What a miss !!!!!

[esperado]

Ok, virtuemart looks writen by an oister, but shipping procedures  is the worse !
Spended two days to hack this crazy code, with hundred of redondant SQLrequests, calculations done and redone again in so many files for something witch can be done in one and very few lines .
And when you have changed the calculation of shipping's charges in the shipping page, you have to do it again and again in all the followings pages ?
Oh my god.

Did the dev of this strange martian thing have any idea on how to manage $SESSION variables in order to do calcuations one time for all, instead of talking to the db again and again, asking always same questions ?
Did he had never a look to his 1000000000 querries to get or fix the captain's name ?
Did he never think on second before he begin to code thousend of uselless procedures and functions ?

Finaly, Virtuemart is the most expensive freeware i had never work on !

Nice conception sometimes, but the worse code and structure i had never seen in my life !!!!!
Never try to modify anything by yourself , oh, my god !!!

[TonyG]

What a load of waffle, what is your contribution to the open source community to criticise? The Developers of VirtueMart has been requesting for help, have you put your name down?. No one is forcing you to use VirtueMart, so if you haven’t got anything positive, or something constructive instead of moaning then I suggest you don’t say anything at all. 

[esperado]

have you put your name down?.

Look around this forum and you will get the answer.
But i will reconsider my proposal: Working on this is just a pain.  It is like to have to find somebody on his road from a door to the next door, then, you discover he had planned his travel to cross all the streets of the city.
This thing  need to be rewrited from scratch with a simple idea in mind: "simple is beautiful".
When you spend 8 hours to do a 10 minutes hack, you are allowed to be exhausted, don't you think ?
And to think: "helping on that ? Without me."

Yes, i know, it is free. Witch is a strange thing for a script dédicated to commercial activities, on my point of view.
Free can be expensive as i said.

[aravot]

The next version of VM is being written from scratch new code if you want to help now is the time.

[esperado]

The next version of VM is being written from scratch new code if you want to help now is the time.

Why not ?  (you know why i was so exhausted ;-)
Did you have somewhere a document with the planned structure, the  workflow ?
And did-you have enough code yet for i can see how i feel with ?
How many people are involved in the project and how did-you plan to split the work between devs ?
And how can-i join you without boring visitors around here ?
(Please, apologize for my poor English)

[esperado]

Typical. You offer your help to participate to the dev VM, and no answer, never. This time again, as every one can see.
It is not serious. So long, folks.

[aravot]

@esperado, please don't spread false info, I contacted you via PM send you the link for development portal.

Register for an account:
https://dev.virtuemart.net/cb/login.do

Apply to join the team
https://dev.virtuemart.net/cb/proj/tracker/submitNew.do?tracker_id=17

[esperado]

No pm from you, i assure you. If you can access to my PMs, you will see by yourself.
Reason why you do not had any answer from me.
Registered. What to do now ? I would like to talk with the project manager.

[El Fanjo]

@esperado, please don't spread false info, I contacted you via PM send you the link for development portal.

I applied too and never got any answer 

[aravot]

Joachim who is managing all inquiries is sick, I am sure as soon as he is better he will reply, in the meanwhile you are welcome to participate in the weekly meeting.

[VMone]

The next version of VM is being written from scratch new code if you want to help now is the time.

Just went to this thread because you moved the other post... And what you said here some time ago is obviously wrong. And what the poster refers to is reality. I now spent over 400 Euro and not just $$$ into some things to hack...And I need to spend maybe the same amount again for additional hacks. The case is, it is advertised as free, so one gets the misconception it is like Magento oder XTC or Freeway/OsCommerce but it ain't, it is a steady construction site also when the shop is "completed". Joomla 1.5 does not work with VM 1.0, also bad.

And what I think is the point, the whole VM Project is right now only perfect for all the freelancers out there that make some good money from the users that were thinking VM is a dime, as it is advertised as.

First you see it is free, than you spend the first dollars on some Joomla Club Membership as you see all the nice templates and the huge possibilities of the system. Than you also see there, the same with VM Support, it is only really really really good when you pay some freelancer again. It looks like VM is a project to lift up the freelancing market and nothing else.

And to continue with this, first you pay hard money for the design, as you think, "The money I save on the shop, I can better spend into design" and you work on it, than you see you need more modules, that also cost a lot again and different to other shops systems you get no support but a forum, which is sometimes okay and working good but with VM here, even some members push down post that were otherwise not even answered on, numerous posts that contains serious questions to solve basic issues a professional shop system offers by default, out of the box, desperately needed codes ones that are sooooo easy to implement by the developers and the freelancers, but as a person who just wants to run the shop, one has to pay someone again, for some 15 minutes work as he has the codes in his desk already and charges you a few hundred for being more supported by the VM Developers than the actual enduser.

