Core-715 Lives On

[Paul]

Understood.

Just to clarify, Cody and I discussed the issue offline and I insisted that it was possibly a bug because of what you said in your original post:

 

I have a universal module Add-On package group with a single package connected with it. When I set that package to "Restricted" or "Invalid" it will still appear in the "Available Add-Ons" during check out.

 

It was my understanding by your description of the issue that Restricted packages that were Addons may still appear on the order form. It was a reasonable assumption based on what you said. Since CORE-715 was suppose to resolve this and we confirmed that it was solved for standard packages (non-addons), I thought we may have overlooked restricted addons. What we learned was that you meant it's the Group that appears, not the Restricted Addon Packages.

 

I think what you consider pervasiveness, is actually us not understanding at first what you meant. It wasn't worded correctly, and it was reasonable for us to think we may have missed a particular case.

 

Back to this issue. I see 2 ways forward.

 

1. Add a setting in the admin area that will force empty package groups not to display on the order form.

2. Never display empty package groups on the order form.

 

You see #2 as being the solution, and view it as a bug. We think some people may want empty package groups to display and are leaning toward #1. We are building for a wide audience. Differences in opinion are welcome, but we're not pervasive just because we disagree. And you make good points, worth considering.

 

Whichever way we go forward on this issue, it will end up working like you want.

 

The only reason we have to become less open minded and ignore or avoid requests and ideas is if things start to become hostile. We aren't interested in drama. Like I said before, if we can move forward on the basis that people understand and trust that we aren't being shady then discussion on all topics can be productive. If you had this assumption to begin with and tried to understand why we did what we did I think you would have been less critical.

 

I think we all want most of the same things, but there will occasionally be contention.. that's to be expected. I just ask, please don't assume the worst of us because we're not in agreement on everything.

[Michael]

Understood.

Just to clarify, Cody and I discussed the issue offline and I insisted that it was possibly a bug because of what you said in your original post:

 

 

It was my understanding by your description of the issue that Restricted packages that were Addons may still appear on the order form. It was a reasonable assumption based on what you said. Since CORE-715 was suppose to resolve this and we confirmed that it was solved for standard packages (non-addons), I thought we may have overlooked restricted addons. What we learned was that you meant it's the Group that appears, not the Restricted Addon Packages.

 

I think what you consider pervasiveness, is actually us not understanding at first what you meant. It wasn't worded correctly, and it was reasonable for us to think we may have missed a particular case.

 

Back to this issue. I see 2 ways forward.

 

1. Add a setting in the admin area that will force empty package groups not to display on the order form.

2. Never display empty package groups on the order form.

 

You see #2 as being the solution, and view it as a bug. We think some people may want empty package groups to display and are leaning toward #1. We are building for a wide audience. Differences in opinion are welcome, but we're not pervasive just because we disagree. And you make good points, worth considering.

 

Whichever way we go forward on this issue, it will end up working like you want.

 

The only reason we have to become less open minded and ignore or avoid requests and ideas is if things start to become hostile. We aren't interested in drama. Like I said before, if we can move forward on the basis that people understand and trust that we aren't being shady then discussion on all topics can be productive. If you had this assumption to begin with and tried to understand why we did what we did I think you would have been less critical.

 

I think we all want most of the same things, but there will occasionally be contention.. that's to be expected. I just ask, please don't assume the worst of us because we're not in agreement on everything.

1 please mate I like stuff to be ticked on and off just incase I need it .

[Alex]

Understood.

Just to clarify, Cody and I discussed the issue offline and I insisted that it was possibly a bug because of what you said in your original post:

 

 

It was my understanding by your description of the issue that Restricted packages that were Addons may still appear on the order form. It was a reasonable assumption based on what you said. Since CORE-715 was suppose to resolve this and we confirmed that it was solved for standard packages (non-addons), I thought we may have overlooked restricted addons. What we learned was that you meant it's the Group that appears, not the Restricted Addon Packages.

 

I think what you consider pervasiveness, is actually us not understanding at first what you meant. It wasn't worded correctly, and it was reasonable for us to think we may have missed a particular case.

 

Back to this issue. I see 2 ways forward.

