A poor impression to the new user

Thank you Jason.
I have been looking for support regarding several issues for four days (96 hours). The forum requests went unanswered and my four separate e-mail messages to support remain unanswered. I have software which does not function and it is long past the 72 hours for support to respond.

I have requested a refund 96 hours after requesting support in the forums and via e-mail. With no support forthcoming in the forum thus far, I have seen no evidence of the help available in the forum. FWIW the dialogue box errors specifically mention getting support from Realmac.

I am helpless and have my hands tied by a support system which does not work when something goes a long way off the rails. This is easily the worst software support experience I have known. Minor questions assume a different priority to a completely non-functional product, as far as I am concerned. In lieu of the never present support, I can only hope for a rapid refund then I can move on.

This makes me sad.

1 Like

Thank you Pete.

Sadly, I have gotten not a single response from Realmac support. [quote=“Pete, post:7, topic:10438”]
Finally, I am using RW 7.1.5 and have not run into any complications, crashes or snags
[/quote]

I had problems from the moment of installation and they have continued to get worse. The software is now not performing as intended and many of the faults are appearing at random. The stimulus to various events is also random. My software package appears to be broken and without expert assistance, I cannot even begin to know what to do to fix it. This is the fifth day without any useful response.

Nice work on the site. My need is for a blog that deals with technical issues around the non-operative treatment for bony injuries following trauma and developmental orthopaedic conditions that must also be dealt with non-operatively. I now want to include some instructional video but RapidWeaver does not appear to be the correct tool. I am leaning towards having my WordPress site hosted and that will free me to produce the relevant content.

I made a huge number of mistakes when first putting the site up and it was hacked to ribbons in the first few weeks. Since 2013, it has been working well enough. You can see it here: http://www.jna.org.uk/

You haven’t raised any specific issues to us other than that you hate the software and the Realmac team. We can’t help you based on the info you’ve provided.

I’m not trying to be dismissive or un-empathetic, by the way. Just saying it’s hard to offer a way forward based on what you’ve said.

7 Likes

I’m not a mind-reader, @jepho . I didn’t see anything about dialogue boxes in this thread and I’ve just performed a search of this page and you never mentioned them until after I made my last post. In fact, there is very little detail about what you are having problems with, so don’t be surprised if you don’t get many answers here. Perhaps you mentioned them in another thread. I’m not going to waste my time searching for what you may have said elsewhere.

Well, yes, WordPress is free but the bundled themes are pretty dreadful and most of the add-on ones are expensive and only licensed for one site. Even then, getting it to look the way you want it is usually very difficult. WP is very vulnerable to hacking. There are certainly things which it does better than RW, but there are many things which RW does better.

1 Like

I don’t know Jason… if you have not read these issues, what chance is there of any official Realmac person reading them. I have linked to the three posts I could find and they are all quite specific. I don’t expect reading or comprehension to be an issue on a forum for computer users.

finally, here is a link to my dropbox public folder. Dropbox - File Deleted - Simplify your life

In that folder you will find four e-mail messages which I have sent to Realmac support… all unanswered except the very first one actually produced an auto responder message. No follow-up since then (5 days ago). You will also see a .jpg image that shows the odd HTML quotation mark and closing symbol in the top left of the webpage. You will also note that the page categories have not printed in an expected tab nor do I understand how they can appear superimposed right along the top edge of the webpage.

Pure hyperbole and I would prefer it if you did not try to ascribe that sort of invented nonsense to me.

Do tell…:confused:[quote=“peterdanckwerts, post:16, topic:10438”]
so don’t be surprised if you don’t get many answers here
[/quote]

I am not. I published my issues when they occurred. The links are all available in my comprehensive response to Jason (although you probably won’t want to waste your time) The lack of reading or comprehension is the only rationale I can think of for there being no answers forthcoming from the forum or Realmac support.

Rude much? Never let the facts get in the way of a good imagination eh? [quote=“peterdanckwerts, post:16, topic:10438”]
but there are many things which RW does better.
[/quote]

Evidence?

Anyway sunbeam, I don’t much care for the cut of your jib and if we were face to face you may be more inclined to keep a civil tongue in your head. The cowardly stance you take is easy from a distance and any fool can do it. Your bravery would likely evaporate rather rapidly if you met me.

I have been civil, even if a little more than fed-up over the tardy lack of response from Realmac and the highly valued forum and its membership. I suspect that discussing anything with which you don’t agree would be a waste of my time so I won’t try and educate you.

@jepho Sorry you are having these issues, but at least in this thread, you are coming off as very aggressive when most of the responses have been nice and relaxed. We understand you are upset and if Realmac has not answered your questions, it can be understandable. People here are, for the most part, very nice and do try to help, if they can. Here are some things you might want to consider when making reports to either a developer or on the forums.

  1. I do support for Joe Workman, and we have many time replied to a customer and they either never get the reply or it goes in their junk folder and they do not see it. How many people actually look in their junk folder? Another reason you might not have gotten it, is you might have mis-typed your email address, it does happen. I have had to resend invoices to many people who added a letter or something similar.