So, as one already spent and spent, one has to continue as one does not want to waste the money already spent.

That it is free is not the topic any longer, AS IT IS NOT FOR FREE AT ALL but a very cost intensive system that does not offer the most simple features any other shop, also for free, offers.

Thank you, I'd like to see some more useful post by the people who are for the "community" and not the freelancers here who are the only ones who benefit from it and not to see useless post like:

New Hack by the developers to display the categories on the shop browse page. The code is useless, as those are not displayed inside every single article to navigate directly to the products category page but are placed on top of the search where people can get confused if this search was for that category shown there only or like in my case, like 100 categories are shown above the products before one sees any products and on top of that the code, implemented the right way, breaks the template in IE7...

Seriously, what is that?

There you should better have answered the numerous unanswered posts that asked for the code to display the child category products already in the parent category below the child cat links to not only have several empty cat pages before reaching the products sometime later...

Doing the workaround to copy and paste all the products of the cats into the parent cats also does not work for the professional users who thought this is a basic feature, as we get the data via CSV from our wholesalers and we get those every day again to update the shop where this procedure takes namely the whole night and to change the CSV is another thing we can't do. That does first not mean we are rich and shall afford the freelancer and second why shall we, this should be provided by the developers and not some comment like "this is how VM works and shall work", which is nonsense as it is a bug, an error, period.

Also, when talking about using CSV Import and lots of products...this must not mean "we shall have the money to pay freelancers just because we have a lot of products etc." it is about that those errors, bugs and tweaks are not provided by the developers on request, not by other users who may know it and only the freelancers benefit from it, no one else, not the developers, not the project, not the users, only the freelancers benefit from these horrible issues about VM.

Guys, we do not all work with 10-50 Products and this feature is implemented in all other shops including in JTL Shop, which looks like a VM that has been tuned and is now available for rent or purchase but does obviouly not offer the ways of Joomla and the CMS benefits it has.

Thanks, and remind, when I would not like VM, I would have used another system but this is the thing that must be stopped. Also to say, it would be part of the next VM does never solve the issue, you should provide the codes for that NOW as we CANNOT wait for the next version as BUSINESS IS NOT POSSIBLE THAT WAY AND VM IS A SHOP SYSTEM, not a funny Joomla Blog Component that are indeed more easy to work with, have better support and are mostly also free as free can be.

(After the hacks, what comes than, we hack all the codes to get the thing running as it should and when the next version comes, all the hacks and money spend was a waste as the files are replaced with new ones. Now, when the new features are still missing, you have to pay a freelancer again, just to write the same codes into the new version again...)

THINK ABOUT THAT, PLEASE!!!

Thanks....

[aravot]

The next version of VM is being written from scratch new code if you want to help now is the time.

Just went to this thread because you moved the other post... And what you said here some time ago is obviously wrong.

I don't know what thread you are talking about and what did I say that is wrong.

I now spent over 400 Euro and not just $$$ into some things to hack...And I need to spend maybe the same amount again for additional hacks. The case is, it is advertised as free, so one gets the misconception it is like Magento oder XTC or Freeway/OsCommerce but it ain't, it is a steady construction site also when the shop is "completed". Joomla 1.5 does not work with VM 1.0, also bad. And what I think is the point, the whole VM Project is right now only perfect for all the freelancers out there that make some good money from the users that were thinking VM is a dime, as it is advertised as.

One of the big myths about open source software is that being free is its chief value. The myth, of course, is in the meaning people ascribe to "free."

Every shopping cart has its pros and cons, you named Magento, it is a powerful and well written cart however they have financial backing of a company 'Varien' and slew of in house coders and designers who get paid to code (we code when we have spare time) by the way they charge for help.

OsCommerce, another good cart however search few job posting sites (freelancing sites) you will see many people having issues, and if you need additional extensions code hack in needed.
As why VM 1.0 does not work with Joomla 1.5 because of code change in both scripts.

First you see it is free, than you spend the first dollars on some Joomla Club Membership as you see all the nice templates and the huge possibilities of the system. Than you also see there, the same with VM Support, it is only really really really good when you pay some freelancer again. It looks like VM is a project to lift up the freelancing market and nothing else.

It is the same with any script, your example of Magento and OsCommerce if you want good templates you have to pay, most free templates are ok, everyone must eat and needs roof over head.

