Davyc

I've now finished the modifications to the clubs feature and have added two clubs to view. I've taken my time over adding content to this site and hope that everyone who loves Irish music, whatever its form, will enjoy the site. https://irishceol.com

OK here's a first look - I can't provide a link as the site isn't fully ready yet. I've removed all the fluff on the card itself and move the name down under the image; I've also made the image clickable to make entry into the Club easier. On right side bar I've removed what I consider to be non-essential to my own needs and tidied up the positioning to give it a more aesthetic look. Personally, I feel this will give the directory a more pleasing to the eye look as well as making it more functional and less cluttered. I've pretty much done the same on the Club itself when entering it. Removed all the unwanted fluff that overlaid the image retaining only the link to add an image. I'm also using this add-in to improve functionality: There is one template edit and the rest is done purely through CSS - the media queries were a bit tricky to ensure mobile and tablet continuity - there may be a few phones that are not covered by the media queries, but they are less commonplace than the mainstream phones; the queries can easily be adapted if needs require. I must point out that you may need to make some slight adjustments to the CSS depending on the theme you are using; I'm using the Novus theme by @ehren. Once I've made sure everything is as I expect it to be, I'll post the template edit and the CSS used.

I want to use the clubs feature on my upcoming site, but the amount of work needed to get it looking like I want is seriously time consuming; changing the layout via template changes and adding extra CSS to get the look I want is challenging, but not impossible. For example - the name of the club should not be overlaid on the image, but below; that horrible transparent background is ugly to say the least. The image itself is way too small. So, some extra thought into how the actual club card looks should be addressed, with some template changes and CSS added that can be applied via options. The concept is excellent, the implementation is lacking. Once I get the clubs up and running I will come back with both a link and what I had to do to get the look I wanted 🙂

React less, help more - the world needs more helpers. Live for the moment - if you worry too much about tomorrow you will not enjoy today. Worry less about anything - if something is going to happen it will happen whether you worry about it or not. Try to drink less fluids after 8:00pm - so I don't spend half the night getting up for a pee. Eat more fruit and veg and less processed foods - having been diagnosed with fatty liver disease. And lastly, stop getting older - the clock's ticking lol.

Without the Marketplace developers we wouldn't have a lot of the really cool stuff that takes advantage of the IPS framework and allows us to push the boundaries of what our sites can offer and do. They were the unsung heroes until now, with this post. They are ALL very much appreciated for their hard work, diligence, support and continued contributions.

If you really do care @Matt (which I believe you do, but maybe your hands are tied) and the rest of the team @Lindy and @Charles then you should rethink your strategy and listen to your clients who are feeling like they have had their faces pushed into the mud. What can you say? Well, perhaps 'we were wrong to do this so we have decided to roll out these price increases incrementally' which will give people some breathing space and allow them to recover from the shock. I'm sure that the right move now would be to roll back this mad decision and get onboard with your clients to retain their business and ensure that your business continues to flourish, impress and be known for great customer service, which it has been for the most part. Caring means thoughtfulness, consideration and being supportive towards the people who contribute to your cash pot. Listen to the cry of anguish that is felt throughout the whole of this topic and do something positive to reassure and re engage with your clients instead of looking for an ointment for every sore that doesn't exist and responding with meaningless soundbites that just do not justify what has occurred. I really do not want to leave, but I am being forced out (whether you believe that or not) because of this price hike. Had I known that this was coming I would not have bought a second license. Heaven knows what some of my ex-clients will be thinking after my recommending your software and they have gone on to buy licenses. This has been the mother of all cock-ups and it needn't have been that way if there was more warning, more transparency and a softer approach to upping prices with consideration given to whether it was something that your clients could digest more easily without all the horror that this topic has produced.

I have put up expiry notices on both my licenced sites and have already found one alternative at a one-time price of $59 with six months support and I can increase this to 18 months for an extra $20.25. I'm considering another alternative for my other site which is less expensive but has the same features, again for a price considerably less than the new IPS prices. I'm no penny pincher, but I am retired and living on a pension, I have rent and utilities to pay for so my hobby money is limited. I understand about the price increase, just not the way it blitzkrieged its way into our lives with no alternative payment options other than annually (with a not so generous offer of a one-time split bi-annually). I find some of the comments mildly amusing and often disturbing from IPS: Short and sweet and couldn't care less - definitely not good customer relations. This is not a 'Hump Day' it's a 'Sad Day'.

