What's going on with VM2

[antonitus]

What has happened to the lovely virtuemart?  I mean I love the new version, however I'm a little pissed about the Payment and Shipping Modules not being listed anymore compared to VM1.  Where the hell have they gone?  Also what pisses me off is that you now have to pay for some of these modules, which in my opinion is quite high for a small module.  VM1 at least had all of these as part of the package and it was free.   I know VM is free and we all thank developers for that, but it's the stealth prices I don't like.  Don't get me wrong I am more than happy to pay for extra modules, but at a lower cost as my budget is not all that.  Also I would pay for those modules found in VM1 to go into VM2 as a bundle.

Another thing I want to get off my chest is that this software as always focuses on the American market. VM is used worldwide, especially in the UK, so please write modules for the rest of the world, such as a decent UK shipping module, UK payment module, etc.

Overall thanks for new version and as always, much appreciation to the developers for their hard work.

Tony
P.S. I also find that this new version is quite broken in parts.

[PRO]

antonitus,

Do you think when 1.1 launched ALL the modules were already included?

NO, not at all.

People develop them, and allow them to be included into the core.

Vmart 2 is able to be extended very easily with payment, shipping, and custom field plugins.

Things will come with time

[Bruce Morgan]

BTP, I do not buy your argument.  When 1.1 was released it was complete for my needs and I was able to migrate my site in a day or less, a month or so after it was released.  I spent five days trying to do the same with 2.x and it is till a mess.  VM is still a developmenty p[roject and some of the biggest holes are not being filled.

Bruce

[jenkinhill]

Another thing I want to get off my chest is that this software as always focuses on the American market. VM is used worldwide, especially in the UK

Not really, as the VirtueMart developers are mainly mainland EU based, German, French and East European and this site is German "owned". So the VM2 cart system was set up to comply with the tough German/EU trading rules, too harsh (or even incomprehensibe) for the US users and the rest of us who like things simpler....

The inbuilt shipping plugin works just fine for me in the UK, as does PayPal. Other plugins are available, such as Sagepay, but as with VM1.1 when it started out, they are mainly being developed by 3rd parties and supplied at a small cost. If you are a VM site developer then you build those costs into your quote, and if you are making your own store with the intention of making money then you would expect to make some outlay to start with. 

It is only 3 months since VM2 was released "to the masses" who are installing it on all sorts of different Joomla & server setups, so we are still in a learning curve as to why it will not work in certain circumstances, and bugfixing/testing is going on 7 days a week.

[antonitus]

I fully understand now.  Like I said in my previous message, I am in no way dissing this new version, in fact I like it a lot and quite excited about using it (sad, I know).  I suppose this was a bit of an anti-climax as I was expecting a whole lot more plugins compared to VM1+. Now I know I just have to wait.  I also noticed that the folder structure within the component has completely changed.  Do you think that the developers could have made this backward compatible?  J2.5.2 have parts where you can make older J1.5 plugins work, of course not always the case. When J1.5 came out they had a plugin called 'legacy' which was an excellent feature to have for backward compatibility.  Learn from the Joomla experts VM developers. 

And another feature I was expecting was for a wishlist which is so important as all the major online shop players have this, as well as a plugin for "people who bought this, also bought that product" feature.

To jenkinhill, you say you use the inbuilt shipping module for UK shipping. Can you please tell me how you utilised this?  I use an excellent UK shipping module for V1.1.9 and it is so powerful and works a real treat, but unfortunately I cannot use it with VM2+ because of incompatibilities as mentioned above.  I have some basic knowledge of PHP, but I cannot figure out how to manipulate that VM1.1.9 script into VM2+.  Anyway that's for another topic.  Cheers.

[daviator]

It is only 3 months since VM2 was released "to the masses" ...

Three months is a long time to tell a client to wait for a working site.

[agrupe]

Hi folks,

=>
"So the VM2 cart system was set up to comply with the tough German/EU trading rules"

that's not correct. Even the simple "prices include tax plus shipping" is not included and requires a code-hack as the standard pricing-display in VM 2 is against German laws.

My experience after a very painful migration and some first tests is that the actual version is nothing compared to the smooth running, problemless and fully functional 1.1.9

No problem paying for extensions.

