Lockjit

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.

File Name: Links System 3.1.1
File Submitter: Brandon D
File Submitted: 10 Jun 2009
File Category: Applications

Links System 3.1 is the first version of the popular Links System 3.0 for IP.Board 3.0. In addition to being a compatibility release, Links System 3.1 includes several enhancements and offers a high level of integration with IP.Board 3.0.


Submit links to websites along with a title, description, and an image. Comment on and rate submitted links Ability for users to report potentially offensive content or broken links using the built-in Report Center Search integration: search links along with the rest of your board's content Supports item marking, allowing your users to see what links have been added or commented on Integrates into "View New Content" and "View Active Content" Drag & drop reordering of categories in the ACP Ability to specify which categories, if any, allow image submissions with it's links Provide "link back" images and code so other websites can link back to yours Mark links as official affiliates and display them in a different section on the links index Group permissions allowing you to specify who can add links, moderate links, add comments, search links, and more Specify which BBCodes are allowed in the link descriptions and their comments, and whether emoticons are allowed Multi moderation: Mass move, approve/unapprove, pin/unpin links Sphinx search supported Much, much, more...

If you used Links System 3.0 on an IPB 2.x install you will find an additional upgrade application that will prepare your old install for Links System 3.1. Within the download you will find a "readme.txt" file. Please open this up for instructions on how to either install a fresh copy of Links System 3.1 or how to upgrade your old 3.0 install to 3.1.

Click here to download this file

So what you're saying is a feature that allows you to size the original image to a max size? I would agree, and the default should be 800 x 600. Almost every image I click on this forum goes over my monitor size, and I'm at the highest my monitor can reach. That may be, however, the limitation of the lightbox and it not auto-sizing to the dimensions of my screen like some of the other lightboxes I've seen does.

Vbulletin will resize image attachments to maximum dimensions specified in the admin. Whether attachments are displayed as thumbnails or full sized is also configurable. Of all the issues I had related to user dissatisfaction with the switch from VB to IPB, the biggest was related to these lack of options for image attachments in IPB. I am currently looking at moving a clients site to IPB but I don't think he's going to go for it without these options.

I think you will hear a lot of this from all our new Vbulletin refugees.

Can I make a feature request?

Can we have the ability to ban Bold bbcode for certain users?

And for the record, Articles are a fantastic way for other users to help users, I have re-written a couple of articles myself in the developer section, adding more useful information as I come across it.

Exactly!

That 'right there in front of you' doesn't actually tell you how to change a setting, such as, say, how to disable certain login requirements (capcha, etc), or how to change the site's default theme, and it shouldn't. While it's good to have what's there there, it's not that helpful. THAT is why you need a manual. NOT a 'getting started guide', NOT a help screen @ the top of the page



And is only part of why this thread was created. In fact, that is only a minor part of what I've spent the last week looking for.

Full documentation is the solution to everything here. Sure, developer documentation should be a 'minor' part of this (and, again, not code examples, but actual documentation of what is there), but it's still important to have at least the basics covered.

Absolutely! For small stuff, you're right, it's an ingenious idea. However, that doesn't remove the need for an all out manual.

I have to agree with the OP here... Everything in life comes with a set of instructions, IPB should be no different.

If you educate people properly about your product then you should reduce some of the strain on your support system, you will also reduce the amount of frustrated customers who post there questions here and never get a reply. If you put the hard work in at the start, it will pay off in the future giving you more resources to build more products to make more money... see where i'm going here?

To use the excuse "we have more developer documentation at this time than anything else." is just lame IMO. It goes to show that you didn't do the job properly first time round.

I have to agree with the OP here... Everything in life comes with a set of instructions, IPB should be no different.

If you educate people properly about your product then you should reduce some of the strain on your support system, you will also reduce the amount of frustrated customers who post there questions here and never get a reply. If you put the hard work in at the start, it will pay off in the future giving you more resources to build more products to make more money... see where i'm going here?

To use the excuse "we have more developer documentation at this time than anything else." is just lame IMO. It goes to show that you didn't do the job properly first time round.

So, what you're saying is that there will be no documentation here, except for a few things?

I understand the complexity of updating a PDF, but there are other ways to build the same manual, and , honestly, from the advanced user's side of things, a "guide" won't cover much, if anything.

For example, variables, what can and can't be used where? In a "guide", not really practical, but in a full blown, documentation type manual, practical.

Well, let's hope this one goes a bit better than my last topic, which (seriously) wasn't meant to turn out as a flame war, or start one, but express my concern over what I felt to be a poor support timeframe.

Anyways, it's always good to have full product documentation, somewhere, yet, the links (in the admincp itself) go to support/docs/getting_started/board_gsg.php (on the IPB site) which doesn't exist. Oversight? Maybe the manual's not done yet?

Checking the 'support' dropdown, I see FAQS (which don't cover everything), in the client area, I see a link to a 'knowledge base' which, again, like the FAQS don't cover everything @ all (and it shouldn't).

Maybe I'm missing something here, or maybe the manual for 3.x isn't ready yet?

So, basically, developers are left to help themselves. Nice one. Ignore the people that extend your product and functionality.

And no, that's not the only documentation I was looking for. A "getting started guide" doesn't cover everything though, and barely covers the "getting started", from one person (or group of person's) perspective, which doesn't help much. Sure, it helps a person get 'started' using your product, but what after that? What about when a user wants to change a theme? Of course, there's no 'documentation' for that.

You need real documentation, not just a guide to how to get started from a few people's perspectives. I get that the product is 'new', but you need at least the basic product documentation and howtos up before you release this stuff. Otherwise, you end up dealing with customers that have no idea what's gong on, all because you couldn't write documentation beforehand.

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.

IPS Staff: I hate to say this but the IPS Upgrades are becoming a real inconvenient Annoyance.

What am I talking about? Everytime there is a service update to IPB (2.0.1, 3.0.2, etc) the upgrade creates havok with the hooks that I have installed. Not only do I have to disable the hooks, but, they have to be un-installed and then re-installed. The upgrades are not anticipating already installed hooks and adjusting for them and it's becoming an annoyance.

Does IPS plan on fixing this problem or is this going to be a regular 'romp and stomp' action with every upgrade/update? For one, I would love to see this corrected.

I remember a Brandon saying a few months ago that he had customized the warn system for TWOP and in the future he'd like to expand upon what is offered by default in IPB. IMO the Warn System should be the primary medium for discipline for my community. In its current state, I feel as though it is fairly useless -- essentially a notepad that each user may or may not choose to view. What are some of your suggestions for the warn system?

How about when a warning is issued, forcing the user to acknowledge it before proceeding with any further activity on the board? Sure, you could send the user a PM via the warn panel, however that is fairly cumbersome and not connected to the actual warning whatsoever.

I don't remember how else Brandon said he customized TWOP's warn system, however I'd curious to hear what improvements others think could be made to the warn system.