Not impressed really.

this is a response to the "JOURNAL Theme Users, read this first, before posting at this Forum" post.

I find the attitude a bit off really. I for one hired a professional developer via the "OpenCart Partners" section of this very site, to build a new shop a while back.

Their choice was to base it on Journal Theme, and in my ignorance of the now obvious politics, I accepted the build. Why wouldn't I, they are "Opencart Partners", they recommend this. Within the build and subsequent mods since there have been paid for add-ons from marketplace, so I am now quite heavily invested in Opencart.

But I'm now faced with the prospect of not even being able to ask other Journal users who may be in the same situation as me, through the one forum that has the following that might have the knowledge, for that help.

Nobody is obliged to answer any post on here, but I do feel Opencart could at least allow a section for "us Lepers" that may have been inflicted with this theme by one of your Partners, to discuss our scabs.

sooty wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 18, 2021 3:44 am

I find the attitude a bit off really. I for one hired a professional developer via the "OpenCart Partners" section of this very site, to build a new shop a while back.

Who were they out of interest?

sooty wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 18, 2021 3:44 am

Their choice was to base it on Journal Theme, and in my ignorance of the now obvious politics, I accepted the build. Why wouldn't I, they are "Opencart Partners", they recommend this. Within the build and subsequent mods since there have been paid for add-ons from marketplace, so I am now quite heavily invested in Opencart.

Sounds reasonable to go with their suggestion.

sooty wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 18, 2021 3:44 am

But I'm now faced with the prospect of not even being able to ask other Journal users who may be in the same situation as me, through the one forum that has the following that might have the knowledge, for that help.

We don't want the forum full of posts about a system that is not OpenCart. Journal is so big and overwrites so much core functionality that it's like a different platform. And we need to warn others not to make the same mistake. You can get plenty of help here though: https://support.journal-theme.com/

sooty wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 18, 2021 3:44 am

Nobody is obliged to answer any post on here, but I do feel Opencart could at least allow a section for "us Lepers" that may have been inflicted with this theme by one of your Partners, to discuss our scabs.

As above, it's not really the place. Journal is a whole different system and it will only encourage others to use it and then end up with a good looking but slow and bloated site that doesn't work with most of the extensions in the OC community.

Why not just switch to a standards compliant theme?

paulfeakins wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 18, 2021 5:36 pm

Hi Paul and thank you for responding, the irony is, you were the other company that quoted! Sorry! Looks like we both lost out.

I'll PM who the other party is rather than post it publicly.

As for doing another big rebuild of the site, I'm not sure I'm up for the cost, hassle and time again just yet. A significant chunk of the time/cost last time went into transferring a V1.4/1.5 database onto a V2.3 install. Haven't even looked into what is involved in migrating to V3.

Maybe the way forward would be to ban any partners that resell Journal and also get an EU wide trademark on "Opencart" to stop Journal using the the name.

I've fixed the immediate issue I had with Journal, oddly enough by buying a Journal specific extension from Marketplace!

I agree with Paul. Get a standards compliant theme. Or, as I do, try and use the default theme wherever possible as the basis for your design.

I agree some folks on here are quick to say "Not supported" on many issues, and move on which in my opinion can push OC users away. But since Journal is a beast of its own it might be fair to go to them for support first. On the plus side I have seen some websites that look impressive using Journal it is sort of sad it is so "different from the core".
Maybe the "please look to Journal support first" might be a better response to people asking Journal questions.

Mike

Cue4cheap wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 18, 2021 9:35 pm

I agree some folks on here are quick to say "Not supported" on many issues, and move on which in my opinion can push OC users away. But since Journal is a beast of its own it might be fair to go to them for support first. On the plus side I have seen some websites that look impressive using Journal it is sort of sad it is so "different from the core".
Maybe the "please look to Journal support first" might be a better response to people asking Journal questions.

Mike

That road was already taken prior to the "not supported" replies.

Opencart is good for what it is, an open-source ecommerce base CMS. That said; neither Opencart, nor Journal are dev friendly or production ready enough for non-standard ecommerce projects and this stands for the majority of CMS and extensions out there. Your partner is responsible for filling in the gaps, fixing bugs and applying custom modifications to the platforms he suggested and you paid for.

I ran a web development business and use Opencart 2.3 + Journal for my ecommerce clients for the past 4 years. I have modified both to the point I can no longer request any type of support, heck I need to mod any new extension I want to add for it to be compatible. Imagine, I pay for software and then spend time to fix them, even paid extra to decrypt a few (ionCube) in order to do that.

My point is you need to find a partner with the technical experience to fix/add whatever feature themselves, If your partner needs dev support it is their problem, not yours. Also, always demand an SLA. Having no contract means your partner has no obligation to fix anything. It's like sailing on a boat with a captain you don't trust and he can leave you in the middle of the ocean any time he feels like it.

P.S. The above stands for any business software, not just opencart or cms in general.
P.S.2. This is not an adv, it is not my intend and I will not respond to anyone asking me for paid support or development services.