be there at this price. OK maybe they cant exist on the main article pages however at this price the option should be there….

    K2 Styling – I find it odd that the Premium JA_Wall styling is less attractive than the JA_Lens overrides. JA_Lens have lovely navigtation styling and article styling..JA_Wall looks similar to the default K2 template.

    K2 – No “New / Hot button” support – This was stated as supported in the documentation (prior to me purchasing) however I’ve been told this was an error and not-supported after all….OK, can sort of live with this but no built in K2 “Featured” support to take its place ?? Come on guys….!

    K2 Comments / Read counts – This don’t increase incrementally. I’m told ts a caching problem and to disable my cache…..Disable caching on a site that loads 30 – 40 images on first load??? Not likely.

    K2 Extended Classes: Using this from the K2 extra fields / groups does not take into account people like me that already have different K2 extra fields setup per category…Firstly K2 does not have a hidden field option so the CSS class shows as an Additional Information on the article itself. Secondary the Extra Field Group MUST be called Extended Classes or it does not work so If you have multiple Groups you can’t use the templates…

    Documentation – Considering the pre-order customer had to wait an extra week so that the documentation was completed. On examining the documentation before and after I only saw 1 extra section….Not saying the documentation is poor, just not thorough enough IMO.

    Just my opinion and once again, not knocking the hard work put into this but paying extra for this I was expecting extra.

    David

    1 user says Thank You to dave_logic for this useful post

    1. impy2101
    pedrox Friend
    May 19, 2012 at 2:30 pm #453779

    I still can not do anything because I still have the 500 error. Ja_Lens also had the same error, but was quickly corrected. And as there is a manual I can not understand the workings of the feeds … And to make matters worse things, I’m using the Google translator …

    1 user says Thank You to pedrox for this useful post

    1. impy2101
    kairey Friend
    May 19, 2012 at 3:01 pm #453782

    For me at this stage, now I have a working copy on another host, is that there is no supporting documentation.

    I was told that extensive PDF files were been written to back up this template, later when I asked it seems the only thing you get is what is in the documentation of the demo!

    I am not a developer and always hoped that these templates were built for people like me, I don’t want to have to learn by tinkering there should be some technical documentation included. I get a huge PDF file with my JoomlaShine templates.

    Still have no answer to my support ticket regarding why it would not install on my existing host after supplying all access details and databse, a prompt response and help often satisfies people that are struggling………………is that not what we pay for and what we paid even more for when this template came along?

    dave_logic Friend
    May 19, 2012 at 5:49 pm #453798

    And to reinforce my earlier statement(s), if you go to the JA_Wall Template info positions layout (see image)

    http://www.joomlart.com/joomla/templates/ja-wall

    It takes you to a broken JA_Purity page….

    1. JA-Screen4
    ubelmort Friend
    May 19, 2012 at 8:10 pm #453803

    I too left JA a while ago because of the lack of support for a component and also came back because of the “Wall”, but I see nothing has changed as far as support here.

    JA, you have great ideas, but they are not executed to the fullest, which will be the reason everything you’ve done thus far a flop and a waste of your time.

    Like everyone has stated above, you should of had your best staff moderating the forums and answering questions, but you didn’t and still haven’t which is a shock…

    I really love the “Wall” concept and will continue to try and push through the pains of bugs and solve them myself, but you really need to pick up your game in the support category otherwise you will lose a ton of customers.

    At this point I almost look at RT to provide something similar because their support is the top for Joomla 3rd Party products.

    1 user says Thank You to ubelmort for this useful post

    1. impy2101
    coalition Friend
    May 20, 2012 at 1:05 pm #453855

    I’m not all that disappointed, myself. Wall has given me a ground floor opportunity to work with a new and upcoming templating system for Joomla that pretty much deals with desktop, tablet, mobile, etc., all in one. I do think that the current limitations on layout possibilities is a bummer, but give it some time. The grids of a dynamic layout like Wall has are difficult enough to program using simple (proportional) column divisions, never mind changing grid widths and module position changes based on a user’s preferences. I think this work is pretty neat and must say that, after seeing how intense the coding looks, I’m glad I bought it, if for no other reason, just to help support future efforts and nuances like JA introduced here. We do need some work done on extensions for it though, like JA Comment, JA Voice, the Disqus plugin, etc., and maybe even develop a new multi-column floating menu for these responsive designs, because currently, not too many things are working well enough to use with it. Obviously the logo being so small and limited is a huge problem for most users, but for me, it’s not all that bad.

    Has anyone thought about using ja lens AND Wall together as one site? Or maybe Puresite and wall? I haven’t tried that yet, but will once I have time to play around with it.

