RiesNL
Posts: 8
|
| Posted: 01/23/2009, 12:43 PM |
|
I use CCS for a couple of years now and I am reasonably happy with the total product. I think I can be even more happy if I know what I can do more with it.
I see new items added to CCS, like new functions, tools and controls. Sometimes I try some of them out but I struggle due the lack of time to really see what I can do with them. Maybe my time is spent on additional programming whilst I could use one of the new tools which could spare me some time.
Today I was searching for a specific feature, trying to solve some way to update a couple of items in a simple record. I was thinking to use Ajax and I searched in the available docs and examples.
As happy as I am about the (usual) stability of CCS and the real time saving tools and functions that I use, as disappointed I am about the availability of actual manuals, documents, examples and explanations of the more recent changes and additions.
I know that CCS has some great new things added the last 1 - two years, but I still don't use them (or just maybe a few, barely) due the lack of good explanation and documentation or, moreover for knowing how and when you can use such a tool, examples.
So please tell me that I am looking at the wrong places and direct me to the recent docs and examples, else I urge the CCS team at YesSoftware to update them A.S.A.P.!
Thanks,
Richard
|
 |
 |
JimmyCrackedCorn
Posts: 583
|
| Posted: 01/23/2009, 2:11 PM |
|
I share your frustration about the documentation and have shared this view with Yes several times as well as here on the forum.
http://forums.yessoftware.com/posts.php?post_id=94774&s_keyword=
In my opinion this otherwise AWESOME product is seriously lacking due to poor documentation.
When I first became a CCS user (3.0) the docs seemed pretty good. But since then they seem to have just "tacked on" bits and pieces to document new features. You basically get version 3.0 docs with a bit of 3.1, 3.2, and 4.x features tucked in here and there. Version 4.0 should have warranted a complete rewrite!
_________________
Walter Kempees...you are dearly missed. |
|
|
|
Vasiliy
Posts: 378
|
| Posted: 01/23/2009, 10:32 PM |
|
Besides docs I noticed that Yes almost stopped monitoring this forum, not like 2-3 years ago.
Any questions we have, we mostly on our own.
If I send a question to support, it can hang in open status forever and if you don't remember QuestionID given to you by Yes, there is no way to pull historical questions.
_________________
Vasiliy |
|
|
|
davidwoo
Posts: 53
|
| Posted: 01/24/2009, 6:26 AM |
|
That's why I am still hold on to upgrade to version 4 (still using version 3). 
|
|
|
|
E43509
Posts: 283
|
| Posted: 01/24/2009, 6:49 AM |
|
I'm also seeing a disturbing trend in yes support. I was very pleased with their response time initially and I noticed in the past year, I have open tickets that linger and I have to continually prod to get even a response that 'we are looking at it'.
I think it may be time to abandon ship on this software and find another.
|
|
|
|
Oper
Posts: 1195
|
| Posted: 01/24/2009, 8:08 AM |
|
Totally Agree.
i have been working with this software around 6 year. at this very moment i only use the DOC whne i forget some parameters or function name etc.
but have said this so many time if yes have some documentation and easy how to etc. they will sale more.
people get scared about CCS thiniking sometime its a useless soft and they go back to VS from MS.
last year one customer tryed few time the Trials but they said its too dificult the design., last year we teach then and almost right away the Director Autorized 2 License. they are very happy with CCS
i commented about CCS to a Friend and Last Month he give up on CCS Using Trials,
basicly planing to go back to VS, he went to the office for about 2 Weeks Only, and he decided
to bought CCS and planing to never go back to VS. he is happy fast Designer in only 1-2Month.
Documentation on CCS i more like a Manual not a Teaching Documentation.
not for Begginer, there are a lot of thing you can do that are not even writed on the manual
Dinamic Include, Alternate HTML Template in same Page, Dynamic Function in String to Open Database. etc
Yes need to hire someone just for the forum Help, maybe a section just for People with License.
"i bet they will increase happinest and $$$" maybe not, just my point of view.
E43509,
About Support Ticket,
i always get answer from them and i mean "ALWAYS"
_________________
____________________________
http://www.7bz.com (Free CMS,CRM Developed in CCS)
http://www.PremiumWebTemplate.com
Affiliation Web Site Templates
Please do backup first |
|
|
|
E43509
Posts: 283
|
| Posted: 01/24/2009, 11:35 AM |
|
In the recent past (still have a couple of tickets open with them), I get an answer, the answer I get is:
Quote :Hello, I'm passing it to our developers for closer analysis. We'll contact you as soon as we get their answer.
And some times I have to ping them again after a few days to even get that response.
Just my recent experience which is completely contrrary to what I had received in previous years. Previously, I'd get a patch in a few days. Now I still don't get a working fix for weeks.
