X-Cart forums

[rrf]

We have just launched LiteCommerce forums:

forum.litecommerce.com.

The X-Cart and LiteCommerce forums share the same database, i.e. you don't have to be registered in both forums in order to use them.

forum.x-cart.com and forum.litecommerce.com also share "common" areas like General Chat, Fraud Prevention, Member's Websites, Professional Help.

I hope that this will increase usability of the forums.

[shan]

thanks RRF

[hareslade]

Hi rff
afraid not, rff.

Having two forums with the same posts means I'm looking for Litecommerce posts in among loads of x-cart ones,

And since people often forget their signature, or to put which cart they are working with, its really rather a useless idea, adds to difficulties of locating
the less regular Litecommerce LC ones.

-why not do the simple, obvious thing and have two separate forums?

Since we choose our log in names we just repeat the registration for each forum with same name. Bang goes your 'problem' of having to do 'more user names'

Is there any particular reason why support does not appear to monitor and reply on many of these posts?

[verbic]

> Is there any particular reason why support does not appear to monitor and reply on many of these posts?

Here is the disclaimer that you can see at the root page of the forum. If you wish to get a responce from our staff please contact us via HelpDesk.

Welcome to the forum! Please note that the forum is created to allow users communicating with each other. Our support team does not guarantee providing support in this forum. If you want to contact the support team, please use the message board at https://secure.qualiteam.biz/ instead.
All answers are provided by the registered users. Our team is not responsible for the information provided here.

[hareslade]

Hello Dmitry /verbic
Thank you for responding. I do, and am, using the helpdesk every day.

Yes, I am aware that the forum is for users. But the Company staff are the only ones who have access to the LiteCommerce operational system?

I have been advised users cannot have access to any unreleased code. This relates to a recent offer I made to help fix Cpanel beta.

With many companies as you know, they 'interrupt' or create forum threads to give information, where they see users are obviously stuck on simple points. Accepted, this does happen partly on the forum here, but not very often.

There are a number of posts on this forum, asking serious questions, which have perhaps either been answered through helpdesk (and no-one bothered to post the same answer, as a reply here in the forum), -- or just have never been answered.

I am going through good patches and bad patches with Litecommerce!
There is a very obvious lack of basic information for any installer-user on the Litecommerce website. I am wasting time because of this, having to wait for helpdesk reply cycle (local time differences, weekends).

For instance, nowhere have I seen a reference to the need to set Dreamweaver editor config to Unix cr/lf. I see the tpl files have that character. Windows notepad shows 'squares' opening a tpl. Some other carts do not have Unix style cr/lf, -- and I can edit files downloaded using Windows Notepad even for a Unix style server.

This means I have to dedicate one pc with Dreamweaver Unix config to the LC cart, because I have also many local windows asp sites here and dare not accidentally use the wrong setting on .asp text files... am I right?
This may all be due to the binary mode ftp for tpl files, I am unsure.

During my wasted time trying to use Cpanel (beta has serious failures -helpdesk does not dispute this) I noticed the edited file size increase.

So...I changed Dreamweaver to Unix cr/lf and edited file size change was cured.

My point is this, -if this sort of basic user/installer information is not on your website, AND you charge for support after (say) 30 days, AND support does not openly intervene in the user forum, to provide needed information, THEN my customer/user will have to pay later, for support on queries which 'should' be in your FAQ or forum, because I as an installer am very unlikely to get such questions answered, either through the forum or by using any other free method.

Is the above point True, False, or in-between?

I am aware that there is an LC development kit promised. But that development kit will cost money? It remains a problem that the lower-level, basic information about Litecommerce, for people who wish to edit templates, does not exist on the LiteCommerce website.

I hope you receive this reply as I intend it - as a sincere concern - and not only for me, and my customer's bank balance.

I ask that these matters are looked into. It is possible to create forum sections purely as a database, for basic (correct!) information to supply the demand, so that people stop wasting helpdesk time, asking the same old questions, and so that LiteCommerce organisation avoids the criticism or negative view that is already expressed in various posts on this forum.

These negative views will become well known outside of this password-protected non-public (?) forum, as time goes on.

