What a mess... WHAT A MESS!!!

I just want to express my anger and frustration about how odd the presentation system is...

This thing about joomla module manager and menu manager completely irrelevant and disconnected with the extension's "content modules" and "content menus" etc
This thing about "associated modules" auto-creation that doesn't make any sense to me
This thing that you can not even GUESS how a module will look like when you change ANYTHING on some other unrelated module on some other unrelated page... so frustrating!!!!!!!!!!! ...you manage to make a module to show some freaking products look like you want and then the MENUS are all messed up... for no reason at all !!!!!!!!

And you have to go to the university to learn how to manipulate something called "views"

The functions and mechanisms of this extension maybe brilliant but how it looks is...very-very-very-very-very disappointing

OK, here is on just for starters... when the admin creates a new menu of a new module then all the options for this particular menu or module should be on the right side of the joomla page ...as with every other extension.
Right now we're locking ourselves in a loop from joomla options to hika options ...that's odd.

When creating a menu the system should ask:
- what category or subcategory? (root, category1, subcategory1.... )
- how many per line? (1,2,3 ...)
- what to include? (image, title, votes, price, add-to-cart ....)

When creating a module the system should ask:
- What type? (random, recent, bestsellers, ...other useful stuff)
- what category or subcategory? (root, category1, subcategory1.... )
- how many per line? (1,2,3 ...)
- what to include? (image, title, votes, price, add-to-cart ....)

No hidden menus, no hidden modules, no configuration mess. Ok to have defaults on general configuration but whatever is created should have individual settings that work!!

And a nice one for me:: a basic template for the individual product for a decent product page ....right now my site is so ugly I don't even want to see it anymore ...
It's not for the money (to buy the style pack) ...it's for making the best out it just because we care.

For the (real) future I would suggest a visual designing interface for the views ...like some (free?) form extensions out there (chronoforms is one very good example)

Thanks for -at least- reading me...

I think this is it... since I can't figure out how to create a godamned module on the frontpage showing something random -just to spice out a bit- ...I'm abandoning the whole project ...

~ countless wasted time ~

OK, I took my pills and think it over... ...finally managed to do a couple of these monsters (the modules) and finally figured out the backwards logic of ...creation! (not destruction )

Not so difficult after all, it would be helpful if someone here explained in 1-2-3 steps... really!

Now, it's time for the REAL MESS: Product Page and the terrifying Views section (!!!) ...if I manage that then OK, HATS-OFF!

Onsitenet - I'm where you are. So completely frustrated. So much potential, so much fail. Nothing in this component works the way you'd think it would. Its like the developer never used Joomla before or never used another component before.

The fact that some things work ...backwards (sort of speak) is because of the Joomla! itself ...versions 1 and 1.5 and 2.5 and 3 are a lot different ...they try to please them all!

The fact that really annoys me is the styles and the way it looks in the front-end. It's full of features, full of raw power, ...but lacks the presentation, the good looks, it opens a door for other really annoying people, the front-enders (I hate them!) ...and also some hard-core php freaks to deal with very-custom-stuff...

I, like you, like the "ready stuff", the "pre-configured to look nice" stuff, ...the "customer-grabbers"

Somewhere in between may we find our way to deliver the "stuff that pays our bills" .... GOOD LUCK!!!

There is no consistency from feature to feature.

And the logic is completely screwed up.

You create a menu item, then you go to the Hika item to display.. that should be it. But it isn't. There are always a half dozen more steps you have to go through, none of it documented, none of it makes sense.

You have to hunt and peck, you have to turn this on, turn this off, find that..

How things display in one product, don't work with another product, disappear in catagories, something new shows up in brands.. its like a freak'n game of hide and seek.

I have an extremely simple store.. 4 brands, 4 products, no options, no varients.. this should be easy.. done in an hour.. here we are a week later and it still looks like ass and doesn't work correct.

Yes, from a designers point of view it's really annoying. The features, the support and the price are really excellent but the default look is really horrible. The use of tables especially in the modules is frustrating to design.

My last project was a small one with a hand of products. To make it in one of my next projects, especially for bigger ones (with hundrets and thousands of products), Hikashop must be much easier to style, must have a new cleaned up admin interface. It looks so messed up and not logical that I mostly search sometimes for minutes to find an option to setup.

The checkout has to be more customizable to meet other countries law. For Example it's not possible to customize Hikashop to exactly meet german law.

If you don't have an idea how to make a clean admin interface, just copy from Mijoshop or Virtuemart. I really don't like Virtuemart but the Admin Interface is much cleaner and more intuitive than Hikashop's.

Hi Nicolas,

thanks for being open to criticism.

At the moment I only say something to the german law point. For the Admin Interface I have to make some thoughts if I have more time.

At the end and with some workarounds it will go to make it compatible with law. But what I mean is more something like klick some options here and there to fulfill the needs. For example it's obliged in germany that all additional costs has to be displayed on the summary immediately before the Buy Button. It has to be separately and not as a summary. E.g. packaging costs, shipping costs, handling fee and so on. This is not possible with Hikashop at the moment. At least not without tinkering.

Time is money and no client wants to pay 2-3 hours of work if you have to tinker a solution for a trivial problem as packaging costs or handling fee. Why isn't that feature in the shipping module where it belongs to? The user can simply fill out the prices and it appears at the summary. Nobody has to tinker around and you mustn't tell the client why he has to pay 100,- € more for a - in his eyes - trivial problem.

With packaging costs I don't mean the costs to packaging the goods but the costs for the materials like cartoons, packaging paper and so on.

Then we have something what's called "Widerrufsbelehrung" don't know if something similiar existe in other countries. It informs the customer about his rights e.g. that he can send back the product in 2 weeks without a reason. This has to display above the summary near the Terms and Conditions link.

That's all only small requirements but really important to fulfill the needs for german law. If only one little thing is missing, a competitor has the right to send a warning letter with a big bill into.

Plotec wrote: If only one little thing is missing, a competitor has the right to send a warning letter with a big bill into.

OMG VM's interface is a mess and you can't find anything in there...

Sure Hikashop may have some quirks but remember, it's been around a lot shorter time than Virtuemart.

Either way, i'll take HK over VM any day...

Emmanuel.

I too like HS better simply because it's a lot better overall even there is no point to compare free/paid software
It's just this "thing" with the modules that pisses me off and sometimes I can't find an easy way to present whatever information on whatever page I want without try-and-error technics...
Maybe some extra super-easy modules should be implemented ...some bells and whistles with simple config, just some time-and-space savers... (I'll think of some examples later)

Please, I need help ... I have the same problem , onsitenet , nicolas , pmcnamara , Plotec ... Someone ??? Clearly need a tutorial for dummy's ... I just can not understand , how to connect the modules and categories to joomla menu .... My god is so frustrating ..... Can anyone help ?????

Hi Carlos, you would have to give us a lot more information for anyone to be able to help you ..

site URL, maybe a login or more details at the very least.

You're right, I'm a little desperate, (I have deadline to deliver), I'm on a localhost, I prepare everything before putting online, I bought this theme; https: //www.gavick.com/joomla-templates/storefront-ecommerce -template, 162.html, but they want more money to have an acceptable support, I come from wordpress, so it is harder for me, I am not able to connect the category menu with hikashop jooomla, nothing appears I do not understand .. the operation of modules, there is not a step by step tutorial? will you guys can help me with that? I've read the documentation, and nothing ...