I have tried to make simple adjustments to my system but none of the logic seems to work. Is the app simply broken, buggy, or just no good? Am I wasting my time and should I be looking elsewhere for a more stable platform that actually works? Am I the only one who is this frustrated with the state of VM 2? Has it jumped the shark? Is it a sinking ship?
Examples of my frustration:
I have created two shipping methods:
One is free for items that have 0 as a weight (downloadable items).
The other is a flat fee for anything above 0 as a weight.
( I also need a third flat rate for international orders but getting the top two working would be awesome.)
Why do my customers get the choice to select the free shipping option when the product they selected has a weight greater than 0?
Same issue for tax rates. I have two tax rates:
I have one for the state of MI in the US that adds 6% sales tax
I have a second for all other states for a rate of 0.
Why is my tax not applied correctly?
ANY help would be greatly appreciated!!!
Shipping isnt that hard. Just use logic.
create 2 shipping methods:
1) From 0.00000 to 0.00001 weight.
2) From 0.00002 to 2.00000 weight.
You probably have the second one also 0.0000 to 0.0001.
Remember to use decimals and not comma's!
Dont know about the tax problem. I use only 1 tax rate so can;t help you there.
I have done this but both shipping methods show no matter what product is chosen.
Product must be 1.0000
1st is 0.00000 to 0.00001
2nd is 0.50000 to 15.0000
Make sure the downloadable product is weight 0.00000 and the other product is 1.0000
I did that first. I had the download product set to 0 pounds and all other products to 1 pound and that didn't work. So I tried decimals as well. But no matter what I do, they do not work in combination.
VM simply takes the first one as default and if you show the options, it allows the customer to select either no matter the weight.
Quote from: daviator on March 27, 2012, 16:58:02 PM
I have tried to make simple adjustments to my system but ...
... I have two tax rates:
I have one for the state of MI in the US that adds 6% sales tax
I have a second for all other states for a rate of 0.
Why is my tax not applied correctly?
ANY help would be greatly appreciated!!!
Daviator,
Why do you have two tax rates, with one being $0? Try removing the second tax rate of zero and you should be fine on that issue.
Merry
Hi Merry,
Because that doesn't work either. It simply adds no tax at that point no matter what state I use for shipping/billing.
So - are you sure that your Missouri tax is set up correctly?? That is where I would start.
Merry
Hi Merry,
Yes, the Michigan state tax is setup correctly.
Calculation Rule name MI state tax
Published = Yes
Ordering = 0
Description = MI state tax
Type of Arithmetic Operation = Tax per product
Math Operation = +%
Value = 6.000
Currency = United States dollar
Product Category =
Shopper Groups =
Country = United States
State / Province / Region = Michigan
Visible for Shopper = Yes <<< I've tried this both ways
Visible for vendor = No
Start Date = 02/29/12
End Date = -Never-
Daviator, I have the identical setup for my state EXCEPT I have "Visible for vendor=yes" and it's tested and working properly.
Please check the product information page for a product that is not having tax applied properly. Does it say:
Pricing rules overrides
Tax
Apply default rules
Tax Affecting: Tax 6.00%
Merry
Hi Merry,
I changed it "Apply default rules" and now it applies MI tax 100% of the time no matter where I chose as a billing/shipping destination.
I really really appreciate your effort in helping me solve this but I have found a solution to this and the many other issues with VM2...
It's called Zen Cart. Worked flawlessly right out of the box. Tax, shipping and pricing display were a snap to setup. It even has the ability to exclude shipping charges for downloadable products. Which is broken in VM2 as well. In 3 hours I was further along than with Zen Cart that was at 2 weeks with VM2.
It's sad. I first tried VM 1 and really liked it. But VM2 is a disaster and almost cost me this gig.
Daviator,
Good luck with Zen Cart, I wrote the manual 7 years ago.
As long as you assume that the program and not something that you, a beginner did, then I am afraid you will never succeed.
