Actinic Support

[gabrielcrowe]

After a quick scan of this thread, I see that a lot of people are attempting to isolate the demographic using Actinic.

Really, you have a much broader scope of people using the software. Its difficult to pidgonhole them.

As a designer, consultant and coder, I have encountered myriad types of people, but the majority of problems boil down to this:

Actinic is a package that lets people open a shop, without any web skills. As soon as they want to think outside the box, then its more a problem with designing websites, NOT with Actinic itself.

This, in conjunction with the 'blocks' syntax used by Actinic Catalog, means that they have to learn something to get the job done. I can tell you from experience, that the blocks language is probably the simplest scripting language I have ever seen. The problem is, I think this way, because I use PHP every day.

ChrisBarling:
Would you be able to tell us, roughly what percentage of support calls are html/css and generally unrelated to Actinic?

If this thread is about getting better support out of Actinic, then I'd suggest the following things:

- Actinic provides an Actinic related crash course in html and css.
- Your document people make some screencasts about blocks.
- Your document people come up with some 'checklists' and include them in error documentation.

This is merely about stemming the flow of questions that can be answered elsewhere, for I really think that people who want 'out of the box' elements in Actinic are trying to run before they can walk.

[Darren B]

Unless of course Actinic are willing to admit that v9 has so far been a complete farce and hand back the v8 licenses...

I think this is a little over the top, V9 is not without its problems but ffs the way everyone go's on you would think it was unusable. The main issues with V9 are more designer related than new user. The program works, build a new site and launch it, job done.

I have been using V9 for a while now, some sites have alot of customisation some dont. On of the problems is people messing with stuff they dont understand then expecting support to pick up the pieces. It's like sticking a screw driver in the fuse box and blowing your electrics - would you do it (actually i recon some here would) but most would never dream of touching something they dont understand.

[RuralWeb]

then its more a problem with designing websites, NOT with Actinic itself.

I really think that people who want 'out of the box' elements in Actinic are trying to run before they can walk.

Exactly the problem as I see it as well and you will never get away from it - its the same as driving a car ie people drive beyond thier abilities and have a big crash. Its not the cars fault its the driver - actinic is exactly the same ie use it out the box and you will have no problems but push it to the limit eg 35,000 products and will get problems.

For the record I was one of the biggest critics of V9 when it came out because it did have issues but now I have lots of V9 sites and they are all working without fault. I keep them all within the limitations of the software and only use code from trusted sources this results in sites that work and have no upgrade issues.

[gabrielcrowe]

For the record I was one of the biggest critics of V9

NAHHH!!!

...get out of town.

[nileshpa]

Guys - lets be fair here. We shouldn't say that all V9 problems are down to inexperienced users who are trying to do beyond their own capabilities. Nor can we say that V9 is a total farce. Surely, its not the first release where there is an influx of inexperienced users, so please lets not blame them.

We all need to acknowledge that V9, especially V9.0.2 has not been a sound release. Its may not have affected everyone but those it has, it has affected quite badly. We also need to acknowledge that V9.0.3, which is not a new version with new features but a release to fix problems in the existing code, has taken its time to come out.

For those, like me who have been experiencing problems with V9, its hasn't been an easy ride. I don't think I done anything out of the ordinary and any low-level code changes such as perl/css I've done is when I've bought Norrmans' multi-image & multi-sections routines . I admit I have just under 9000 products which, believe me, I am trying to reduce. I'm in the shoe industry and for each style I keep, I may have them in 6 sizes in 3 different colours. i.e. thats 18 different products straightaway. They get populated from Sage Line 50 via the Actinic Link. I then group them & move them into the relevant sections. Just doing this, V9 will either hangs or crashes & the product definitions are lost. This still occurs having disabled the preview screen, disabled the MOTO screen and also unticked "Check for nested HTML comments & Form Tags". In addition to all this, my uploads take 3-4 hours which I now try do overnight. My backups take over an hour so I simply copy the entire Site1 folder. The database automatically gets compacted everytime I shut down Actinic.