I have no chance but to accept the new version as my provider forces me to move to the actual Joomla core ;-(

Cheers

Andreas

[antonitus]

I suppose VM2 only came out recently and there will be some minor bugs and features to add. In that case we will have to wait.  In my opinion the VM2 control panel is much better and clearer than VM1.1.9.  Just bring back more shipping and payment methods, like those included in VM1.1.9, after all this is a core necessity.

[PRO]

that's not correct. Even the simple "prices include tax plus shipping" is not included and requires a code-hack as the standard pricing-display in VM 2 is against German laws.

explain this

explain what the law is, and what you are getting with your store.

[Bruce Morgan]

There are definitely some things to like.  Where they really blew it is basic functionality "right out of the box."  Newbies to VM will take one look, run like hell, and never come back.  I cannot care about any new or advanced functionality (or even security and stability) until I am able to duplicate my existing live site with VM2.x.  My site is relatively simple, and uses an almost standard VM theme and a few custom attributes along with parent/child relationships.  The things I most need to retain in a migration to 2.x are so complicated to configure it is an open question whether they actually work or not.

Rather than just complain, I have a few rather specific suggestions as follows:
1.  Focus on the custom attribules feature and make it simple to replicate what many users are presently usisng in 1.1.x.
2.  Fix the parent/child relationships and make is simple to use.  All of the other advanced custom features (fields) can wait since very few people use them anyway.
3.  Please make a VM "view" that is a clone for what users would have available for use in VM1.1.x.  Most user shops are based on this so it would help restore some of the basic "out of the box" functionality.
4.  Please reverse course and stop moving confiuration options from a back-end admin control panel into various php files.  I do not know php and neither do most shop owners.  Radio select buttons and drop down menu option in the back end make things a lot easier.  A good example of doing it the right way was to make the "ask a question about this product" a radio button slection option.

Any agreemnet out there?

Bruce

[PRO]

3.  Please make a VM "view" that is a clone for what users would have available for use in VM1.1.x.  Most user shops are based on this so it would help restore some of the basic "out of the box" functionality.

what you mean?

[Bruce Morgan]

My understanding is that the new Joomla (or VM?) uses views instead of themes.  What I would like to see are the files that comprised the old V M fefault theme translated to VM 2.x.  Same layout and configuration, styling, the whole ball of wax.  With VM2.x everything has been rearranged and it requires digging into php (and/or CSS) files to change this.  Is this clear?

The migration to J2.5 was relatively easy.  The migration to VM was much harder and the front end product fly pages and prduct detail pages look awful.  (If you could tell how to attach a screenshot I could sow you)

Bruce

[PRO]

My understanding is that the new Joomla (or VM?) uses views instead of themes.  What I would like to see are the files that comprised the old V M fefault theme translated to VM 2.x.  Same layout and configuration, styling, the whole ball of wax.  With VM2.x everything has been rearranged and it requires digging into php (and/or CSS) files to change this.  Is this clear?

The migration to J2.5 was relatively easy.  The migration to VM was much harder and the front end product fly pages and prduct detail pages look awful.  (If you could tell how to attach a screenshot I could sow you)

Bruce

thats not going to happen.

1.1 was NOT good looking at all.

BUT: if you know css , and html. You do not have to know php.

Just create your layout,. and copy and paste the code from here
http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=92756.0

Into the <divs> you want

[agrupe]

that's not correct. Even the simple "prices include tax plus shipping" is not included and requires a code-hack as the standard pricing-display in VM 2 is against German laws.

explain this

explain what the law is, and what you are getting with your store.

Hi,

the law says, you have to show the customer if shipping costs are included or not and there has to be a link to the page, where you show your shipping costs. This information has to be as close as possible to the productprice. This is necessary for the category page and in the product details.

All of this is not implemented in the actual version of VM.

Here is a link for all German VM users to fix this. But you still have to add the link which is not posted in this thread.
http://virtuemart.de/forum/index.php?f=27&t=2228&rb_v=viewtopic

Cheers

Andreas

[Milbo]

You are right, there is another thing also missing. But both are very easy todo with a template. I mean we could add it and the others must delete it per template override. In the other case when we also add it to the configuration, it blows up very fast and makes it also very hard to use it.

I admit, virtuemart 2 is done for people who are fine with buying a template or know how to use a bit css and html and to adjust a free template to their needs. Be aware that the html and css you need is teached already in school to the 14 year olds.

For example I know that the yagendoo people fix your issues by template. You can also fix it yourself using a custom with a fixed text. Then you can even remove it when the shipment is free (example downloadable).