Merry
It is the program. Look around this board and see how many frustrated users there are. I am not new to web development and have built some extensive sites with straight HTML and JavaScript in the past and more recently in Joomla and Wordpress. It seems to me that if I can figure out Zen Cart in a matter of hours and two weeks on VM2 is still not working, yeah, it's the program. (BTW, I dabbled in VM1 and never had the issues I'm seeing in VM2)
Daviator is right, Virtuemart has simply lost the concept of Joomla, just completely alienated the basic user.
The developers have made it so difficult to get anything to work properly with VM2, look at half of the online demos, using joola 2.5 and vm2.0.2
the add to cart buttons doest work because all of the extra jquery code.
a simple , Hey I want a blue button instead of a green one requires css hacks and then when you finally figure it out you decide you dont like blue and want red.
then its another hack...its ridiculous to think basic users will want to do this.
I have been using VM for years, and never had this many problems fresh out of the box before.
so many little things along the way are broken like trying to add multiple images of differant sizes....but the resizing is broken.
now I must have multiple versions of the image to upload separately.
its not my server since I have about 30 Joomla sites on there functioning perfectly fine and my box is big and strong and its also not my skill level.
its just so frustrating to start a new cart with a client and need to buzz through the setup process only to find out that half the things are broken.
we are complaining to the forum....but you should hear our clients complaining to us!
When a user cant complete an order..they may never come back to order again...and who do you blame?...are the developers going to sit there and say "well. its because your a noob and just dont understand."
well then tell ME why its failing, because I'm not a noob and its still failing, I have built some pretty comprehensive and successful Joomla sites over the years.
are you going to tell me its still beginners bad luck?
time is money folks!
but hey...you get what you pay for
Quote from: jakobe on March 31, 2012, 03:10:03 AM
a simple , Hey I want a blue button instead of a green one requires css hacks and then when you finally figure it out you decide you dont like blue and want red.
then its another hack...its ridiculous to think basic users will want to do this.
styling css is NOT a hack,
and OP:
For the free and regular shipping rates fix
download the newest files here
https://dev.virtuemart.net/svn/virtuemart/trunk/virtuemart/plugins/vmshipment/weight_countries/
just "right click" and save.
There *is* a lack of documentation, I see that problem and I am working on it as fast as I can. But I am only one volunteer, and I can only write so fast.
To me the other big problem is, VM1 was around for a long time, and so there is a ton of documentation on that, as well as tons of forum discussion. This makes for a lot of "noise" that newbies have a difficult time sorting through... what applies to everything, what applies to the new program with a few exceptions, and what only applies to the new version?
I hope in a month that there will be a lot less confusion caused by lack of documentation or so much documentation on the old program. But please remember that the programmers are volunteers, the moderators are volunteers, and the documentation writer is also a volunteer - we have to work at day jobs to support our volunteer habit.
Merry
Merry,
Besides offers of cash, I also volunteered to write documentation (in the areas in which I was having trouble) in exchange for help with solving my issues. And yes, I have professional experience in technical writing. But like most of my other inquires, the off was simply ignored.
David
Quote from: jakobe on March 31, 2012, 03:10:03 AM
... look at half of the online demos, using joola 2.5 and vm2.0.2 the add to cart buttons doest work because all of the extra jquery code.
I noticed this and it made me pause —if the demo doesn't work, what is in *store* for me, a rookie VM user.
terp, there is a learning curve with Joomla and with VirtueMart, but nothing really insurmountable for people willing to spend some time. For working VM2 (not a demo) stores have a look at http://www.chciletat.cz/eshop or http://www.hrackyfido.cz/ or http://www.lawweapons.org
And there are some template developers out there with products if you want a layout package. eg see this demo: http://www.linelab.org/virtuemart-templates/index.php/virtuemart-2-example
Quote from: daviator on March 27, 2012, 16:58:02 PM
Is it a sinking ship?
