JoomlArt Forums 32,862 posts

[instantinlaw Friend instantinlawJoin date: February 2007Posts: 1646Downloads:6Uploads:28 Thanks: 68 Thanked: 210 times in 62 posts]

#121243

I really hate to say this but it has become apparant that Joomlart cannot handle the two templates per month deadline. This last template was 4 days late in being launched, it is buggy from the get go, and is very plain. The past two templates were just as plain, and the last one with some wiz bang, Ja-Teline is so riddled with bugs that it has caused a flod of negative posts in the forum.

I joined this template club because I fell in love with the xenia II shopping template, I also joined RocketTheme at the same time because of thier Vortex template. I have seen RocketTheme make leaps and bounds over Joomlart in terms of adding new and exciting features to each template, and the support at RocketTheme is far superior to the support here.

I have stayed on here and offer as much support in the forums as I can because I am the type that cheers for the underdog, but I am growing tired of the lack of support offered by Joomlart. The user guides are at best thrown together, and forum posts are rarely answered by the Joomlart admins. RocketTheme at least has very detailed user guides posted right on thier demo pages. There is little guess work when using one of thier templates, and 99% of the questions in thier forums are answered.

So after all this ranting here are my suggestions.

• Switch to a one template per month model.
• Extend existing members memberships to 2 years to fulfil the contract of 24 new templates.
• New members will get 12 templates + any existing ones in a one year membership.
• Spend the extra two weeks you gain by making it a one template per month membership answering questions in the forum, and making the new templates production ready instead of betas at best.
• Fix or upgrade the extensions you have already included in some of the templates before trying to sell us more.
• Include full source files with each template.

I really want to stay a member here, but it is getting harder and harder to justify extending my membership when Joomlart is being left by the wayside by other template clubs.

Please consider my suggestions Joomlart.

[aravot Friend aravotJoin date: January 2006Posts: 43Downloads:0Uploads:13]

#223409

Have to agree with Instantinlaw.

[TomC Moderator TomCJoin date: October 2014Posts: 14077Downloads:58Uploads:137 Thanks: 948 Thanked: 3155 times in 2495 posts]

#223412

I also think the separate memberships to Templates and Extensions is excessive – especially considering the scant offerings of the JAEC. I understand about enterprise and making a profit – believe me.

But, as Bill stated above, if JoomlArt wishes to stay competitive with other similar Template Clubs, they need to seriously consider being much more proactive and accomodating to members and member requests. Hate to say it, but it almost seems as if the JA Team takes the membership for granted.

[digimate Friend digimateJoin date: March 2007Posts: 31Downloads:0Uploads:1 Thanks: 5]

#223418

Have to agree also with Instantinlaw

[ShannonN Friend ShannonNJoin date: July 2006Posts: 1947Downloads:0Uploads:9 Thanks: 16 Thanked: 172 times in 49 posts]

#223420

tcraw1010;19923I also think the separate memberships to Templates and Extensions is excessive – especially considering the scant offerings of the JAEC. I understand about enterprise and making a profit – believe me.

But, as Bill stated above, if JoomlArt wishes to stay competitive with other similar Template Clubs, they need to seriously consider being much more proactive and accomodating to members and member requests. Hate to say it, but it almost seems as if the JA Team takes the membership for granted.

Sadly Bill et al are right and echo’s my own thoughts. JA really needs to get it’s act together with respect to producing proper written documentation to accompany all its templates and especially its extensions.

I feel that JA has put way to much pressure upon itself to churn out two templates per month and little emphasis on support and docs. I try to provide as much support as possible, but I’m not JA so I do not design or use these extensions/templates daily nor am I a css guru. also I am unpaid and don’t work for JA and have a busy life and education commitments outside the forum.

I think JA needs to have the actual designers of these extensions and templates available via the support forum for the hard questions the community volunteers cannot answer.

That is they monitor the support forum daily between certain times like for 4 hrs a day, they still will be doing their work, but sitting on the side checking forums now and then. A small clock on the forum saying “Support base local time is” may help ppl understand why they don’t get an answer for 12 hrs as its night at the support base ( Vietnam?) etc

JA needs to stop and think do they hire lots more staff to cope with the demands and continue to churn out two templates a month with quickstart installs full docs etc or use existing staff and produce 1 template per mth that’s bug free tested extensively and has complete docs QS install etc etc?