 

1. Add a setting in the admin area that will force empty package groups not to display on the order form.

2. Never display empty package groups on the order form.

 

You see #2 as being the solution, and view it as a bug. We think some people may want empty package groups to display and are leaning toward #1. We are building for a wide audience. Differences in opinion are welcome, but we're not pervasive just because we disagree. And you make good points, worth considering.

 

Whichever way we go forward on this issue, it will end up working like you want.

 

The only reason we have to become less open minded and ignore or avoid requests and ideas is if things start to become hostile. We aren't interested in drama. Like I said before, if we can move forward on the basis that people understand and trust that we aren't being shady then discussion on all topics can be productive. If you had this assumption to begin with and tried to understand why we did what we did I think you would have been less critical.

 

I think we all want most of the same things, but there will occasionally be contention.. that's to be expected. I just ask, please don't assume the worst of us because we're not in agreement on everything.

From my perspective, my inaccurate description stems from not understanding what was going on with this add-on/checkout/restricted/inactive system. Only as a result of this thread has it become clear to me what the "Default" label is intended to represent, and therefore I understood that this option did not directly relate to an add-on. I think we can all admit that option sitting alone with no additional verbiage is quite unclear and open to interpretation. (Hence the real need to make this label editable.) For me, this all alludes to the larger picture which if you'll recall I had taken the time to explain in-depth to you. I know it's necessary for you to break issues into smaller tasks, but I would have expected to you realize my confusion based on extensive recent conversations we've had relating to these issues. No hard feelings, we're all imperfect and busy people. But, it is pretty clear where my confusion came into play and what I actually meant a few posts into this thread, prior to it being closed or re-confirmed. This really needs to be water under the bridge if progress is the goal, though.

At this point I'm on the side of progress, in any direction. The #1 option doesn't hurt us, I just view it as unnecessary. I understand you have a wide audience to consider but I think it's difficult to please everyone, and catering to every oddball caveat usually leads to clunky, bloated systems. (Something I am happy to say Blesta is not!) I think this is one of the options which has such a limited audience (and for those off-cases which have been identified, I have presented what I believe to be a more robust solution.) that it makes good sense to ignore/avoid/overlook it until sufficient demand is proven. This concept is less about this particular issue and more about prioritizing and organizing the development and system itself, which I think I failed to communicate in my previous posts. You can learn more about this seemingly hard nosed but highly regarded and proven successful method of prioritizing software feature requests based on customer feedback in world-renowned books such as Lean Startup. You can definitely see these methods being employed by Google, Facebook, 37Signals, Intuit, and many other highly successful web applications. If you've masterminded a method by which avoid these pitfalls then be all means, ignore me, but otherwise it's worth considering whether every caveat is worth implementing. Especially when Blesta v3 is so young and still has every opportunity to avoid such pitfalls. I wouldn't have the guts to test a hypothesis which required myself to do things which are widely considered pitfalls that are difficult to recover from. And for me, building Blesta to cater to every odd case falls into this category. If every feature has an option/setting then those seeking a simple solution for a single industry will be daunted by the configuration and management task of using the software. So, you're effectively outing a market segment if you try to cater to every market segment... ain't that ironic? Anyway, I perceive Blesta's target audience to be people seeking a simple solution for a single or a few related industries.

I think any further discussion on this topic would be counter-productive in that it's a simple option to implement and I've done enough to inspire a different perspective in general, which I hope will prove helpful to Blesta on many issues, not limited to this particular one. For this particular topic, it's less of a concern to us with 3.1 offering configurable options than it was originally, and the two solutions proposed will both work for us.

It has begun to feel like this thread is ruled more by technical/emotional riff-raff than by matter of fact, open-minded and friendly discussion. I am not assuming or implying any intentional wrong-doing on the part of Blesta, nor am I willing to partake in a hostile debate. I am simply advocating for a methodical and prioritized development process, in hopes of helping, not disrupting. I do hope this helps to clarify my position in a friendlier manner and I apologize for any confusion and miscommunication on my part.

[Cody]

CORE-715 was resolved in 3.0.2, so I'm closing this thread (again). Any further discussion related directly or indirectly to this topic can be made in the Feature Requests forum.