I give as a shining public-relations example a (non-competitor!) marketing a new video editing software, and who often answers forum queries in minutes, regarding the problems people have in using the Video editing software. I use this forum so I know.

http://www.drdsystems.com/forum/phpBB2/index.php

It may be seen that they have a specific section for discusssions of beta versions, which relates directly to the doubt here, about whether Cpanel is offered as a working item or not, for LC.

Incidentally, if Cpanel is not working (it does not work for me on win2000 or win 98, and I know exactly where it fails)-- I wonder if the following paragraph from the Litecommerce sales page can be regarded as valid: (my italics)

''You can use the built-in template editor, you can edit templates by hand, you can edit the look of the cart in HTML format and last but not least: our e-commerce solution allows you to download templates to your Windows computer by using the LiteCommerce ControlPanel, then design your store in WYSIWYG HTML editors like MS FrontPage and Macromedia Dreamweaver.''

I leave you the reader to form your own opinion.

I regarded the italicised sentences above as 50% of the reason for selecting LC as my choice, among those in this price range. Be assured, I think LC is an excellent product - provided it works! The cart side looks good, the Admin is excellent.

But the template editing method without Cpanel is a disaster. (Prove how simple it is by doing a FAQ on it?)

Hareslade.
ps I am handling cart installation for the buyer of the product..

[Kelly]

Actually if you have basic html knowledge html design is very simple without using the CPanel, I dont use the CPanel at all and have completely customized the look of my cart. All you have to do is download the tpl files from your store and open them in Dreamweaver or Frontpage and edit them, then reupload the tpl files back to the skin directory when youve finished. It doesnt look the same as they do in html format when downloaded via the control panel but they edit in the same manner. It is actually very simple yet not explained in the manual.

About the help/support, In the manual it states:
"Preferred channel of communication with technical support is the private
message board on the Contact us page located either on the Help menu or in
the Contact us section on the Customer front end home page. This message
board is a part of our workflow organization system therefore using this
message board guarantees you a faster reply. In any case, if you need
LiteCommerce support, you can contact us using the information given below.
Please have the customer number at hand while calling customer service."

There are several problems with this statement, There is no link to any message board on the contact us page on either the main litecommerce site or the customer front end site. Nor is there any Help Menu on either site or in the admin location of the program itself. What Litecommerce is referring to is your customer support page and not this message board. They refer to the HelpDesk Communtication center as "The message board" though it is not by any means and this is extremely misleading because 99% of people after reading the instructions believe they should come here to get answers and ask questions yet 50% of questions here are never addressed. Your best chance of getting any help is through your HelpDesk.

I strongly agree with you on one point, the cart is not as easy to install as promised by the site. My install took 2 weeks and 80 tech support points with daily tech support help when they were available. Many things have been left out of the manual that are necessities during installation. The setup instructions are too vague to install the cart correctly and get it running alone.

[Sheriff]

Originally Posted by Kelly

About the help/support, In the manual it states:
"Preferred channel of communication with technical support is the private message board on the Contact us page located either on the Help menu or in the Contact us section on the Customer front end home page. This message board is a part of our workflow organization system therefore using this message board guarantees you a faster reply. In any case, if you need LiteCommerce support, you can contact us using the information given below. Please have the customer number at hand while calling customer service."

There are several problems with this statement, There is no link to any message board on the contact us page on either the main litecommerce site or the customer front end site. Nor is there any Help Menu on either site or in the admin location of the program itself. What Litecommerce is referring to is your customer support page and not this message board. They refer to the HelpDesk Communtication center as "The message board" though it is not by any means and this is extremely misleading because 99% of people after reading the instructions believe they should come here to get answers and ask questions yet 50% of questions here are never addressed. Your best chance of getting any help is through your HelpDesk.

Yes, our official Message Board is our HelpDesk Communication center. This is not to be confused with the Online Forum provided to our customers for the purposes of discussing LiteCommerce-related issues.
The following message (http://forum.litecommerce.com/viewtopic.php?t=11075) can be paraphrased for LiteCommerce software:

This forum is created in order to allow LiteCommerce customers communicating with each other. Do not post questions to the LiteCommerce team here. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR POSTS PRESENT HERE. None of them are our official answers.