It’s a hard decision for JA to make, continue to make two bug ridden templates per month with poor docs and lose customers and get negative ‘where’s the support’ comments in the forum etc.. or go back to one template per month, develop proper docs and return to pre-release beta testing my developer membership and provide quickstart installations for all templates?

Some people will then scream ‘I joined for two templates’ etc etc, but the reality is, the current 2 per mth is taxing JA abilities and resources to the max and the quality is going downhill, and something must be done now to address this decay or JA will eventually lose money customers and collapse leaving all with no templates and outta pocket.

This is not a ‘let’s kick JA post or thread, but a serious attempt to highlight problems that affect JA and us as members. Please do not turn it into a debate. But a decent calm and reasonable area to offer sensible solutions and ideas

For myself I feel JA needs to restart the beta testing of its templates and extension to moderators, selected developer members a week prior to its release

Reintroduce a quickstart installation inc demo db with all it’s templates and supply a QS package for all templates made after Teline.

Produce a 10 page minimum guide on how to do everything in depth regarding the template inc. all new extensions introduced in the template.

Produce in depth guides on each extension covering most common usage

JA needs to quantify and define just what support JA will offer on it’s templates , I see JA trying to offer all kinds of support such as even teaching people how to use Joomla in an effort to be mr nice guy, it needs to stop.

Anyone, pro or hobbyist needs to go out and learn Joomla before attempting to use a Joomla based template. It just makes sense, also graphics if you want to change graphics learn to use a graphics editor. it is an essential part of using a template these days

These are advanced templates not Microsoft Publisher templates or Word ( FrontPage) templates and should not be viewed as a “website in a box – no knowledge needed “. Some learning is needed and people who use these templates must realise that and stop asking how to use Joomla itself and how to edit simple things like the text in a header graphic

I like JA and teh community we all do, but it’s time for changes

ShannonN

ShannonN

[Michael Casha Friend Michael CashaJoin date: September 2014Posts: 2561Downloads:1Uploads:32 Thanks: 41 Thanked: 119 times in 1 posts]

#223424

Whilst I can’t promise any changes, I will explain that the last delay was due to the developers going on holidays – this is why it was late.

However, is it possible that they have run out of ideas for new projects? Or do you think it’s because they just don’t have any time? <– I would personally like to hear your opinion.

[instantinlaw Friend instantinlawJoin date: February 2007Posts: 1646Downloads:6Uploads:28 Thanks: 68 Thanked: 210 times in 62 posts]

#223430

Hi MiCCAS,

First I would like to say thank you for taking notice of this thread. It was my goal to draw attention to the important matter at hand, and not to create a debate. I am glad that the other posters here have taken my lead and are posting relevant comments. I hope that the devs take notice too.

I personally think it’s a mix of things with the focus of the developers attention being pulled in too many directions at once. They have lost thier focus.

Things have gotten worse since they started planning the new sections, I.e. The new extension club, the Template Installation service, the Logo and Header Integration service, the Custom Color Scheme service, The Site Migration/Upgrade service, The PSD/PNG/Template Conversion service, The Full site design service, and of course the two templates promised every month.

The Devs have bitten off more than they can chew, and have left thier members to fend for them selfs. The devs have to return to the basics of what a template club is all about, making good, stable templates, and if that means scaling back to one a month, so be it. I would rather wait a whole month for a new template that works, looks good, and has some features, than to be saddled with a re-used makeover of a template that has no features whatsoever, and is buggy from the start. As I stated above, the devs could use the extra time to wow us with a great template with features, and some good user guides.

So to sum all of this up, in my opinion the devs have lost thier focus and need to get back to basics which are making great templates with features, and stop ignoring thier bread and butter the members.

[Michael Casha Friend Michael CashaJoin date: September 2014Posts: 2561Downloads:1Uploads:32 Thanks: 41 Thanked: 119 times in 1 posts]

#223432

<em>@instantinlaw 19948 wrote:</em><blockquote>Hi MiCCAS,

First I would like to say thank you for taking notice of this thread. It was my goal to draw attention to the important matter at hand, and not to create a debate. I am glad that the other posters here have taken my lead and are posting relevant comments. I hope that the devs take notice too.