I would be more concerned about the clients who are keeping quiet than the ones making a noise. My mom was a fountain of wisdom right up until her demise at the grand old age of 89 years. She used to drum this into me: "It's OK to make mistakes, but always be sure to admit to them, take ownership and make sure that your mistakes never have a negative impact on others and if they do, then do something positive to make amends." There's also a saying that everyone will be familiar with "Act in haste, repent at leisure" Hindsight can be an awakening moment, but often it is too late when realisation hits home. It's not too late to do something positive and resolve this horrible situation, but you need to act now to enforce damage control - I can see your competitors rubbing their hands in glee just waiting for the torrent of new clients heading their way. I cannot get my head around the rationalisation of this move - it really does beggar belief.

Oh but you are forcing me out because in one fell swoop you have taken what was affordable to unaffordable. Instead of making excuses for the rest of the team (who are noticeable by their absence in this discussion) and just admit you all read the potential outcome wrongly and actually do something positive to mitigate the appalling mess that this huge error has caused (possibly damaging the reputation of IPS irreversibly), instead you are attempting to defend the indefensible. When I was running my own website development business (for 20 years until I retired last year) I wanted to be the cheapest so I could gain business from potential competitors, but I never lowered standards and had hundreds of highly satisfied clients over that period of time. When one of them asked me why I was so cheap compared to the rest my reply was two-fold: 1. I wanted their business so I offered them lower prices than my competitors 2. I wanted to be the best that I could be so that they would be happy with my endeavours and recommend me I also pointed out that 'something is better than nothing' if I wanted to pay my bills and live a comfortable life. Without that philosophy of giving good value for money I would not have survived for the 20 years I did and I gained clients who would otherwise have moved on and not had what they could afford. Cheap doesn't always equate to being crap, and expensive doesn't always equate to being great, or even the best. I often use this tactic when I negotiate with utilities and I ask them "would you rather have something, or nothing". When you're dealing with your clients you have to understand the affordability equation and if you price yourself out of a market that has sustained you throughout the early years, then it's understandable that you will lose them. You really should consider giving your clients some breathing room and not lumber them with a lump sum they had no time to plan for or even decide whether it was affordable or not. We all realise that prices rise, but your team decided not to implement yearly rises for a decade, and you survived and grew, but now it's all OK to just make sweeping changes without warning and you expect everything to be rosy and everyone will be happy campers. IPS made a huge blunder by leaving price increases for ten years or more and then just hit everyone out of the blue with patronising PR babble as a defence. You need to negotiate with your clients, not dictate. I've waded through the years of complaints railed against IPS for some blunders made in the past, this is not the first toxic topic, but man it has quickly become the one to beat.

@Matt When you break down a large amount into a monthly amount and base it on the lowest denominator, it looks trivial, but we're not talking about a monthly payment. To just drop this onto everyone without so much as mention is really bad karma. You just need to look at this topic and realise how toxic it is and there is no remorse, just excuses and rubbishy PR talk. Sorry mate, it just doesn't make sense and it doesn't sit well with your clients and that is something you need to address quickly before the floodgates open. I really don't like have to post these replies and I don't like being forced out of the door after such a long time, but if that is the intent and there is no relenting then out of the door I will go, with great sadness. The one solace is that there are alternatives out there that are more affordable.

He most likely can but you won't get the positive answer you want. I've had time to sleep on this and my conclusion is this: You say you haven't increased prices in a decade. Who's fault is this? A small annual increase is easier to swallow than a massive increase in one fell swoop. Such a large increase for your corporate clients will be less than chicken feed and they will most likely offset this against tax. Us hobbyists can't do that and such an increase of these proportions is ridiculous if expect us to buy into it. In a declining hobbyist market you would be best placed to split your business into two - one catering for corporates who you can charge whatever big bucks they're willing to part with, and one more affordable option for hobbyists; the two are mutually incompatible and you can't expect hobbyists to pay corporate prices. You need to take a look at what your competition is charging and price yourselves competitively. You can argue that you have the better product, but when priced way above competitors it doesn't look so attractive from the ground up. A small number of your clients who are used to being on this (and I say this loosely) community platform have probably voiced the concerns of many and who are now leaving the fold. How big a number do you have to lose, silently, before you realise you made a huge blunder? A number 'we' will never know. It's like you have taken a big stick and beaten us with it and then in come the pacifiers with, "well, you know" as though that is some kind of ointment to soothe the pain. I just bought my second licence this year, that was bought with faith and trust in you as business, which incidentally has grown because of the grassroots support of your hobbyist clients over many years; that has flown the nest with this latest announcement. So you should be aware that whilst your costs are rising, just the same as ours, your income is about to take a dive. I am fully aware that prices rise constantly and it's a pain we all have to bear, but imagine if you went into your local grocery store and when you get through the checkout and have to pay the bill, you find that it's 50% more than last year. How happy would you be with that? Small increases over a period of time hurt less and it's YOUR fault that you didn't do this over the last decade and now you want us to swallow the sob story - no way. Am I angry, you bet - I wasted good money buying that second licence and there's no way I'm throwing any more at it. Your loss, my gain. You may be great at developing software, but you suck as looking after your clients, especially those who have walked this path with you since the beginning.