    I don’t like the social plugin in wall offering ONLY facebook comments because facebook is dying, IMO, simply because of their information sharing policies and the “insecure” nature of the site’s type/genre/philosophy. (Big brother’s always watching, facebook’s onboard with it, and that is why many people have gone away from there). I don’t think it’s a great idea to let the government know everything about us as individuals, like, when we pee, have tea, take showers, etc… because they could send out their swatters right while we’re in a shower or something, and that would be embarrassing. LOL 😉

    What I see happening is JoomlArt innovating! Once small site owners, facebookers, twitties and the like realize that small (mom and pop) type operations are far more secure than the big info dumps, then people may return to having their own site(s) built, or will build their own. The vastness of information provided by huge companies like FB and Twitter has made for some big problems, and people are realizing that it’s not such a good idea to allow these companies to collect so much personal information on us. What’s next, electro-magnetic subliminal mind-control through LED screens? (Joking).

    I’m not happy about the documentation for wall being so sparse either, and there wasn’t a request for members/developers to help develop docs during beta testing for this either, which boggles my mind. It may have been nice to include the dev members is designing the docs, and giving them some perks beyond the usual for enough work. Even development teams need support teams, and, I guess that falls on us, the customers.

    Walt.

    Hung Dinh Friend
    May 21, 2012 at 5:08 am #453968

    Thank you swissa for starting an interesting discussion about the new wave of responsive templates JA is bringing into Joomla.
    The conversation is in weekend so I was not able to join. The official launch was on Thus last week and we only had Friday to resolve tickets on the wall. The team is now back on a Sunny Monday and answer all opening issues.

    dave_logic Friend
    May 21, 2012 at 7:53 am #453991

    <em>@Hung Dinh 320961 wrote:</em><blockquote>Thank you swissa for starting an interesting discussion about the new wave of responsive templates JA is bringing into Joomla.
    The conversation is in weekend so I was not able to join. The official launch was on Thus last week and we only had Friday to resolve tickets on the wall. The team is now back on a Sunny Monday and answer all opening issues.</blockquote>

    Please don’t take any comments as just negative. I personally love what you have done and appreciate the hard work, just need some other features….

    David

    Stork11 Friend
    May 21, 2012 at 10:36 am #454047

    <em>@pedrox 320703 wrote:</em><blockquote>I still can not do anything because I still have the 500 error. Ja_Lens also had the same error, but was quickly corrected. And as there is a manual I can not understand the workings of the feeds … And to make matters worse things, I’m using the Google translator …</blockquote>
    Hello pedrox,

    For 500 error, can you tell me know which link that causes the problem on your site?

    For the manual, which point in it you want us to clear?

    Regards.

    swissa Friend
    May 21, 2012 at 5:38 pm #454094

    <em>@Hung Dinh 320961 wrote:</em><blockquote>Thank you swissa for starting an interesting discussion about the new wave of responsive templates JA is bringing into Joomla.
    The conversation is in weekend so I was not able to join. The official launch was on Thus last week and we only had Friday to resolve tickets on the wall. The team is now back on a Sunny Monday and answer all opening issues.</blockquote>

    Thank you Hung for the response.

    Perhaps a lesson that could be learnt is that new product launches should be on a Monday, not on a Thursday. That way users get 5 days attention from support not 1 and then ignored for the weekend – when most customers actually have some to play with the product!!

    I think, as mentioned elsewhere, that seriously detailed documentation would be welcomed by ALL your users. You made a point in the sales blurb of saying this was a complicated product and hence developers get it for free. Paying and lack of in-depth documentation is going to upset the user base I’m afraid to say. Maybe it shouldn’t have been sold to the public until it got to v1.2 or v1.3 after the developer members had had it while and really pushed it to it’s limits. At version 1.0 it seems few are pushing it and still having problems!!

    For my part, I’m not sure that Wall, as it is now, is right for me at the moment – so will be asking for a refund. I wish you and the users of it the best of success and hope that you continue to push the boundaries – pioneers are what we need. I think it’s a great product, very cool, a great pointer to the future – responsive is great (unlike the desire for social everywhere, as has already been said on this forum) and if you ever make a K2Mart style component for JoomShopping then you can count me back in immediately!! 😀 JS on Lens or Wall would fly out the door I think!!

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m not being negative. My first post was positive – just asking for better support. You guys have a chance to lead here with responsive templates – we don’t want to see you blow it! Be the Apple not the Sony!

    All the best and thanks for listening – I really hope it’s heard too! :p

    2 users say Thank You to swissa for this useful post

    1. kairey
    2. cybernun
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