Tom T

I have (relatively) big plans for calendar in 3.2. We can't really say too much yet, but I promise - you will see improvements to calendar in 3.2 (not just a few small bug fixes or tweaks).

Lindy,

I am glad you tried to learn more about our case, at the same time I consider my statements to be precise. We have been your customers for quite some time now, and yes, the support is generally very prompt and satisfactory. However with our 2 packages we have purchased lately we are facing problems, which we have not caused, which are making our web presentation unusable and which have not been resolved since our first request on 12 December. If you check today again our reminder-tickets are open for 4 days. Believe me I don't feel good as a customer and an administrator waiting every day on your support ticket status change and having it for 4 days open, knowing our presentations are down and our readers can't use them during this xmas time.

Our problem is very easy to describe. We have 3 installations of IPB package total.. The first one we installed without problems, we have manually translated it to our Czech language and we are very happy about it. The problem of the other two is, that we cannot import the Czech language set we made by any ways to them and as such the presentation looks Chinese. (some encoding problem) We have purchased the product, the product was supposed to be able to import language sets but it does not.

Your technicians are willing to help, they come, try what they can, when it doesn't work they leave, we are waiting and after 3 days send a reminder, the scenario repeats and now we are waiting for another 4 days. Maybe for you it is some marginal problem that you consider not falling into your scope of work, but for me it is an essential function of the board which - if not working - would not enable me to purchase the packages because for us (and I assume for any other customer) it would be unrealistic to manually translate all the language sets of all the modules being upgraded in future times number of our presentations.

I was PMessaging with Brandon (who was very helpful), hoping he'd be able to push things but as I noticed your post I am responding to you in public. Your statement



Is unfortunately not correct.

Let me please assure you that we are generally very satisfied with your products, they are giving us great comfort administering our presentations, offering great functionality and we are planning to purchase another two more community packages, I believe and wish this case is somehow an isolated one and we all can take it as a lesson learnt.

You're right and I apologize. I was just aggravated at the time and shouldn't have said that.

I believe what was causing my particular problem was XCache. When I was knee deep in skinning work for IP.Board 3.0, I had to disable XCache as changes I was making to the skin would not be reflected immediately. And there doesn't seem to be any way to disable XCache on a per-directory basis or even on a domain basis (it's affects all the domains you have on a server). Since I haven't done any skinning work in a while, I forgot about this issue.

I know you and everyone at Invision are working quite hard and I very much appreciate it. I'm looking forward to watching IP.Chat stabilize and evolve over time.

..Al

No, iframes are not inherently dangerous. They're only dangerous if not used properly.

1) Requires a dangerous site to be embedded via iframe, which wouldn't happen (we don't put any arbitrary site into the iframe)
2) Hacker puts an iframe to a third part site on THEIR site - has nothing to do with our usage of iframes
3) We don't use any such CSS ;)
4) We don't use any such javascript ;)
5) We don't use any such css
6) We don't use any such redirection


In all of those examples, they show how iframes can be misused. That doesn't mean they're bad to use, it simply means a hacker can use iframes for nefarious purposes. They can do the same with javascript, which we use extensively throughout IPB.

... sad, we're all so sad ... chat broke ... I'm broke ... we're all broke ...

... I ... Need ... Chat ... to ... work ... need ... need ...

:devil:

I think we shall wait on beta 5, maybe 8 or RC1 to get it work. :-)

This chat bites. After uploading the files to the directories required, there is no option to install this in the ACP. There are no settings in ACP. And nowhere to enter in the chat key. This was just a waste of time.

Wow! Someone negative'd my post! That's f*d. My post wasn't anything negative at all. What a load of crock.

When buying ANYTHING digital, via online especially, you CANNOT get a refund once the files or software are in your possession, this should be for OBVIOUS reasons, but if they aren't obvious enough, I will state them:

- What's stopping you from claming a refund then still using or illegally re-distributing the software? Nothing. It'd be your word against theirs
-You'd still have access to the support forums and the client area.