I personally think it’s a mix of things with the focus of the developers attention being pulled in too many directions at once. They have lost thier focus.

Things have gotten worse since they started planning the new sections, I.e. The new extension club, the Template Installation service, the Logo and Header Integration service, the Custom Color Scheme service, The Site Migration/Upgrade service, The PSD/PNG/Template Conversion service, The Full site design service, and of course the two templates promised every month.

The Devs have bitten off more than they can chew, and have left thier members to fend for them selfs. The devs have to return to the basics of what a template club is all about, making good, stable templates, and if that means scaling back to one a month, so be it. I would rather wait a whole month for a new template that works, looks good, and has some features, than to be saddled with a re-used makeover of a template that has no features whatsoever, and is buggy from the start. As I stated above, the devs could use the extra time to wow us with a great template with features, and some good user guides.

So to sum all of this up, in my opinion the devs have lost thier focus and need to get back to basics which are making great templates with features, and stop ignoring thier bread and butter the members.</blockquote>
Some good points mentioned instantlaw, and I’m very happy to hear people’s opinions. I’ll see what I can come up with to organise everything better, and I’ll let you know how my progress goes.

[instantinlaw Friend instantinlawJoin date: February 2007Posts: 1646Downloads:6Uploads:28 Thanks: 68 Thanked: 210 times in 62 posts]

#223434

MiCCAS;19950Some good points mentioned instantlaw, and I’m very happy to hear people’s opinions. I’ll see what I can come up with to organise everything better, and I’ll let you know how my progress goes.

That’s a great start MiCCAS.
Thank you. 🙂

[Menalto Friend MenaltoJoin date: May 2007Posts: 4736Downloads:0Uploads:43 Thanks: 2 Thanked: 531 times in 361 posts]

#223469

I’m kinda “new” to this club and i must say they do their job by deliver nice templates.
But sadly, as said before in this tread, it’s the support….
IF the JA team feel they need some people for help out with testing, support i am more than happy to help them out with it. Since i have time to do it, it’s just for them to give me a PM about it.

[Hung Dinh Friend Hung DinhJoin date: September 2014Posts: 4408Downloads:11Uploads:189 Thanks: 309 Thanked: 3310 times in 3 posts]

#223474

<em>@instantinlaw 19903 wrote:</em><blockquote>I really hate to say this but it has become apparant that Joomlart cannot handle the two templates per month deadline. This last template was 4 days late in being launched, it is buggy from the get go, and is very plain. The past two templates were just as plain, and the last one with some wiz bang, Ja-Teline is so riddled with bugs that it has caused a flod of negative posts in the forum.

I joined this template club because I fell in love with the xenia II shopping template, I also joined RocketTheme at the same time because of thier Vortex template. I have seen RocketTheme make leaps and bounds over Joomlart in terms of adding new and exciting features to each template, and the support at RocketTheme is far superior to the support here.

I have stayed on here and offer as much support in the forums as I can because I am the type that cheers for the underdog, but I am growing tired of the lack of support offered by Joomlart. The user guides are at best thrown together, and forum posts are rarely answered by the Joomlart admins. RocketTheme at least has very detailed user guides posted right on thier demo pages. There is little guess work when using one of thier templates, and 99% of the questions in thier forums are answered.

So after all this ranting here are my suggestions.

• Switch to a one template per month model.
• Extend existing members memberships to 2 years to fulfil the contract of 24 new templates.
• New members will get 12 templates + any existing ones in a one year membership.
• Spend the extra two weeks you gain by making it a one template per month membership answering questions in the forum, and making the new templates production ready instead of betas at best.
• Fix or upgrade the extensions you have already included in some of the templates before trying to sell us more.
• Include full source files with each template.

I really want to stay a member here, but it is getting harder and harder to justify extending my membership when Joomlart is being left by the wayside by other template clubs.