Ughh
Love the product but getting discouraged.
|
|
|
|
Stanj
Posts: 166
|
| Posted: 01/24/2009, 12:50 PM |
|
Richard
If you have specific functions or features you need help with, the forum has a lot of accumulated experience to draw from. Some of the AJAX features are are well documented libraries such as Yahoo.
YesSoftware has always reminded us that this forum is not a Customer Service or Tech Support forum, it is for us to chat and share experiences and ask/answer questions to and from other members.
The few times I have contacted support, the responses have been fast. I've never had a major issue however after starting with CodeCharge 1.0 at the beginning and updating all along. The functionality and reliability is better than ever and I use it almost everyday with no problems.
All that being said, it would be nice to have the Wiki Peter was suggesting was just around the corner go on line. That way some of that accumulated expertise could be gathered in one spot and evolve.
There really is nothing as effective and as easy to use as CCS so I am not sure where someone would go as an alternative or one that had more suitable documentation, The next big thing is frequently announced and creates a buzz but generally they fizzle out. CC and CCS date back a long time as development tools go and have kept current.
_________________
Stan
St Petersburg Russia |
|
|
|
JayEdgar
Posts: 77
|
| Posted: 01/25/2009, 5:05 AM |
|
I share your experiences of frustration with the documentation. We hit several common brick walls in our coding that require us to change CCS-created code, which is, of course, a pain in the rump when upgrading to a new version (strip out custom code, republish, put code back in).
I heard whispers of this wiki before. Where is it? I put some documentation in my own wiki (cuz I have a short memory). It seems like a wiki would be a brilliant move, as many of us would be happy to update it--basically do Yes's job for them.
*sigh*
|
|
|
|
joejac
Posts: 242
|
| Posted: 01/25/2009, 9:23 AM |
|
Hello,
First, support always have answered my questions, I am happy with them.
It is right, documentation is not up to date, but I understand the tremendous effort CCS is doing in providing this type of tool.
For me is even more difficult, because I am neither a native English person nor a programmer, to solve this I am thinking to fly to Spain in the future and take a CCS crash course with one of their distributors in Spain.
So I would suggest to request any requirement/help in this forum, call support, and wait with patience until they come up with an undated CCS4 documentation.
I want to thanks a lot all the kind experienced programmers for their contribution to this forum 
Best regards
joejac
|
|
|
|
Vasiliy
Posts: 378
|
| Posted: 01/25/2009, 12:25 PM |
|
Stan,
I'll be a little straight, sorry in advance.
I like your idea about wiki, but for small communities, like Yes/CCS users, it is not realistic.
The knowledge exchange solution for Yes/CCS, IMO, should have minimum or 0 efforts from users.
We have several examples that proove this statement (datadoit with his magazine, video-tutorials).
Forum, IMO, is the most logical and efficient way.
I search in forums for professional answers because this is the first place where the answer appears.
If somebody wants to take time and copy good answers to wiki - perfect.
I don't see any logic when Yes ignores posting answers in forum.
Why would they privately answer questions that mostly re-asked by several users?
_________________
Vasiliy |
|
|
|
RiesNL
Posts: 8
|
| Posted: 02/09/2009, 4:58 PM |
|
First of all: thanks for everyone who replied to my message and also for offering help! That's much appreciated.
Secondly I had hoped that my post had some effect to the guys of YesSoftware. I even had some hope (real silently) that they would react on it, but that was probably wasted hope.
The current PDF manuals are at least a year old and even those were not up to date to all possibilities at that moment.
I will keep browsing this forum, when I really in need of some explanation for some feature I don't understand, but the worst thing is, from my point of view, that I really not use CCS to the best possible limits.
Regretfully I have too lesser time to commit myself to answer some of the questions put on this forum but I will when my current (mega) project is finally finished (after more than one-and-a-half year).
Again, thanks to you folks out there who do invest the time to help others!
Richard
|
|
|
|
peterr
Posts: 5971
|
| Posted: 02/10/2009, 2:50 PM |
|
Richard,
Unfortunately I could not find even one of your comments sent by you and discussed with our company or support. Therefore I didn't understand why are you posting messages on user forums meant for "users to exchange information" and hope for reaction from YesSoftware. If you do have comments that you want YesSoftware to read then please do send them to the company.
Thank you
_________________
Peter R.
YesSoftware Forums Moderator
For product support please visit http://support.yessoftware.com |
|
|
|
peterr
Posts: 5971
|
| Posted: 02/10/2009, 4:00 PM |
|
Quote Vasiliy:Why would they privately answer questions that mostly re-asked by several users?
Questions asked by several users are probably already answered on the forums. Actually I often found myself repeating the same answers on the forums, sometimes simply pointing to documentation, examples, and previous forum posts. And I see that most people do not use the forums but are just using the product, mainly contacting our support for help with individual problems. While some users have such individual approach that no amount of forum posts and documents will help them. For example some people ask questions about our examples in so many different ways that there is no amount of description that can help, without individually trying to understand what they don't understand, what is their experience level, and asking to see what they've done so far. Often it turns out to be just a missed step that was documented, while others are able to dissect our examples even without any documents.
