very confusing

[Steve]

so far, altho vivvo cms has practically unlimited power, and i believe that you can customize the application anyway you want, BUT figuring out how to customizing things is a bit confusing. there is little CLEAR documentation on many basic things. You can find out how to make a simple customization by checking forums, how to's, tutorials- knowledge base, throw in a few tickets and a couple hours experimenting, and youve got ONE aspect figured out. I have now spent 2 full days trying to customize ANY template, the one I purchased 4023 needs so much customization to get it set up the way I want that I scrapped that in favor for the default template, which is a little better organized....

ok- one thing, spent 30 minutes trying to figure out how to make language packs work with the site... its easy to install and go into admin and change language, but WHERE or WHERE does the web visitor, select between languages? There should be a "choose language "drop down.... there probably is, just cant find it among the myriads of templates

ANY ONE HAVE AN IDEA ON THIS? ( multiple language use)

[casca]

so far, altho vivvo cms has practically unlimited power, and i believe that you can customize the application anyway you want, BUT figuring out how to customizing things is a bit confusing. there is little CLEAR documentation on many basic things. You can find out how to make a simple customization by checking forums, how to's, tutorials- knowledge base, throw in a few tickets and a couple hours experimenting, and youve got ONE aspect figured out. I have now spent 2 full days trying to customize ANY template, the one I purchased 4023 needs so much customization to get it set up the way I want that I scrapped that in favor for the default template, which is a little better organized....

ok- one thing, spent 30 minutes trying to figure out how to make language packs work with the site... its easy to install and go into admin and change language, but WHERE or WHERE does the web visitor, select between languages? There should be a "choose language "drop down.... there probably is, just cant find it among the myriads of templates

ANY ONE HAVE AN IDEA ON THIS? ( multiple language use)

I never used it, I assumed that the /lang directory is where you want to have your multiple language.php files (english.php arabic.php etc...) then you'd have to go into your templates and add the code for th at...

so a drop down with selection, and save it to a variable/cookie/whatever... then do some <vte:if language='arabic' use this and so on... tests..

But I have no idea how that would be done... There is a developers section on the main www.vivvo.net website which has a full listing of the VTE language, each command, each variable, what it does, and so on... (kind of like the old Borland C++ Bible is laid out).

It's pretty helpful, it gives you the direction you want to go in, sometimes you need help with syntax and you ask a question in the forum "I'm trying to do this command to achieve this task and it isn't working what am I doing wrong" and you'll get some answers.

Or you can post a trouble ticket with the verbiage. Again you'll be much better off with the dev license as you can get access to the developers forums (which is what you really are) (I haven't asked to be accessed so I cant' speak intelligently about them). I'm sure those folks in there know a lot more than the avg users out here. I'll probably get around to asking for access shortly as I'm learning more and more every day.

[Steve]

Its amazing what a few hours will do to your outlook on life. Since posting the last message, I have learned to do several things, and I THINK I have a very good knowledge of how to move things around on the template layouts. As I expected, the banner module is absolutley perfect for our clients needs ( as we are a web design company ) and one thing I must say now, is that so far, the plugins are an absolute delight to work with, their installation is almost too easy! and the admin interface, overall, is extremely well laid out and intuitive. A+ so far for the admin area.

I am actually starting to enjoy myself with this application, and uncovering little gems the more I look.

If I could only figure out how to offer viewer selectable languages!!

Thanks for your help all weekend by the way....

[boccio]

I'm really glad you like Vivvo :)

I would appreciate if you could point out what kind of resources would be more helpful in initial stages of discovering Vivvo from perspective of a company offering design services.

From my point of view, Vivvo is not so bad when it comes to docs&manuals, but you obviously do not share my opinion :)

Regarding multi-languages in Vivvo, there's a nice how-to here:
http://www.vivvo.net/resources/how-to/135.html

Also, check developer documentation on templates, VTE and some basic primers in manipulating article lists (box_article_list module, one that is used most):
http://wiki.vivvo.net/devdoc/templates
http://wiki.vivvo.net/devdoc/css
http://wiki.vivvo.net/devdoc/vte/getting_started

[casca]

I'm really glad you like Vivvo :)

I would appreciate if you could point out what kind of resources would be more helpful in initial stages of discovering Vivvo from perspective of a company offering design services.

From my point of view, Vivvo is not so bad when it comes to docs&manuals, but you obviously do not share my opinion :)

Regarding multi-languages in Vivvo, there's a nice how-to here:
http://www.vivvo.net/resources/how-to/135.html

Also, check developer documentation on templates, VTE and some basic primers in manipulating article lists (box_article_list module, one that is used most):
http://wiki.vivvo.net/devdoc/templates
http://wiki.vivvo.net/devdoc/css
http://wiki.vivvo.net/devdoc/vte/getting_started

There are a few things that could be done Boccio, first you get a really hot chick to do videos of how you do things.... oh wait... no that's not it.... err well people would FIND the stuff a lot faster then I'm pretty sure of that!

