Not as fanastic as it makes out

  • StanLight

    (@stanlight)


    4 years, 4 months ago

    It’s not half as good as the fancy sales pages claim.

    It’s functional, yes, but once installed I found it clunky and most unintuitive. But the worst part was the terrible documentation!

    Don’t get me wrong, there’s documentation, there’s plenty of it, but it’s rubbish. They seem to assume everyone is a developer. It would be good if they started off explaining what is a “listings page”, “directory page” etc etc. Some of those names may seem obvious to some, but several terms they use are specific to how THEY have designed their software.

    They also launch into use of abbreviations and terms like CPT.

    WTF is CPT? I’ve worked out it’s Custom Post Types, but I’ve been running WordPress sites for 10 years and have never used CPT. So don’t assume I know everything there is to know about CPT and custom fields etc!

    The documentation is badly designed. It’s written by native speakers, I’ll give them that. But it’s obvious it was written by developers, not normal people!

    Go to the setup guide and on Page A you’re told that to understand it you need to read page B where you are told that to understand page B you need to read page C and on page C you are told…. you get the picture.

    There is no simple overview for the user introducing them to the various bits and pieces, where the controls are etc. They would like to think they’ve got an overview in their documentation but, like I mentioned above, it’s from a developer’s point of view, certainly not mine.

    Actually, maybe it IS still in beta. In the WordPress admin panel when you go through the settings for this plugin, there’s a tick box to enable beta. And on their setup documentation they say you need to enable this. Then why call it V2? Shouldn’t the name be V2 Beta?

    There are numerous little annoyances I found along the way. For example, in the add new listings page, the first line of the address is a required field but the frigging zip code / post code isn’t a required field! And there’s no option to make it required or not required (the tick box they do provide for making address Required ….relates to the entire address and not individual fields within the address)

    These things should have been sorted out a long time ago and certainly before coming to what they now call version 2.

    I’ve disabled GD and am now trying the Business Directory. Whether that’s better or not I can’t say at this stage.

    • This topic was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by StanLight.
Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Plugin Author Stiofan

    (@stiofansisland)

    4 years, 4 months ago

    Hi @stanlight,

    Firstly thank you for the feedback and the positive points you made.

    I am sorry to hear our documentation did not meet your standards.

    Just to clarify a few points above;

    1. Though we do explain early on what things like a “CPT” are if jumping into a docs page i can see how that could be an issue, as such i have made all the terms you mention have hover explanations throughout our documentation now.

    2. “it was written by developers, not normal people”, this is not actually true, developers ARE normal people 😉 and the docs were not written by devs.

    3. GDv2 is not in beta, far from it, the beta checkbox simply allows us to provide auto updates for GDv1 and GDv2 at the same time, when we released GDv2 we committed to keeping support and (security) updates for GDv1 for over a year.

    4. Zip code not required, this is usually auto filled when you set the address or move the marker on the map. There are several countries around the world that do no use post/zip codes. They are in no way used on the site apart from address display, even a zip code search is done via GPS so a missing zip code will not matter.

    Good luck with your directory project and feel free to come back to us at any time.

    Kind Regards,

    Stiofan O’Connor

    Thread Starter StanLight

    (@stanlight)

    4 years, 4 months ago

    Stiofan, OK, developers are normal people, I’ll give you that. Some of them at least. I have no doubt you put a lot of effort into your documentation, but I struggled with it.

    Do you know that your setup guide is a blank page?
    https://wpgeodirectory.com/docs-v2/geodirectory/getting-started/setup-guide/

    I love the question on that page: “Was this helpful to you? Yes / No”

    I’ve only today discovered your V1 documentation: https://wpgeodirectory.com/docs/basic-installation/

    If your V2 was even half as good we wouldn’t be having this conversation today and I wouldn’t be trying a different plugin.

    Plugin Author Stiofan

    (@stiofansisland)

    4 years, 4 months ago

    Point taken (that post should have been in draft)…

    The good news is that we are about to overhaul the v2 docs site, i hope we will be able to tempt you back then.

    Thanks,

    Stiofan

    Thread Starter StanLight

    (@stanlight)

    4 years, 4 months ago

    At least you’re receptive and take action. I notice that the blank page you had for your setup guide is now showing a 404.

    Tip: If you really do want to improve your docs, sack whoever wrote the V2 documentation and get someone who writes technical guides for a living. There’s a HUGE difference in usability (even if you don’t recognise it yourself) between what you’ve got and what a professional would put together.

    Your customers will thank you.

    And for goodness sake, give your customers control over some more things. For example, not everybody is American or running an international directory involving listings from countries that don’t have zip / post codes. My directory is going to be a UK only directory and I want every listing to have a post code. Yet you don’t provide me the simple option of making the post code field a required field! That’s screwed up.

    But good luck. And when I make my next directory I’ll check you out to see if your documentation is any better than the confusing mess you’ve got now.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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