See, these are not problems I'm facing because I'm a novice or I've frigged around the code. They manifested after I upgraded to V9.0.2. I.e. problems lie in Actinic V9 software itself. Please note that my 9000 products are still well under the 20K maximum as suggested by Actinic. On a final note, Actinic Support, having looked into my Database in early July, confirm it is fine and that these will most likely be resolved when I upgrade to v9.0.3. Hence, my gripe about the delay of V9.0.3

Nilesh

[Darren B]

Upload issues - this has been a long standing gripe, but something everyone forgets is that there 8mb broadband is not 8mb upload, if your lucky to sdsl or similar then good for you. but i doubt most peoples uploads get above 500k, lots of files = lots of time.

Speed issues are around actinic generating the pages not uploading the site, but this gets all lumped into one problem

I also quoted actinic is not without its faults. But i dont remember anyone saying who was an inexperienced user just inexperienced users are plaging support with issues they have manifested - like the actinic cant tell me how to change my styles for a section - this is not a job for support this is a designer issue. If you dont know how to, read the AUG the KB or get a designer.

As for v9.0.2 effecting user quite badly - the biggest problem i have noticed with 9.0.2 is the stock monitoring issue/ shipping % then theres the login bug ermm what else are yes the protx bug, thats not a bug you need to put you secret keys back in, i could go on but personally feel most of this has been said before

As i said the people that really test the software and ask it to do anything but the norm are the ones struggling, and to be honest if support was used for real support issues then i doubt this thread would have been started.

There were times actinic would not support actinic script changes and i remember that always being posted to the end of thread replies when someone offered a change. Perhaps this needs to be pointed out again.

[RuralWeb]

From the licence agreement:

Actinic is under no obligation to provide support where the fault has occurred through use of the Software otherwise than set out in the Software Documentation.

[Sean Williams]

I'm not a professional by any stretch but I never cease to be amazed by the number of postings containing variations on the theme of backups, or lack thereof.
I wouldn't dream of making any changes to anything without snapshotting before making the changes and again before uploading the changes.

I'd have thought a big red notice glued to the programme CD and ditto during the online activation along the lines of "don't even think about it without taking a snapshot first" would go some way to reducing support calls, not to mention completely lost sites.

[parklifeclothes]

It's like sticking a screw driver in the fuse box and blowing your electrics - would you do it (actually i recon some here would) .

I learnt from that!! Pushing the wiring from my scaletrix cars motor directly into the mains, turned the wall a nice shade of charcoal and my ear a bit red from the hand that slapped it!!!!

[george]

Apart from the (many) bugs I've said many times that the documentation needs a major overhaul. That'd help a bit I think.

Hang in there Nilesh I can see how frustrated with Actinic you are at the moment.

[jont]

I don't think you will ever stop inexperienced users contacting Actinic if they don't know how to change the HTML or have killed the CSS .... they pay good money and to them their call about changing the site logo is as equally important to the owner of a 99000 product corrupted database.

[grantglendinnin]

From the licence agreement:

Actinic is under no obligation to provide support where the fault has occurred through use of the Software otherwise than set out in the Software Documentation.

One can only assume this therefore rules out all the documentation of the knowledge base that they direct their customers to for further support. Quite ironic that

[Jarvis]

... Actinic is a package that lets people open a shop, without any web skills. As soon as they want to think outside the box, then its more a problem with designing websites, NOT with Actinic itself...

So the MOTO form works then?

[jont]

So the MOTO form works then?

How does anyone know? Surely all have been disabled and removed at core level to allow Actinic to stay open?

[christina]

lots of interesting points here.

We started with actinic back in v.4 & were total website novices. What I have noticed (& it's with most computer things, not just actinic) is the reduction in documentation provided (this was my big gripe with actinic payments applications).

The knowledge base, forum etc, are great sources of info but to some degree you have to know what to search for, which requires a degree of knowledge.

So perhaps a general "quick start guide wouldn't go amiss for newbies, with info about what to do/not do at the beginning. Business plus has so many "extras" that when combined with the AUG, it offers almost unlimited opportunities to break the software! So a warning about not messing & snapshotting frequently may reduce the pressure in support?

I think part of the chaos that I was grumbling about came from launching v.9 & payments so close together.