_________________
Peter R.
YesSoftware Forums Moderator
For product support please visit http://support.yessoftware.com |
|
|
|
RiesNL
Posts: 8
|
| Posted: 02/10/2009, 4:39 PM |
|
Quote peterr:If you do have comments that you want YesSoftware to read then please do send them to the company.
Hi Peter,
I am glad to see that you are still monitoring this forum.
And yes, you are maybe right to tell me that I also can direct my "worry" directly to the company. But whilst I was searching for my "solution" I came across posts (like from Jimmy, as he quoted above) that exactly that was already asked for, direct to YesSoftware as well in this forum. Also I noted the proposal for some Wiki (which I think is not really a solution/replacement in stat of good manuals).
Despite this "call", like Jimmy's, I noted a couple of (other) things:
- Your website has a lot of different names and images, not up-to-date for the current active version of CCS; you still speak of version 4.0 on many places (see right now on the top of this forum how old some of them are!);
- For the manuals this is the same: I believe that version 4.1 is now almost a year ago deployed, still all manuals are for version 4.0 and not updated for over a year now (the "Online documentation" is even 2 years old!);
- The posts I saw on this matter on this forum.
All this together was reason for me to do my call in public, on this forum. Maybe not so nice, but hopefully it helps a bit (while it did not before, I know...).
Despite all of this, I really LOVE CCS! I am, as said before, very occupied with a huge project and running much behind my deadline, so I work currently 6 (sometimes 7) days per week and each day I use CCS (maybe you see that because it "polls" you licensing system each time).
And I really think that I can use it better as I do now, when I know more of the "good new stuff".
So I really hope that you (and all of you there) forgive me for the way how I called you guys upon this mishap, but act on it and make this great product even better with a bunch of actual manuals and examples. I am sure that your product will sell even better when you do! I am sure that a lot of people concur on this.
I hope, Peter, that you can (and have the power) hand this "call" to the management over there, and if you are one of them (or even THE man  ) then I really hope that you do something with this.
Just reacting on my call by telling me that I had to go to the company directly and not responding with some "solution on the way" is not really what I hoped for, so I hope you do better next time
Thanks!
Richard
|
|
|
|
JimmyCrackedCorn
Posts: 583
|
| Posted: 02/11/2009, 11:03 AM |
|
Quote RiesNL:
All this together was reason for me to do my call in public, on this forum. Maybe not so nice, but hopefully it helps a bit (while it did not before, I know...).
I think Yes has no intention of improving/correcting/updating their documentation. I don't know if this is because they truly believe it is adequate or if they are just no longer that interested. There are plenty of legit complaints here about the docs but they ignore them. My personal communications with Yes support regarding this resulted in my being dismissed without truly acknowledging the validity of my concerns. They offered the promise of a wiki for awhile but I don't know what happened to that idea.
And your point about the website is on target. What am I to think when the home page lists only 5 items under News and two of them are "YesSoftware Releases CodeCharge Studio 3.2" and "YesSoftware Brings CodeCharge Studio to CeBIT 2007"! Surely something else has happened with CCS that is newsworthy in the past couple of years!!
To any new prospective CCS customer I would say that this is still a great product! But do not expect the docs and website to be up to date. You will have to invest considerable time in trial and error, reading the forums and contacting support in order to realize anything near the potential of CCS. Unfortunately, these productivity losses reduce the productivity gains you should be experiencing by using a tool like this in the first place!
_________________
Walter Kempees...you are dearly missed. |
|
|
|
JimmyCrackedCorn
Posts: 583
|
| Posted: 02/11/2009, 11:07 AM |
|
...
_________________
Walter Kempees...you are dearly missed. |
|
|
|
Stanj
Posts: 166
|
| Posted: 02/13/2009, 5:17 AM |
|
No one seems to think of a Wiki is a good idea but maybe not a real wiki but more like an annotated programming reference where the official description of each command and function is give, as it is now. But then having a commend section below that would users or support add comments of usage or tricks, undocumented features etc. The way the on-line PHP functions and key words are annotated. It is hard to find a situation that is not covered by users in much further depth than the official docs to. Over time, a lot of the solutions we find to common needs would wind up in those comments.
Starting with the current programming reference is a good head start if YES Software wanted to be nice and modify the on-line docs to allow comments. That might be the only way some of the AJAX functions get documented.
Some scripting languages would progress very slowly however if the post counts on the forum are an indication of activity. PHP on the other hand should progress quickly based on the same reasoning.
_________________
Stan
St Petersburg Russia |
|
|
|
|
