Good functionality but constantly breaking

  • will1983

    (@will1983)


    5 years, 4 months ago

    Functionality is probably the most you can find in a plugin, but the plug in is constantly breaking. Over the last year, I’ve had my maps critically broken three times, and functionally broken many more times just from updates. I could and should have just ignored those updates but some of them contained performance/security updates. Sometimes they are fast to fix the bugs, sometimes it takes days. And if you want to fix the code yourself, good luck – the code is a mess.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • perryrylance

    (@perryrylance)

    5 years, 4 months ago

    Hi @will1983

    Thank you for your feedback, sorry to hear you have had this experience with our software.

    We have indeed had to put out two security patches this year, if you don’t wish to update so frequently, you can safely ignore any Medium or Low priority updates, provided that you’re not experiencing any symptoms.

    We will fix any and all bugs, usually within 48 hours of being made aware of them, if you do encounter any issues then we would urge you to get in touch with us either here, or on our support desk, we endeavour to respond to any support requests within two hours and can almost always provide a fix immediately ahead of the fix being patched in and released.

    We do understand that it’s inconvenient on your behalf to do so, but we do genuinely appreciate any time taken to bring such issues to our attention so that we can continue constantly improving the software.

    With regards to the code, we take software architecture and design principles very, very seriously. We are making an incremental paradigm shift towards fully modular, object oriented code, full separation of content, logic and presentation, allowing externally customisable behaviour through a comprehensive set of events and hooks.

    We are also breaking everything down into atomic functions, and moving everything away from the global scope, so that we can run proper unit testing on the code and avoid issues by using unit testing technology.

    As of version 7.0.*, there is full developer documentation available for anyone wishing to work on, utilise or extend from the plugin available on our site.

    Unfortunately during this refactoring process a few issues have indeed come up. We do, of course, rigorously test the software before it goes to release and would never knowingly release breaking software, however with some 300+ setting, many of which interact with each other in a magnitude of different possible combinations, it’s not currently practical for us to test literally every single combination of settings the plugin can be put into, not to mention the plethora of possible server configurations including the web stack itself, and 3rd party software.

    We test all the major features before releasing *any* updates, and we are very conscious of writing in such a way that supports not only legacy versions of WordPress, but also PHP, and outlying and old browsers.

    As we continue with our refactor, I can give you a cast iron promise that issues and updates themselves will become less frequent moving forward due to the hurdles we are overcoming on an ongoing basis.

    If you do need any help, you are through to the Lead Developer on this project, you are more than welcomed to open a direct channel of communication with me through e-mail if that would help us restore confident in our software.

    If you have any suggestions, or there is anything else we can do to make things right with you, please do let us know, we would gladly receive any further feedback or correspondence from yourself.

    I hope that helps?

    Kind regards
    – Perry

    Thread Starter will1983

    (@will1983)

    5 years, 4 months ago

    Hi Perry,

    Thanks for your response. I am aware of the challenges you face with it being a WordPress plugin – it’s not easy. I appreciate the work that you’ve done – it’s certainly the most comprehensive map plugin I’ve found.

    That said, I still think QA could be improved. The plugin has broken twice over the last month. Just this week, I’ve been stuck with a broken plugin for the last 4 days – unable to edit my maps. For someone who relies heavily on maps for their website, having broken maps for 4+ days is unacceptable.

    • This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by will1983.
    perryrylance

    (@perryrylance)

    5 years, 4 months ago

    Hi @will1983

    As I’m sure you know we’ve just put out a new major release in the last month and as such I’m afraid some issues have come up. We had a team of testers carry out three hundred different tests ahead of the release going out, We would never put out a release with known issues with core functionality such as marker editing, all these tests passed during the run up to our v8 release. Unfortunately we can’t anticipate every single issue that might come up once you add different WordPress configurations, 3rd party software, and a myriad of different web stacks into the mix.

    I’m afraid a few issues have come up, as the Lead Developer on this project all I can do is beg your pardon on this, and ask that if you do have any issues you could please reach out to us, you can reach me personally on perry@codecabin.co.za or open a ticket. I’m genuinely sorry that you’ve encountered these issues.

    I’ll pass your comment regarding QA along to our CEO.

    Thank you again for your feedback, we do appreciate it, if there’s anything at all we can do to make things right, or you need anything else at all, please do let us know.

    Kind regards
    – Perry

    • This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by perryrylance.
    • This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by perryrylance.
Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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