Next time DON'T rush into purchasing software, research it, and research it EXTENSIVELY. Write this off as a lesson learn't and move on.

Just out of curiousity, what can't you do with IPB? There is an applications/modules/plugins system in place that should be able to take care of about 98% of your needs as far as modifications go. There really shouldn't be any need to edit any of the system's core files for any reason.

I know of not a single software company that offers refunds. Try buying a boxed software at a physical store. Once it's open you cannot take it back.

I stand corrected. Although - Rikki's statement makes me wonder whether they should really be offering general hosting under the kind of restrictions he mentioned.

Awe :cry: no one likes my resources area and I made it myself with tables and everything.

Rikki is going to clean it up and make it look good soon :)

No, he brings up a very good point. I'm planning on using IP.Board for my next version of my website which I'm currently working on with IP.Content. However, I'm using PHPBB3.0 on my current site and I've always found PHPBB super easy to upgrade. I download a small upgrade package and then run the update from the admin backend and it's done in just a few minutes.

Uploading 2,500 files isn't very efficient, especially when the FREE competition is able to do it faster and easier.

No, I understand exactly what he means, and it's something IPS often does as well. But when literally hundreds of files change from one version to the next, producing an upgrade pack is a waste of time. When a new version only does change a few files, then expect to see small upgrade packs again.

Seriously, how pressed are we all for time when the difference between spending 15 minutes uploading files and 5 is seen as that big of a deal?

We are investigating the possibility of offering a chat service for IPB directly from IPS.

This chat service would run inside of your IPB install much like Gallery or Blog however the actual exchange of chat messages would be handled by IPS servers. The high volume of transactions needed for a chat room would probably get you banned from most web hosting providers and, even if you have high-end hosting, it requires a specially tuned server to perform well. You can forget that headache and let us handle the transactions. Chat room statistics and access to log archives will of course be available for owners.

Testing

For the time being, we will only have the chat room open here on our company forums when an IPS staff member opens it. We are looking to test both the interface you use for chatting and the back-end server performance so we need online staff to monitor both sides of the exchange. So keep an eye for the chat link to appear in the top navigation or a "who's chatting" area to show up on the home page under statistics. When you see this then you know the room is available for testing :)

Please post bugs in the bug tracker under the IP.Chat category. You can post feedback here in the feedback forum or just reply to this topic. Please keep in mind this would be a version 1.0.0 so, although we can add all sorts of cool stuff over time, we are focusing on a nice, stable chat room right now. Things like private conversations, multiple rooms, and more are on our list but we must perfect the base chat room before adding on all the extras.

Please note that this is the first test of many users in the chat room so there will probably be issues. We will also be doing server-level testing so you might get kicked out now and again or the service may abruptly close so don't take it personally ;). Your feedback on all areas of the chat from features through usability down to speed of chat responses is appreciated.

Pricing

The pricing of the chat service is yet to be announced and will be based on how many people you have in your chat room at one time. Details of the package levels and pricing will be made available at a later date. The good news is that the first chat package level will be free for active IPB license holders. We hope you enjoy that extra benefit to being a license holder.

Given most issues are upgrade problems and possibly mods I suppose the logical step would be stop upgrading or making any changes and thus not renewing.

We were going to post our list but we want to contact the authors first. Don't want to make people look bad for a simple little bug :)

Articles are not a "fantastic way to provide documentation". They are longwinded, opinionated and biased. Of course YOU think they're "fantastic", you're biased, you write them, or rewrite them.

ANY software I pick up, anywhere has a manual, except, well, of course IPB, which, I guess is just too good for proper manuals and documentation.

Games? There's a manual telling me what button does what and where, giving me an introduction to the game itself.
php software? A manual, telling me how to do something, clearly and concisely.
OS ? There's a manual right there.

The point is that this software is entirely too complicated to release without a manual. Sure, the "tips" are great, and the "getting started guide" idea might be great, but the articles do NOT replace the need for a manual, they are wordy, poorly written, and only cover things from one person's perspective.

