can someone explain why the latest viruemart is so hard to use?

[Jason dsg]

Im trying to rebuild my site from 1.0 to the new 2.5 and im running into walls. I need someone to help me with it. its like whoever designed the 2.5 has left out what 1.0 had you guys are going in the wrong direction its supost to be easier not harder to use. You just about have to know coding now to do anything with it now its driving me crazy. can someone help me without costing me a arm and leg gee.

[jenkinhill]

VirtueMart 2 is not really "harder to use" than VM1.1 was, but it is a different component and more powerful . As it has more capability and more configuration options it does need more planning and thought when setting up a store.  And yes, if you are going to want to change or style the layout then some small knowledge of code may be useful, but it is certainly not essential and is not necessary or recommended to edit the core at all, unlike the previous versions where code hacking was so often necessary. But I can see that some shopowners may find it difficult to set up their store.

There are some books available to help those who need it, eg http://oscmanuals.com/virtuemart-c-34.html , and simple tutorials, such as http://cocoate.com/vm2 or on http://docs.virtuemart.net/  and for developers there are face to face courses,  http://extensions.virtuemart.net/certifications/bronze-certification-for-virtuemart-detail

If you have specific questions then you should post them in the forum, but if you really do want a developer to help set up your site then I suggest you post a request on http://jobs.virtuemart.net/  or on http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?board=18.0

[Milbo]

Well spoken jenkinhill, that should be a kind of sticky.

[AH]

Jason

Vm2 is really an e-commerce solution that uses the same name as VM but is built very differently!

The great news is, VM fits very well into core joomla 2.5. In order for that to take place VM had to change.

These changes make it easier for people to modify the views of their site without having to constantly modify core and developers can now create plugins to help achieve what used to be done through core hacks

Core hacking is NEVER a good strategy, whilst it "solved" the immediate issue - it also kept most people tethered to out of data and insecure versions of code.

This should not need to be the case with VM2.

You will have to read the literature and look at the new templating methods and how to do a joomla override but it will be, in my opinion, worth the effort, as VM2 has made great leaps forward and is continuing to do so.