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Why 3.2 isn't working for me


optrexnz

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I've been reading through the posts at and a lot of it struck a chord.

The plus points. I upgraded to 3.2 (an incremental version upgrade) because I needed VNC search to work, it had been broken for too long and I had to rely on mods for my users to find content.

The minus points. I've lost a heap of imporant but small features that WERE USED and there was NO MENTION of them being removed, for instance:

  • Users have lost the ability to have html in thier signatures unless I enable it across the board - my users want live data weather banners.
  • The text editor is a cut and paste nightmare - essential for weather reports
  • I have a gallery that relies on defunct global albums and it is now next to useless, and activity has dropped dramatically as a result
  • I had a blog system that no-one could comment on for weeks due to a known bug that was awaiting next version release. The blogs are now dead.
  • The free community led Link Directory that was dropped is to become chargable
  • The free classified ads module has become chargable
  • The free awards mod still doesn't work, but when it does, will become chargable
  • Shoutbox lay in an unsupported state for months
  • The skins that I paid for are useless from 3.1


Ok so not all of these things are directly IPB's issue, but its a reality that faces every board administrator and ultimately will affect future sales/upgrade/support of IPB services.

Whilst IPS might not be DIRECTLY RESPOSIBLE for many of these issues, your customers ARE DRIECTLY AFFECTED. On top of that it takes ages to get a response in some tracker items and when you do put a full support ticket in, you wait 36 hours to be told you're a dumb ass for forgetting to do something.

The thing that was different about IPB was its customer focus, its support was great and the fact the mods were adopted and managed by a community helped development. But things are rapidly going the way of every other major forum software. Half of the components that make up a typical site I run, either no longer work or they have had components removed due to changes in costs and this has changed my focus, which will ultimately affect IPB sales.

What of the future? Well currently new communities I am creating are simple forums. Its actually working too. Members are less confused. The sites are easy to navigate and less complex and I am now at the point of considering stripping down the additions from my other communities - they dont work properly so I'm not losing anything! No gallery, no blogs, no content. Whilst that leaves IPB with less add-on sales, I conversly now have more options because I'm not thinking about add-on integration.

Ultimately IPB needs to sit up and listen to customers and start addressing some of the long term issues and bugs to make things work in an integrated fashion again.

Please:
  • Do something with the blogs
  • Get gallery working properly for those who need global albums and competitions
  • Enable nexus to be a marketplace for users, not just the hosting site
  • And for pity sake sort out IP.Content so that it can be a wiki and a links directory. This means creating some templates for your customers, not just saying yes it can be done and leaving them to it. It grieves me that this powerful product has just been left in a state where 80% of customers can't use it correctly.
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With 3.2 we get one half product and all who speaks that we should test before upgrade, speaks just for defend half and not ready product yet. Who can test this product on test board with one or two users and few posts? This realese of 3.2.2 should be Beta 8 maybe but not product for sale.

So many errors , so many bugs and problems (and removed good and working features) is not good reklam for one product... and that team who decide that this should be product for us customers make wrong decision.

regards

bosss

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Users have lost the ability to have html in thier signatures unless I enable it across the board - my users want live data weather banners.


This didn't change, and has been the same for years. You always have either been able to allow HTML signatures for everyone, or not.


The text editor is a cut and paste nightmare - essential for weather reports


The text editor is a third party tool, if you have issues with how it handles cut and paste, your best bet is to take them up with the folks at CKEditor. Yes, the fact that it is now the only choice in IP.Board is bad with the issues it has, but this is not directly an IP.Board issue.


The free community led Link Directory that was dropped is to become chargable


The free classified ads module has become chargable


The free awards mod still doesn't work, but when it does, will become chargable


None of these have anything to do with IPS.


Shoutbox lay in an unsupported state for months


And has been completely supported (by me) for the past several months. And even before that, it worked fine.


The skins that I paid for are useless from 3.1


This happens at every version upgrade, this is nothing new.
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The text editor is a third party tool, if you have issues with how it handles cut and paste, your best bet is to take them up with the folks at CKEditor. Yes, the fact that it is now the only choice in IP.Board is bad with the issues it has, but this is not directly an IP.Board issue.



respectfully disagree here, from a customer standpoint it IS an IP issue. IP assumed responsibility for correct functioning when they locked system to it and sold it to customers.
the third party issue here is moot as we cannot do anything due to being locked to it, previous we could default cke/tinymce, etc and then I would agree its third party fault and we had options.

now....nope not going to fly.
your auto manufacture does not make every single part on it, when it fails\needs recall who do you obtain warranty\recall work though?
the manufacturer of the auto.

this really is inherent problem with locking to one item, when it has issue customers have no recourse at times.
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We, the customers, should indeed deliver some critic when there is a reson for that but at the same time we have to be supportive. I don't want to get into blame/flame wars but just deliver some qulity feedback with hope that the next time things will improve.

What happens here is a complex stuff. In my opinion IPB should invest more time in improving their processes. Something is not right when just a few days after delivering a new release there are already 55 new fixes that haven't been released yet. In such cases it's hard to trust what's stable/ready version and what's is just undercover use of clients as testers (which in my opinion can't be eliminated completely). This may make some people at least disappointment.

I really hope that something will improve and new adjustments will be introduced into the workflow. Maybe more automatic tests (selenium), maybe a new autoupdating mechanism for hot and small fixes, maybe more effort will be put to grow a community of beta testers encouraged by some bonuses. Who knows what solutions can bring a honest review of the current situation?

BTW: Thanks Michael for your great work. I hope that you'll convert more of your free stuff to paid apps. The Shoutbox deserve it, please don't be shy about it.

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What happens here is a complex stuff. In my opinion IPB should invest more time in improving their processes. Something is not right when just a few days after delivering a new release there are already 55 new fixes that haven't been released yet. In such cases it's hard to trust what's stable/ready version and what's is just undercover use of clients as testers (which in my opinion can't be eliminated completely). This may make some people at least disappointment.




1) You can't go by raw bug counts. For instance, unless your site is RTL language (right to left) no RTL bugs affect you. Many bugs only affect a small portion of the customer base, and this is why we don't hold up a release that has bugs affecting everyone to focus on bugs that don't affect everyone.

2) It is near impossible to fix every single bug in every release. It's a fact of software development and is not unique to us. Very very very few major software packages have no open bugs when an update is released. You'd never release another update if you waited until all bugs are fixed, because there are always new bugs being reported.
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Charles & bfarber,

I don't use 3.2 yet so I'm not able to give an honest opinion about it. I only observe the tracker to find out if it's ready or not. I also read what people say. I have to use bugs number as a shortcut as I don't have time to truly analyze it. BTW I love the Tracker. I enjoy observing progress that you make as it will soon support my business.

I fully agree that you should release as soon number of new bug reports slows done and fixes are introduced faster than those reports come in (the Microsoft way) It just feels uneasy when soon after a new release there are already half as many new fixes. It just make you wait for the another release.

What would help to make the decision for me? Wordpress-like one click updates. Simple checksum checking to protect the heavy moders with Subversion style conflict resolving should satisfy all use cases. Ideal for minor but often post major release fixes. With such a solution I could much ealier use the new versions. I believe it could help you propagate new releases much faster.

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