Yes it is !!!! .... I have changed my clients to Hikashop ... The last one was running VM since 2007 - even then it was a big headache to setup and the support has not improved....
Quote from: Dick_K on April 02, 2012, 17:17:48 PM
Quote from: daviator on March 27, 2012, 16:58:02 PM
Is it a sinking ship?
Yes it is !!!! .... I have changed my clients to Hikashop ... The last one was running VM since 2007 - even then it was a big headache to setup and the support has not improved....
That was next on my list.
Since their demo has modules on every page, I was unable to tell from just looking around whether or not it calls all the JS/CSS needed to compile on ALL pages, or just the pages where it's needed with Hikashop-related content. You have a site I could peek at using it, sir? :)
I plan to download it next. Setting up shipping parameters and overrides hasn't been fun this morning...who would have thunk you have to assign yourself as a vendor to set the currency. :) ...so reminded of CommunityBuilder back in the days.
...but I am still plucking away. Pretty powerful little component with a bazillion settings, so I understand much of this is the nature of the beast.
Daviator, and jakobe it is true, that
VM1 and VM2, there is no difference, is not for people who think template overrides or changing the css is a hack. The joomla world is written for people who either can template or pay for it. The most questions you asked me are template related. You have the same problem in all other components, not only in virtuemart. When you want a shop in which you can the red button to a green one, okey. I can almost promise you that the virtuemart Core will never provide that. Because it is the task of the templaters. Buy the joomlaart template for virtuemart 2 and you do not have this problems. And the joomlaart template provide what you want. This is nothing unusual for the joomla world to buy templates and adjust them with template overrides. But yes it may be absolutly uncommon compared to standalone systems. Virtuemart is either for joomla people who already familar with the joomla system or for people who want something special with their store, what they cant do with the other stores. There are other people creating complete packages with joomla+vm2+template(+hosting).
I know that even magento users consider to use virtuemart 2, because it is much easier to extend it to their needs.
I hate to keep harping on this but I think the development team in a little bit in denial about the quantum leap in difficulty involved for average non-programmer users to adjust from VM 1.1 to 2.0. I think you may be reaching a tipping point where the defections to other platforms may become rampant. That would be unfortunate for the developers and users alike.
I think "average" users like myself want to be able to maintain and perform small customizations without outside help. Starting with php shop I have been able to manage 90% of the updates and migrations without outside help until now. I have and will continue to use professional help, but the amount of extra work needed to make this latest migration is just scary and makes the new version look like a huge strategic blunder. I have a working site that I am mostly satisfied with but it will become obsolete in time and when i feel i need to update or change I will go elsewhere unless there is pretty strong evidence that I can make VM work without spending a fortune.
One last thing. I have a fine template and migrating a test site from 1.5.25 to J 2.5.x was fairly easy. Alll of my prblems have revolved around simply trying to replicate the shopping cart portion on the new VM2.0. That SHOULD be easy. I understand that re-designing my site or adding lots of new features migh be difficult but that is not what I want. I think others feel the same way. Comparing VM to Magento is nuts. Everyone knows Magento is hard to learn and use. This lates version make you more like Magento than before. Is that the direction you want to go? As I have said beofee, you get too many defection and VM will become irrelevant. Kind of like what Yahoo became once Google arrived on the scene.
I am one of those defectors. I have switched my client to Zen-Cart and both of us could not be happier. In just 2 days I was able to overcome the obstacles that I was unable to solve in VM2 after two weeks. In addition, I was able to to find free mods that worked far better than the paid ones I wasted money on for VM2. Not only were more of the mods free, the forums are far friendlier.
I have not needed to spend a dime on plugins or mods for the zen cart site (but once launched, I will donate to the ones I used, including zen-cart).
Zen Cart is not a Joomla Component. No thanks. Virtuemart has a learning curve but does work if you stay with it.
