Poor support and bad template quality

Hi Gavick template users.

Because we where happy with the Joomla 1.5 templates, we decided to take a lifetime membership at Gavick.
Reason: we want to keep our website updated to the latest Joomla versions and change template, once every 2 years.

Our website runs on 1.5 Joomla with Gavick AppSite 1.5 template. Some minor erros, but merely OK.
Joomla 1.5 -> 1.7 upgrade failed so we rebuild the site from scratch, also to prevent upgrade issues.

We stumbled on several errors in the 1.7 AppSite template version. Upgraded to 2.5 Joomla & 2.5 template. Even more and new errors appeared. Most of the errors are styling errors, different dimensions, whitespaces are changed, module positions are changed, articles get messed up depending on views, lists loose formatting etc etc.

Simple stuff, that should have been detected way before those templates where put online.

We do NOT want to put our company website online, with a template that has a lot of styling issues and bugs. We deliver quality software and projects and do not want to give the wrong impression to customers because of a malfunctioning template.

Now the fun part begins.... support from Gavick. First they ask without looking in their own stuff, to put your problem online. Sure, if you have a complex issue, not easy to reproduce, they are right. But I mean a site with 1 simple article, easy to reproduce. So we setup testsites from scratch and put them online, a lot of work. Just 1 article in a clean install and bang: there is the bug. Question to Gavick: why do you people put your stuff online without simply testing yourself?

Even with support: this website gives you the Support Desk System option:

https://www.gavick.com/supportdesk/inde ... et-support

I wrote my ticket for help, and received the answer to go to the forum and redo the question. Ticket closed... No help received...
If your are stucked and waiting for an answer, you have to re-visit the forum yourself, no email is generated when the answer appears. But you get the question to answer their survey, how there are doing...
What do you want me to put in there? How happy I am revisiting the forum every hour for an answer? And even that answer is not the solution?
Poor service.

It appears to us Gavick became to big and can't keep up with the quality anymore.

So our concern is: do we keep up with Gavick, and stumble through this process of getting the template fixed, step by step,one by one, proving online that there is a bug in their stuff, or do we consider our investment in the lifetime membership as a loss of time, hopefully get money back and turn to a more professional company with decent tested templates and a decent support system.

Let me know your thoughts. Did you experience the same problems?
Your input is highly appreciated and taken into consideration. Somehow I do expect Gavick's serious attention...

Pete

If you modify some of core css files the upgrade can cause some styling problems but if everything is modify via override.css it shouldn't be a problem. You can always download latest template version and install it on clean Joomla then you see that it looks exactly the same like for Joomla! 1.5x or 1.7.x

I wish you are right, but I see it different,
Please look at our test setup :

http://88.159.12.197:8888/AppSite/

Clean Joomla 2.5.1, clean AppSite 2.5 latest version
I only added 5 images to 1 standard Joomla article. No modifications in CSS. Only 1 override in override.css that your college brought up as an answer to my problem.

Click on the article "Joomla" title so the single article gets displayed. Look at the images....
1.5 doesn't have this issue. This is newly introduced with the 1.7 / 2.5 AppSite template.

When will you helpdesk people try this on your AppSite demo and see for yourself, instead of assuming your stuff is without errors?

Thank you.

This image are add to article content or via new Joomla 2.5 feature - Article Standarized Layout ?

This image are add to article content or via new Joomla 2.5 feature - Article Standarized Layout ?

No, the images are added in the most old fashioned simplest way, NOT using new features.

A few days have gone by and I have to rephrase my concerns:

- The support of the Helpdesk people is great! I have 3 guys dealing with my problem and YES, we found errors in the template CSS.

- The template CSS is with errors, this means: Gavick template updates are not fully tested, and updating to version 1.7 / 2.5 can result in a website with errors. You must be a CSS / PHP expert to solve these issues or get help form the helpdesk people.

- The support SYSTEM is still bad, would be much better to receive an email when a message is posted. Have to revisit the forum multiple times a day, without knowing if there is a post...

- The template quality is not bad, but has some small errors. However, the result of that error can be huge...

Most important for me, there are people helping and that is what is important!
Thank you.

Regarding images please replace your override code with below.

Code: Select all

.articleContent img {
    display: inline;
    float: none;
}


I will collect all these css errors/corrections and pass it to the developers to update on the next release. Regarding emails sent when there is a reply, when you create a new topic or reply to one, you can select the box "Notify me when a reply is posted" under post options : )

See you around...

Didn't see that one ( notification).

The problem with the images is also solved...
Pfeeewww.

You certainly showed who's the expert. They should give you a raise.
Give me a message whenever you need a software programmers job in the Netherlands.

Thanks!

To be honest i have learned many things from them, so they are the masters in their own field : )

See you around...

To be honest i have learned many things from them, so they are the masters in their own field : )

See you around...

Sure, I believe that.
But the software knowledge is not what I am referring to.

You didn't gave the impression that the error was on my side, and started to investigate the code. And that is an excellent quality which lead to a quick solution. That is your real value!

Keep up the good work.