achintya wrote:

I can see your point, and it must make a difference when there is no money changing hands, which is why I am bothering to put up some money to try and support a programmer to do this advanced search.

I have also asked that this is made available to the community in due course.

I wish more people would do this.

I guess at the end of the day money does have quite a big effect on things? Whoever, we are.

But I am also quite involved with plenty of businesses and organisations who pay me 'in kind' and do not involve themselves in money, and whether money is or is not involved, my experience is that customer care and all the other business things commercial people hold up as important, still matter.

The absence of money does not lessen the need for customer care, or end-user care.

Maybe it is the law of supply and demand acting here. Too many people asking for support, and too little people willing to give something back.

And you are right, money makes a lot of difference.

-Mikko

achintya wrote:

Well thanks for the rant mate... you are making a complete public pigs ear of yourself really by resorting to such a silly schoolboy tone... let's give it a go shall I er...

nya nyu nya to you boo hoo.. is that how this goes???

achintya,

Interesting that you should imply that I am ranting when all the responses seem to indicate that it is you that is ranting. Seems funny that when you can't seem to get your point accross you make it personal.

Mikko,

Thanks, glad you actually read my post. If achintya had taken the time to read ours as he implies that we had not, then maybe he would find that he is on his own in his argument. Yes many have asked for a better search but no one and I repeat no one has implied that the application was useless (a car without wheels). So now that he has brought it to a personal level my final word is get over yourself achintya.

well, yes, I am ranting... it would make a huge difference to me if I felt 'heard'.

Apparantly you guys are the pro's here, with all the knowledge and so on... so I was hoping that, somewhere about 23 posts ago, someone would have seen that maybe there is a real need here, which is where I came in.

I don't enjoy getting into email scrapes, but when a guy don't get the feeling he is being heard by the folks who are writing this software, then I suppose inevitably even with the best will in the world, something snaps, as has been demonstrated on both sides here.

so, snaps aside, I do feel that my wee efforts to resolve a need I, and quite a few other people have, are being acknowledged.

And you have not acknowledged yet that I have publically stated that I do appreciate many aspects of this software.

Maybe it isn't a car without wheels, which may have been overstating the case out of frustration, but a car with a wheel missing? Is that a more acceptable analogy?

That's what it feels like to me.

I await what happens re. commissioning, and another piece of software I gather is about to make its appearance, which does some quite amazing things, including searching on all fields, phew... at last.

Anyway, I have calmed down now. Just watched the latest episode of Invasion, which always helps.

goodnight gentlemen



achintya

achintya,

All right, let me start by saying I am sorry if I offended you. I get a little touchy when people inappropriately talk bad or down on what the majority considers to be very useful software. In your last post you indicate that a car without wheels might be a bit strong and I do believe that is what is causing a lot of the pushback to your statements. There are 2 main issues that are being disputed and they are:

1) The need for a better search
I think if you read the posts no one is saying that a better search is not needed, it is. The problem is saying that the number 2 or 3 Joomla/Mambo application is not useful. Those of us that like it and use it has and I believe will strongly come to its defense. For doing that a little too forcefully I apologize but I must reiterate that the very fact that it is the number 2 or 3 application means it very useful. That is not to say that it cannot be better, but the same can be said for just about every application every developed.

2). The idea that the CB developers owe us this search
Open source does not owe anyone anything so that is a sticking point for a lot of us. Open source is free with no support required, as it is free. You take it or leave it at your own discretion. If you want full support pay the full price for commercial software if you want cheap or free then we must be patient.

I did in fact read every post several times and yes you had some good things to say but you never, until the last post, backed away from your first statement that it was a car without wheels. That implication that the software was useless really bugged me and the more I read your posts the more I felt that I had to stick up for the developers. If I did that to strongly then I’m sorry.

I feel in this environment of open source that we can make requests but to put down someone’s work that they have freely given to the community is over the line. So lets help the process by reporting bugs and making requests but lets try to refrain from putting down others work.

Thanks,

I appreciate your apology.

I need to say that, from the outset, I have actually praised this software. Aside from the lack of decent searching, I have consistently in these posts made it very clear that:

a. I use the software and have done for about 3 years now

b. That I have a lot of installations going, using both Joomla/Mambo or CB

c. That I am bothering to attempt to finance a fix by approaching CB and Joomla programmers with an offer to pay them to produce a search product that can be used by the community.

This does not add up to putting anyone's work down. I am not that kind of guy - but like you, I get a bit rattled when it seems people are not listening to many requests for advanced searching, yet update and revision happen with nothing in site.

I do understand there are other things to prioritise, and that this is done for free by the programmers, but from the outset I just could not understand why all the requests in the forums and hacking and component atttempts did not clearly convey a message that this component is really needed.

However I look at it, I can't see the logic of offering people all these abilities to log information by custom and core fields, but not offer the ability to search by those fields. It just doesn't add up in any sense to me.

That's where I get stuck I guess.

I was NOT putting this software down, but I can understand that a statement like 'it is a car without wheels' could be interpreted like that, which is why I have revised it to 'it is a car with only 3 wheels'. I really do appreciate this software and the efforts that have gone into developing it.

However, this week I have just completed an installation of CB on a new Joomla site, a pretty exciting project, and in the past two days I have received 3 phone calls and an email from users asking how they search under City, when they put the name into the search box, it couldn't find anyone, even though there are at least 5 users in the database who live in Birmingham.

I find that hard to explain to these users. They really do need to be able to sort through the users by keying in City names having bothered to fill in all the city fields.

This is the point of all these emails.

I am telling them that something is likely to happen quite soon, and I am keeping my fingers crossed.


achintya

[edit] I posted something but decided not to get involved.

Sorry

Post edited by: andyahoo, at: 2006/02/13 05:02