My experience with VM2 getting better

[spacecadet]

Hi everybody

I just want to make my feelings known. You can delete this thread or do anything to it.

I've been developing a shop with VM2 for the last several months and it has been a nightmare.

It seems that practically every single function doesn't work correctly out of the box, and one is obliged to spend countless hours trawling through forums to find solutions.

I have run into one roadblock after another. User registration. Displaying prices. Replacement passwords. Displaying terms and conditions. Checkout workflow. Every single piece of functionality seems to have a mysterious hidden problem. Reading the threads is an exercise in pain management. So many people have the same issues, and one has to struggle through pages of attempts to fix things. Some work, some don't.

And yes, sometimes the problems turn out to be template related, or whatever. But that doesn't really change the underlying issue. Virtuemart2 seems like one giant mess of problems. You can eventually make it work if you're willing to spend hours and hours and hours attempting to track down a million pieces of rogue code.

I may be having a unique experience here, but from the tone of the threads I spend my days searching through, I don't think so.

What's the answer? I have no idea.

Thank for listening.

cheers

spacecadet

[AH]

It is challenging.

But are you saying that with any of the other e-commerce plugins for VM they are without need for any change?

Modifying views to suit your clients or your own particular needs etc?

This is still an open source product and as such requires a greater degree of effort than paid components - however, in this you get the chance to impact the core going forward.

Of course, this comes at the cost of continually changing code and more effort required from the deliverers of sites to implement and manage change.

This is a huge task for some and not to be embarked upon lightly, I am often at my desk tearing my hair out as to why something works in such a way and how that "does not make sense!!"

But I guess I would be the same no matter what package I plumped for - at least with VM , I can get nearer (usually) to what I need to make my site function better.

Sometimes I think the developers are listening to too many views and should only fix "true bugs".

Look at Magento and the cost of the hundreds of functional "enhancements" you can get to make your site sing (or usable as I see it!)  and you'd better pray that you choose one that works or from a developer that will maintain it or, you could be in for a fun ride!

Note: I am not paid by or, get any special treatment from the VM team.
I just want VM to be a success, as I have chosen to invest my time in using it - small user bases tend to see their products die and that means I would need to find something else.
Bringing me nicely back to my first point - do you know of a better option?

[PRO]

spacecadet,

have you posted threads about your problems?

[Milbo]

I am really wondering. I know a lot vm2 shops done by non-professionals. For example a clown selling childs music, a church musician selling music, a store selling gems. You had one time bad luck with the template and it was fixed within 2 days, or so.

Pro, he dont want to show the vm user information, just the address and login info. He refuses here just to overwrite the layout \html\com_virtuemart\user\edit_vmshopper.php with an empty file.

[lindapowers]

Posts like yours make me loose faith in humanity.

I build a VM2 shop in like 1 month, done 3 already and most of the time was taken due to the translations of a multilingual website. I have 0 progamming skills and minimum knowledge of Joomla.

No functions work really? you had a nightmare building your website and you have 3 posts in the forum and 2 are just to post bullshit about the project. Even more you dont mention your VM or Joomla version in any of your posts and you don't specify your problems.

2 moderators and the project leader replied to you, not worth the time.

---------------

You complain that the account maintenace shows:

Shopper Information
User Permissions:    shopper
Customer id/Internal VM user ID:   
Shopper Group:

I don't like that shown either but have you though that you and me are 2 out of thousands using this component and maybe others want or even need that information shown?

The answer is search, read, post like a normal person, hire a programmer if you need help and try to build instead of destroy.

Good luck.

[spacecadet]

I take everyone's comments on board. I felt negative that day, and I guess i wanted a reality check, and I've got one.

I really want virtuemart to work for me, and mostly, it certainly does. I've invested a lot of time in learning it. And I know a lot of people have also done so, and made it possible. All that is good.

Still, there is a frustration level for me, but maybe that's the complexities of my current project, and the particular issues my combination of things have thrown up, and my own temperament. I'm not a professional programmer.

I haven't participated actively too much in the forum in terms of posting my questions. Maybe that's my basic error here. I do read the threads, and do the research, and this is how I have ended up resolving the problems I've had. But I haven't posted to much. Maybe that's the problem as I say.

Alright, so i wanted the reality check and I got it. I'll go back and sort out my remaining problems and post them to thread and keep working through it.

I appreciate the responses that have been made in this thread.

................................................

just to add i am using VM2.0.20b and joomla 2.5.11.

I've updated my profile info...

[AH]

Spacecadet

I often have to stop from posting my immediate frustrations.  Forums are places we visit when things are not going well for us - and thus the posts here often start off in an unhappy vain!

Most of us in the forum have  floundered on many occassions (no doubt will do so in the future!) to sort out how our business will utilise the functions provided (or not provided in some cases!). It is the way of things.

One day all will worked as we hoped for (but I probably will have cast of this mortail coil by then.)