Doesn't work, poor documentation, minimal support.

I am afraid that I have to give this program a thumbs down. I was very excited and hopeful that it would work, but after two reinstall's and a significant number of hours surfing the web, this site, the FAQ, and the so-called "documentation", I am pulling the plug. The best I've managed to get this software to do is to completely hammer my site into a single text that reports the error "Incorrect usage of Mobile Joomla." Yes, I understand why I got that error. But after days of no results, I needed to do something/anything to see if I could get this crap to actually present a mobile webpage to a browser/emulator, which is what I thought it was supposed to do.

I've followed all the "directions" and suggestions available here, to no avail. Yes, I've double-checked my settings and yes, I've uninstalled the mod and reinstalled the mod twice, all to no avail. I have double-checked my Joomla, SQL, and PHP versions, etc. and everything is fine. What happens, you ask? Well, nothing happens. Nothing at all. The mod has no effect on my site presentation, regardless of the emulator or browser.

So, I am done. But before I go, let me take a moment to offer the developer and this community some perspective, albeit biased and somewhat tainted by my disappointment;

First of all, I'm no stranger to Joomla or web coding. Without conceit or arrogance, let me note that I possess quite an advanced knowledge of all things web/PC. The fact that the documentation and interface of this project doesn't adequately inform me is something to note. If I don't get it, then I can assure you that the average web user won't, as has been noted here a few times.

Secondly, I've read many threads on this forum and I gotta say that both the admin and the "community" that are here to help come across as a bunch of arrogant shitheads. I understand that you all have day jobs, I get the open source concept, and I know that some users are just lazy, etc. Nonetheless, it's not that hard to give supportive help or redirection. There are far too many "bad newbie" slaps and grudgingly given hints in these forums. Either help and do so gladly or STFU.

Thirdly, I really need to point out that the co-called "documentation"on this mod is both skeletal and poorly done. Pasting screenshots of the interface and then proceeding to describe the same interface using the same language as the interface is beyond ignorant. You might as well have just put a sentence in that says, "read the interface." You've gone to great effort to point out only the obvious and to avoid any detailed discussion of what settings actually mean, how they relate to one another, or to discuss potential differences based on hypothetical needs/designs. Add to this the fact that much of the documentation is inconsistent with the current version and you have a a perfect example of how NOT to do support documentation.

Finally, I see that a few people have simply installed the extension and had a happy result. Good for you. I wish I could say the same, but it most definitely does not work for me at all, no matter what I do. I think it might be useful for the future of the mod to figure out why that is. I also see that I am not the first to be unhappy with these things, so I don't feel like I'm being overly rude or dismissive here, just honest and pointed. You may dismiss my comments as a rant if you wish, but a smart person will glean some goodies from them -- FWIW --- YMMV

joelford wrote:


Thank you for your constructive feedback. We'd try to improve our support to give more insightful answers to people.  Usually the problems are related to PHP hosting setup - as we don't control the environment we cannot know all configurations and possible causes of problems beforehand. This is where we hope to have active community members to fill in the gaps, so that we can make Mobile Joomla! work better. Like you have done, it is always nice to try to ask for help before giving up with product and community.

Would you like to try to solve why Mobile Joomla! does not work on your particular set-up?

To pindown the cause of problem can you please give us the following information

1) The standard disclaimer - all data you can possible extract from your system and could be found useful, about your hosting and operating system from Mobile Joomla! issue tracking instructions

2) Does your Apache log or related log files get any errors or warning during installation? Something which would not be visible in Joomla! user interface.

3) Does Mobile Joomla! settings appear in Joomla! menu?

We'd also like to improve our document section. Currently there even seems to be a bug that Joomla! is not displaying all the document titles. We will fix this shortly. If you have any good example sites of good Joomla! extensions documentations or suggestion, we'd like to hear you.

Also, for the future references, we hope to have multi-step installer which does sanity check of the system before letting the installation proceed. This is what Joomla! itself does during the installation and gives green or red tick box whether the installation is good to go. 

Does work, adequate documentation and minimal support is the norm for free stuff.