Take my case, for example. I've been using internet software for years, administrating servers for a bit longer. I'm certainly no dummy when it comes to software, yet when I can't for the LIFE of me figure out certain things, I go looking for documentation. NOT documentation that is written by an end user and wordy, but an official product manual. If I, an experienced user is tempted on day 2 to just call it quits because of a poorly documented piece of software, think of what the average newbie is going to do, and how much FASTER they will. Thankfully, I held out for a week, but, in the end, my time is too precious to spend trying to read wordy articles to figure things out.

You know Tom, I don't know where this mythical documentation for every product in existence you refer to is. You refer to every product you have including a manual, yet... well, lots of software doesn't. I'll do a quick inventory of a sampling of my start menu now (I'll include the OS itself even). I'm excluding "F1 Help" since that's essentially inline help.

Microsoft Windows - No Manual.
Google Chrome - No Manual.
Microsoft Office - No Manual.
Microsoft Visual Studio - No Manual.
MYOB Accounting - Quick Start Guide.
Beyond Compare - No Manual.
Apple iTunes - No Manual.
Kayako SupportSuite - Manual Available!
Microsoft SQL Server - No Manual.
Seapine Surround SCM/Testtrack Pro - Manual Installed!
Stardock Multiplicity - No Manual.

As you can see, lots of stuff with no manual. And you're also completely ignoring what they've said many times - that the majority of their customers prefer articles, guides, inline help, etc over the three hundred page book they printed last time. It doesn't make commercial sense to write an entire manual for three people.

While I sympathize with your position, this line really doesn't work.
Sure, documentation doesn't "write itself", but then again, neither does code. As this stuff is written, it should be documented, not as an afterthought.



so, which is it? Will there be a manual, or will there not be a manual? Please, do clarify.

The types of documentation described previously work somewhat well (though articles are not documentation by any means) for new users, yet these do not relieve the need for a manual of some kind.

Getting started guides, great idea, and could easily be a 'chapter' in the manual, but definitely don't take the place of it.
Inline help, as well, great idea, but this doesn't cover everything at all, and it shouldn't.
Articles, too wordy and opinion based, definitely not documentation.

There needs to be some sort of manual here, which, as already said before (not by me, mind you) would cut down on needs for support , and promote some sort of customer satisfaction. Somewhere a customer can go and say "ahah, THIS is how I do this", whether it's an advanced customer wanting to learn how to change a theme, or a new customer just wanting a step by step guide to creating a new forum. Both of those are just examples, but you still have a major need for documentation here , because the product obviously does not document itself.

Developers are not left to themselves. In fact, we have more developer documentation at this time than anything else. :blink:

http://resources.invisionpower.com/index.php?appcomponent=cms&module=articles&category=135

That is not documentation by any means.
Documentation helps the user understand what they're doing (and yes, even developers need that at times), not simply throwing them into code.
Documentation belongs in a manual, well written, well thought out, well presented, not spread out over 50 different articles.
In addition, it's on the company to provide documentation, not the end user.
Articles are opinion based and wordy, documentation is not.

You want to see proper, broken down documentation? Look at your competition. THEY did it right, and they've managed to keep it updated well enough. Examples, and explanation of what should be done, not just random code left for the user to figure out for themselves. Not to mention they've managed to keep it up to date. Easy to read, very well outlined, easy to follow manual.

I take it you've never heard of a Service Level Agreement then...

I think you are being really silly.

You know, 14 hours is far too long to just let a ticket go without even bothering to respond to it.
Of course, during that time, I was able to find and handle the issue myself, but if this is the typical 'response time', I'll find somewhere else to take my business.

I'm not an impatient guy, 4-5 hours is reasonable, at least as long as things are submitted during business hours (which this was), but 14 hours is pushing it.
Even better? A second reply took 45 minutes or less. Kinda ironic.

The moral of the story? DON'T keep your customer waiting. If they open a ticket, they deserve a non automated reply, same business day, urgent or not.

I hacked IPS and locked everyone out.