Quote from: Dansterpower on April 12, 2012, 04:04:45 AM
Zen Cart is not a Joomla Component. No thanks. Virtuemart has a learning curve but does work if you stay with it.
Exactly. Why add another lever of complexity and possible security issues when Joomla + Virtuemart? What forced me to try VM2 was my client's hosting only supported Joomla 2.5. With Zen Cart, I have ONE app to deal with it and not many layers of PHP, CSS and security.
Also, I was able to figure out VM1 no problem. It just worked. While not a guru, I am fairly experienced in web development including Joomla, Wordpress, PHP and CSS but VM2 just doesn't work correctly. Look around these forums and you'll see many others who have come to the same conclusion.
Was Zen Cart my best option? Who knows, but it worked for me and my client, with $0 cost for the add-ons that would have cost me $300+ to get the same functionality in VM2, and I got it up and running in a fraction of the time. Zen Cart does require more hands on with the PHP files and FTP access and the standard template is ugly but it simply works and in the long run that is a huge time saver.
If you have to change PHP codes in another system, it's exactly the same problems.
The question is only a equation of time,money and logic.
Each week we add more future possibility to virtuemart2.0. Perhasp your need is not exactly possible but a solution is always possible or come in next releases.
Many other solution must simply hacked/ forcked to add you needs.
The line of virtuemart is to provide a freely extendable system handle alll specific needs in the future without hacking or forking it, but not to provide a 100 Mo Pack for nothing.
When I said Zen-cart requires more hands on with the PHP files I simply meant that you have to upload many of them manually via FTP for plugins. It's not that I have to edit them to make them function. Worse case is I have to copy lines from one file to another but that is usually well documented.
So far, Zencart and it's plugins have worked as described 100%. I cannot say the same for Virtuemart or the plugin I purchased along with it.
Completely agree with the pack here. I've been implementing VM1 w/ Joomla! for sometime now and although there was always things that needed adjusting. No big deal... But then... Along came VM2 and I am in a world pain. NOTHING REALLY SEEMS TO WORK. Seemed to work okay in a development environment but now I've got it running in a production environment with hundreds of products and customers and WOW am I screwed. I've been running around tirelessly for three weeks trying to stop the leaks as they are found but still having massive issues. Sorry VirtueMart but this is the last install I'll be doing.
I'll be starting a new collaboration with other Joomla! developers to create a new open source ecommerce system that works. If you're interested PM. I could use the help.
Hello madabyss,
Why you did not help vm becoming better by offering your dev skills for free as vm offers it?
There a lot of vm users that running successfully big shops with vm2.
Last "nothing really seems to work" i don't thing that is true.
Regards
Since the time of my last post I have taken on a partner with a history of creating succesful e-commerce web sites. His first recommendation was to dump Joomla and Virtuemart and design a new site around Opencart. He was able to create a test site within a few days using an inexpensive commercial template and it even included all of the users and historical data. One extension even allows the entry of cost data to be able to track profits. We have a little customization to do but the overall impression after playing with it for 10 dys is that it works right out of the box and is very user friendly and stable. In other words, it is everything that VM is not, at least not version 2.x.
I spent over a month trying to migrate my exisiting site to the new VM and test it on a local installation. NOTHING was easy and a lot of things were impossible. There are literally hudreds of forum posts about custom fields and to date I am not certain if this feature really works at all or simply impossible to understand and implement. Has anyone noticed that VM is not longer a Joomla eztensions "Editor's Choice"?
No new shop owner in his right mind would ever create a new shop using VM. If I were commited to staying with the Joomla CMS, I would probably swithch to Mijo shop based on Opencart. With a import function for VM it should be easy to transfer files based on my experience so far. T
The final test will be when we try and take oure new site live withing the next 7-10 days. I do anticipate a few problems but once the transfer is complete I expect that I will once again be able to spend my time developing my business instead of constantly applying band-aids to my web site.
Bruce