Please consider my suggestions Joomlart.</blockquote>
I have read you suggesion over and over and spent almost half an hour thinking about your idea of changes. The purpose in the end is to give all members better templates and wider choice of Joomla designs. I agree with you that the burden of 2 templates/month has taken most of our time and make it more difficult to patrol the forum closely recently. Also, the same team has more work to do with the opening of JAEC and custom work section…
I will keep an close eyes to all of your comment here and we will soon can make the best decision about this.
@menalto: thank you very much for your offer to help. You have been very helpful to everybody here in JA. If there is anything specific call for help, I will certainly give you a PM

[ErikThorsen Friend ErikThorsenJoin date: December 2005Posts: 1098Downloads:0Uploads:7 Thanks: 22 Thanked: 10 times in 1 posts]

#223496

Great initiative Menalto. I do think this is very much needed here. I also have a few comments ( which in parts are also ideas from others but mine as well )

1: I think JA needs to keep up with 2 templates each month. I think it is virtually impossible to “segregate” themselves from the rest unless they do.
2: I would assume the fact that they are now offering all these new services would mean they have hired more designers and developers. This would again manifest in faster and better templates ( at least it should ) A word from Hung or Joomlart on this would be good for us I think.
3: The extensions club I don’t know much about. OTher than the fact that it is still not “live” and up and running. I think the only thing that needs to be done is to increase the number of employees at JA. Adding Menalto and other “volunteers” would be a step in the right direction but there is a great need of more designers and programmers to also be able to step up and work better in the forum
4: The userguides need to be improved a lot more. I think it would be a good idea to either start a new thread or something where we could post suggestions as to what should be included of information in a userguide for templates. That way we could assist in making a “standard” for how the userguides should be like and also make the work for the JA team easier.

Finally, a urgent request to Hung and his team to please take some time to answer this thread ( not just my note but the thread in its enirety ) It is important to “calm” down people and assure them that the new and hopefully better JA is going to improve and that there are more designers/programmers hired or at least “on their way”.

Thanks!

[gregory3 Friend gregory3Join date: September 2006Posts: 52Downloads:0Uploads:0]

#223506

JA is starting the new extensions club and all these other things but have you hired additional staff? If the same staff is taking on more work, something, somewhere has to give. Seems to be support atm.
I agree JA has bitten off more then they can chew. JA needs kill the extensions club idea step down to one bug free, works out of the box template a month. I don’t even care about extending the membership to two years to get 24 templates. I’d pay the same for 12 bug free templates and good support.
I frequently look at what The admins and moderators are replying too and it seems that they reply quickly to posts in the guest section that may cost them business (cash flow) but technical issues related to the templates and extensions go widely untouched except by a few of the dedicated members that are paying for their membership too.

[false_crack101 Friend false_crack101Join date: June 2007Posts: 6Downloads:0Uploads:0]

#223514

I have to agree with most people are saying about the support of JA. I have bought templates here but when i did post for help, JA staffs wasnt there to help but a reg member Menalto with email joomlasupport@gmail.com has offer to help me with every trouble i ran into. I thought it was just me doing something wrong, but now it seems its the software itself. I also compete with my friends website for fun, rocketheme does run stable with no isues like i had. Its not the 2 new templates every month that counts to me, i got membership because i seen a template i wanted. I rather have one template that works perfect or really fast support when i run into trouble.

Suggestion: Hire Menalto as a staff or support members here, he is very patient and quick on fixing all my issues when email.

[instantinlaw Friend instantinlawJoin date: February 2007Posts: 1646Downloads:6Uploads:28 Thanks: 68 Thanked: 210 times in 62 posts]

#223527

Hung Dinh;20004I have read you suggesion over and over and spent almost half an hour thinking about your idea of changes. The purpose in the end is to give all members better templates and wider choice of Joomla designs. I agree with you that the burden of 2 templates/month has taken most of our time and make it more difficult to patrol the forum closely recently. Also, the same team has more work to do with the opening of JAEC and custom work section…
I will keep an close eyes to all of your comment here and we will soon can make the best decision about this.
@menalto: thank you very much for your offer to help. You have been very helpful to everybody here in JA. If there is anything specific call for help, I will certainly give you a PM

Hi Hung,
I am glad that you have put some thought into my suggestions, but if you are dead set on keeping it a two template per month membership you really need to hire some more help, or do as Shannon suggested, re-introduce the free dev membership for those willing to help out.
I have created a few video tutorials on my own time and server bandwidth to help out, and I am frequently in the forum answering questions and giving fixes for various issues. I would gladly accept that offer if it was available again, and I am sure that some of the other regular posters here would too.
The bottom line is, don’t lose the focus of this club.

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