One thing that would be really neat is a big batman logo button on the site. It shows on offpeak hours (after hours m-f and on weekends). It lets people CLICK it, then it goes to paypal and tells them to pay the minimum weekend rate and leave a phone number or icq/msn whatever... (Phone shouldn't be too bad if you use VOIP)

Then someone from your team (who you pick because you like them so much) is on "call" and they have to call the person within say...an hour and come to the rescue. The rescue project is discussed, a price is agreed on (because various rescues take longer than others) the customer pays, and bam it gets fixed or they die trying.

I for one would really feel a lot better if there was a batman button. I don't know that I'd ever push it, but if there was an issue I thought I needed to get fixed right then and there, I know for a fact I wouldn't hesitate.

[Steve]

Seroiusly, although THERE IS ample documentation, its all over the place... take the example of setting up multiple languages ( you sent me the how to link in last post) I looked and looked and coudnt find that info yesterday- what if it were turned into wiki doc or added to knowledge base or, do I dare say, added to a complete user guide.

Advice- I have been purchasing software for web development for 14 years- just did our income taxes for 2008 this week, and Schedule C part 5 my bookeeper has listed that our company spent $12,055.00 on software licenses last year ( just looked it up)
90% of the software developers we purchased from dont have a quality user guide for their product. In fact, we are an ASP for a shopping cart software developer, and we had to write our own manual for our ecommerce clients to use- developers user guide is still ' coming soon' ( after 5 years)

This is a big problem with software developers... always has been. You would sell more software and have 50% fewer support tickets with a good, well written software manual.

Now you do have a user guide, but it is not complete, its more like a 'getting started guide' than a software manual. Round up all of your documentation, and take the time from working on the 'next release' ( oh oh, now i'm in trouble)to build a quality manual. it will pay dividends later

So far your software compares favoribly with Interspires WebPublisher5, I think you actually may have more 'real world' features than they do.... but i havent found them all yet.... boy would a detailed manual help.

Interspires User guide is 264 pages, and counting, the product has only been out since January. Some of their older release applications have user guides over 400 pages long. AND THEY HAVE VIDEO TUTORIALS,( no sexy girls on videos, sorry Casca) and a private label guide for resellers and developers.

This is how you improve your product- follow their course, they are one of our industries leaders in software documentation.

I have seen PHP COW refugees on this forum, we also tried that software a few years ago....they made the same mistake... they provided a really sexy cool product at a reasonable price, but neglected to tell anyone how to use it. ( ok, so what if the software didnt really work anyway )

ok, catch my breathe---- more later

[casca]

lol you are right, the documentation is sparse. If they had very detailed piece by piece docs it would be amazing. As to the phpcow yah system looks nice, doesn't work, support sucks and they lied to me so many times. I'm one of those transplants :)

[boccio]

There are a few things that could be done Boccio, first you get a really hot chick to do videos of how you do things.... oh wait... no that's not it.... err well people would FIND the stuff a lot faster then I'm pretty sure of that!

Seroiusly, although THERE IS ample documentation, its all over the place... take the example of setting up multiple languages ( you sent me the how to link in last post) I looked and looked and coudnt find that info yesterday- what if it were turned into wiki doc or added to knowledge base or, do I dare say, added to a complete user guide.

You are both right. We're doing a major overhaul of our Download/Resource center and once we're done it will be much more comprehensive and intuitive. It will also contain whole lot of more articles, case studies and white papers on using Vivvo to your benefit. Of course, this takes a bit time and we're always stressed out between developing new sexy stuff, and boooooring paperwork for something we already did and is not so sexy anymore :D


One thing that would be really neat is a big batman logo button on the site. It shows on offpeak hours (after hours m-f and on weekends). It lets people CLICK it, then it goes to paypal and tells them to pay the minimum weekend rate and leave a phone number or icq/msn whatever... (Phone shouldn't be too bad if you use VOIP)

Emergency support/response is also something I've been thinking about for a long time. Sadly, I never finalized concept for this (I definitely need to do a plastic surgery and replace my Core2Duo with Core2Extreme). One thing is for sure, we will definitely offer this service in near future.


So far your software compares favoribly with Interspires WebPublisher5, I think you actually may have more 'real world' features than they do.... but i havent found them all yet.... boy would a detailed manual help.
Isn't it much sweeter and adventurous when you find out something for yourself :D

Just kidding, of course. Thanks for the valuable input, just know that we are working on much comprehensive docs.