I've done it - removed my payment method and exploring other options. No one likes price rises, but when people are still recovering from the pandemic this is like a sledgehammer blow. It's also going to affect devs who supply much needed apps in the marketplace; if people start leaving then their revenue is going to slip and then they may leave too. It's a slippery slope IPS has ventured into and may be something to regret later. I just bought another license this year for another project, now that's on the bonfire until I find another solution. Talk about being hit between the eyes!

I've just been into my client area and removed my payment method. When the current sessions run out that's me done. I can't afford these prices for what I get in return in terms of engagement. There are other options I can explore and am doing so right now. I understand that the only thing that comes down is rain, but these price rises are chokingly high when the price was already on the expensive (but manageable) side 😞

WOW! Definitely NOT impressed with the new pricing structure - this is taking it out of the ballpark for a lot of people. I was looking forward to the revamped CIC and was considering it, but not now. Even self-hosted is now very pricy and I can see your competitors hoovering up the ones you've scared off. Not sure this was a wise move, but then it depends on who you want as clients. The general makeover is OK, nothing that makes me go WOW! (other than your prices lol). Whoah! I've just logged into the client area and I see my renewal price has gone from $40 every six months to this: Is this a mistake?

@Nathan Explosion ran the update and it works a treat and have added a file on rockmachine.org to try it out. Brilliant! 🙂

Here's an example of an accordion panels using Pages and a custom block - using CSS and JS functions - you can add as many panels as you want and style them as you want. You may need an HTML editor (such as Dreamweaver) but if you're happy to hand code then it should not be an issue. https://moviebuffs.org/test-page/ I'll just leave this page up for a while as it's only a test - you must you the above URL to access the page as it's not in any of the menus. 🙂 EDIT: After some thought I decided to go to the CKEditor site and found a FAQ plugin that will allow you to add all manner of different types of FAQ right from within the editor. I've attached the file here if you want to give it a try and I've added an example to the above page. powrfaq_1.2.zip

Confirmed - you can turn this off on a per-site basis by clicking the shield in the browser bar and turn it off on IPS sites and editing, etc works fine.

@batarjal Having an issue with this title - it's in the ADB and can be referenced but it returns no data available when it is actually there in the ADB. I'm wondering if it has something to do with the dashes as the band name is D-A-D. https://www.theaudiodb.com/artist/114312 Can you take a look please? With thanks 🙂

@Nathan Explosion Hey Nathan, just added this to rockmachine.org and uploaded an mp3 file to the test forum but nothing is showing. I believe all the settings are OK: And in the post: And editing: Pointers, help, tips, tricks, anything to get it working thanks 🙂

Thanks Ralf, I'll comment that line out for now - great support as always, thank you 🙂

It was off by default, but I did try turning it on and off and clearing the system caches, but that made no difference. As it stands it means that no one can downvote anything, upvoting is not a problem. Hope this helps 🙂

@opentype Did you get to see the above Ralf? 🙂

PHP version is 7.4

@opentype Hi Ralf, I have an issue that I can't find a resolution for so perhaps you can give me a pointer please. I'm just currently playing around with the Supervote app to create a top 20 albums list. I want to give all members the ability to cast their votes on the entries made, whether it's a thumbs up or thumbs down, however I keep getting this on the down vote even though I'm an admin and definitely not a new member. I've checked the plugin settings and I've not activated the limit downvoting switch: Can you point me towards what I need to do to remove this restriction? With thanks 🙂

Thanks Marc, I've been corresponding with you - top notch support as always, and hopefully we can figure out a resolution to this issue. Personally, I never use FF and would not have known about this had a member not reported it to me. It's strange why this is happening with FF, but then this is the Internet lol. Thanks again Marc 🙂