  2. When posting issues either to developers or on the forum, if you can, add a URL. This way we can see the code of your project online and can see what the issue maybe. Now, if you can not publish or are seeing this in preview, try to publish or at very least export your project so you can show people that.

  3. Give people your version number of things, RapidWeaver version, Plugin Versions, macOS versions, they can ALL mean something to one person or another. Just saying this doesn’t work isn’t as helpful.

  4. Try making a VERY BASIC site, without ANY 3rd developer issues. Choose a standard plugin (like Styled Text or Markdown) and one of the themes that comes with RapidWeaver (preferably one of the “New” themes.

If it continues to work, start adding plugins. I also believe from one of your threads you mention that you use the Accordion plugin, do you have the latest version? I know he released a version that would fix issues with RapidWeaver 7.1

Last but not least, be patient and polite, as you can see from this thread itself, if you get heated, others do too. RapidWeaver has a HUGE following and it works for most people. People love to use it, and if you start getting mean about something they love, they will come back with mean responses.

Hopefully this will help you and others out when reporting issues. Good luck with your issues, and I hope your RapidWeaver experience gets better.

4 Likes

Thank you for your kind and helpful offer SteveB. I think the failure on the part of Realmac to address any of my issues has been the final straw. It is now five days without any response from the developers. I have sent my e-mail request to Realmac at 03.35 this morning; requesting a refund.

I cannot make the software work in any predictable manner and I have followed the instruction manual carefully. I spent some time trying to construct a reasonable website. I have accepted that the work is now wasted and I will move on.

There is not much point me occupying the time of people who are willing to assist me.
I have had more than a basin full now and have decided to abandon Realmac and their software in favour of another software solution.

Realmac have lost me as a customer.

You’re right, I was interpreting the tone of the thread, not anything in particular. My apologies.

I also hadn’t looked through your posting history for those other things (and I don’t have any reading comprehension issues either by the way - speaking of invented nonsense), I was just referring to what you posted here.

I’ll leave it all be, though.

3 Likes

thank you Robert.

It seems to me that reading or understanding what has been said is being misinterpreted.

I already received an auto response for my first e-mail message. I also don’t type my address but it comes from my e-mail contacts addresses. As it is working for every other place I write, I have to assume that it is still the same as it always was.

The software is falling over and does not permit me to publish anything so no URL. I do not even get to see a preview. I did do a screen grab and showed one screen in my dropbox link to Jason above. I cannot export anything so with my inexperience in coding, I have no way of producing anything which would be useful to a developer or a forum member.

I did that.

the software is not working as expected so I cannot even make a basic site.[quote=“zeebe, post:20, topic:10438”]
you use the Accordion plugin, do you have the latest version?
[/quote]

I purchased all the latest versions when after purchasing RapidWeaver. I have never used Accordion but used its effect as a description of the way in which I would like to manage about 14 page categories in a blog.

Perhaps it does… in which case the earlier point about Realmac being a cottage industry (possibly as a way of excusing the failure to respond in a realistic time-frame to questions or software issues) does not apply.

Help me out here… since when did having an emotional attachment to a software tool have any bearing on facts which are reported about that tool?

Thanks for your helpful input. I have already given up on RapidWeaver and Realmac

@jepho There is nothing on this thread explaining what your problems are (other than your complaints about support) until after I and @jabostick said you weren’t giving specifics. The pieces you quoted to @Jepho are on different threads. If you have applied a similar level of common sense to using RapidWeaver, I’m not surprised you’re having difficulties.

As for your absurd posturing:

I can’t really find a polite response.

2 Likes

You persist in demonstrating that you are ineducable. res ipsa loquitur

Accepted. Thank you. [quote=“jabostick, post:22, topic:10438”]
(and I don’t have any reading comprehension issues either by the way - speaking of invented nonsense)
[/quote]

My apologies for that. [quote=“jabostick, post:22, topic:10438”]
I’ll leave it all be, though.
[/quote]

Yes, me too.

@jepho OK, I have seen many times in this thread that you said you are done with Realmac and RapidWeaver. Just have to ask, why keep coming back and posting on this thread? Why not delete your account and move on? Hoping @Aaron or @LaPan will see this and close this thread as it is no longer useful to anyone.

4 Likes

I must say… I am walking away from this with a poor impression of the new user.

I wish the new user the best with whatever software he settles on.

2 Likes

I’m not one of the developers, but have been a user of Rapidweaver for many years. And I can say that generally pretty much everyone is happy with Rapidweaver, even though there is an issue here and there as is the case with pretty much all software.

Can you give more details about what exactly is happening? Is it crashing after several minutes of use? Sometimes that occurs because of an old outdated plugin that is not compatible with the new version. If you hold down the option key and disable 3rd party plugins, add-ons, themes, etc., that might give you a clue about what’s happening.

1 Like

If you would be willing to share it, I would love to see your project file. I bet most of us could pin point the issue if we could simply see something. I know that you have exhaustively expressed your issues in words. However, especially for me, seeing something really brings things home.

2 Likes

Yes…Please end his frustration