Suggestion:

["Yossi Cohen" <YOSSI@prodigy.net>]

******    message to minivend-users from "Yossi Cohen" <YOSSI@prodigy.net>     ******

Hi everybody,

FWIW, I sympathize with a lot of frustrated minivend users/developers. It's
so easy to fall into a mode of accusation when nothing seems to work. This
happens with every product regardless how good it is. Being a programmer
myself for the past 15 years, I had my bad times with Microsoft compilers.
And it is not limited to software products alone. What fascinates me about
this list is that I find more people attempting to post questions in such a
style as to provoke more attention and strong feelings among knowledgeable
ones to feel sorry for them and answer their questions.

Minivend is relatively a good product. As it is, it can be used for
elementary electronic shopping cart systems. The complexity of such a
package is probably justified in the context of being a client-server web
application. Albeit, the more I dig into the software (and by no means I
consider myself a perl expert), I find that much of its complexity lies in
the inconsistencies of the various tags behaviour. For example; some time
ago I was struggling to display the user database using [tag each userdb]
followed by [loop-field ...] only to realize that this construct only works
with the products database, so instead I resolved the issue using [data ...]
construct. One of the recent one was when I tried to pass argument to
another page using mv_nextpage value variable. I don't think that <A
href=[area ...]> should be different in the outcome than setting
mv_nextpage="[area ...]" for instance. And of-course enough said about the
documentation.

In a way I disagree with some of us who think that because Minivend is free
we are not entitled to complain about it. It is very much similar to a fancy
toy given as a gift to a child who doesn't know how to operate it. So how do
you expect him to enjoy it?

To me it is quite apparent that most of us will rarely receive any response
to their questions, some of which are legitimately pin pointing to pitfalls
in minivend (however they are presented). I believe there is enough work for
everybody in the industry. I do heartly suggest that we attempt making this
list and our dealing with Minivend more enjoyable experience. The only way,
I think, that this program can be enhanced to become a major league player
is if some of the suggestions be implemented.

Al last, if I didn't sound convincing I would like at least to suggest that
postings to this list take a different format. Since most of us are using a
software that has the means to dispatch received mail notes to different
folders, I suggest that each mail note will the include the category of his
question in the subject.

Installation:	// questions or problems with installation
Admin:		//         -//-              administration
Search:		// questions regarding searching, formats, etc
Database:		// Minivend GDBM, Indexing
SQL:			// dedicated to SQL
Basket:
Order:
CreditCard:		// secure
Shipping:		// shipping
SalesTax:
Invoice:
Perl:			// Perl questions, add ons, customization
CyberCash:
BugReport:
Suggestion:
Misc:

I was almost tempted to add another category called Mike or MikeFrank etc,
as I never found myself skipping a mail note from these guys. ;-)

Thanks for your time.

Yossi Cohen


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