Thanks, and remind, when I would not like VM, I would have used another system but this is the thing that must be stopped. Also to say, it would be part of the next VM does never solve the issue, you should provide the codes for that NOW as we CANNOT wait for the next version as BUSINESS IS NOT POSSIBLE THAT WAY AND VM IS A SHOP SYSTEM, not a funny Joomla Blog Component that are indeed more easy to work with, have better support and are mostly also free as free can be. 

I CANNOT wait for people to STOP COMPLAINING and START HELPING, you said you had spent over 400 Euros  why don't you donate the code/fixes so we can add it to the core, if everyone did this progress will be faster.

[unleash.it]

One of the big myths about open source software is that being free is its chief value.

Absolutely. That's the beginning and the end of these types of arguments.

Well I'm a freelancer, which means I'm one of the bad guys I guess. But as someone who's been involved in the web design world almost since it began, here's my 2 cents.

I've watched as the WYSIWYG tools have developed for people who build sites since almost the beginning. First there was Netscape Composer and Adobe Pagemill. Very basic, but one could learn how to slap a basic site without having to code. Next came Dreamweaver which is still good for doing nice, but static web sites. Then came ideas like Paypal and various online shopping carts, which charge a monthly fee and severely limit your options on the look and feel. Finally, we now have open source software like Joomla and Virtuemart.

While the tools have gotten much better and improved the situation for non-techies, there have always been compromises and always will be for not taking the time to really learn the trade of web development.

Do you really think you have somehow been promised a professional, beautiful, customized to your hearts desire web application in just a few clicks? I've never seen that advertised on the Joomla, VM site or anywhere. The truth is, it takes a lot of human input...and TASTE...to attract people to come and buy things on your website. This human input actually takes quite a lot of time, as you've even mentioned from your experiences. Installing a VM and a template is a fraction of the work that needs to happen. It will always be that way, unless you are ACME.com and sell food in yellow cans with the label "food".

While there's room for VM to improve and make things yet easier, you might as well get used to hiring us. You might also try appreciating us (the freelancers and especially VM), because we are the key to your success...which will make YOU money in the end. Do you honestly think you can get something out of nothing??? The ancient trades of designers, artisans (now developers) and marketers are useless?

And 400 Euro? That's dirt cheap. Sick, dirt cheap... at least in any western country. For styling all your extensions/components to look good with your theme (no easy job!), optimizing your SEO, ensuring you're cross browser compatible, configuring shipping, authorize.net, extensions, server, everything, adding the needed hacks and taking meticulous notes so you can upgrade without going to hell, writing documentation so you don't blow up your site, you'd better have a much bigger budget than that, indeed. And Virtuemart is of course not alone for these requirements, this is universal.

Think about it. You're complaining about spending money, but just think of how much you would have had to spend 5 or 10 years ago to get the same web site. VM is saving you a ton of dinero! With that savings, you could donate to VM and complain less for the help you need that enables you to make far more money...

[esperado]

I agree devs of Virtuemart had done a hudge work. And this component is well designed as long you talk of features and integration.

I had done a lot of work on VM. I had my own STABLE version based on 1.015, W3C compliant and working on several sites with large customisation and addons for one year without problems and i offered to the team to share my work one year ago: No answer.

Well, i tried this 1.1 version, thinking the work to make templating easier was a good idea. But... as i said, dozens of bugs and code worse than ever.
Well, they do not want to share with other dev ? They do not care when some offer to collaborate ? They do not even read this forum witch is strange for an open source project ? No problem for me.
But, when they publish as "stable" an alpha version with changes dratics enough to need to change the letter of the version, i can't agree.

Or i continue with my branch of VM, or, and now i'm most in this way, consider to make an other store, like Magento, a component of Joomla.

So i wish you the best, and i have no doubt than, one day, Virtuemart will be a nice Joomla component. But not at this time, on my point of view. Not on a professional point of view.

[unleash.it]

I don't think anyone thinks Virtuemart is perfect. I certainly don't. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure this thing out. There's a lot to be desired...

But wait... I knew going in that this was an open source project. The developers don't receive a paycheck. So this is the trade off/risk we take. Now that 1.1 is stable, I am having far less problems. So in the end like I say, compared to the options that are here now, I'm very happy.

Esperado, if you'd really like to help... you're not really showing it with your rhetoric. For one thing, you accused Aravot of lying that he didn't send you a  PM. Did you ever think that maybe there was some kind of human/forum error? Not really a great way to reach out to the people you'd like to work with IMHO...

p.s. if you can manage a TRUE integration of Joomla/Magento...a lot of us are waiting! (even though I'm a designer and I dislike the theming system) Bridges have been tried, but to do it right (i.e. a true Joomla component, not in an iframe and with modules, menus, and plugin support), that's a lot of work, and may even have license implications.