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Forum topics disappeared and many of my old posts suddenly not available?

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AndyW
(@andyw)
Member
Joined: 4 years ago
Posts: 53
Topic starter  

Hi folks,

Don't know if anyone else has this problem today.

I got a notification of a new topic (the "belated" welcome from Joshua) today.

On checking through to see if there was anything else new of interest I noticed that I could not find some

of the old topics I had been involved in.

On checking "my activity" I noticed that many of my posts had been marked up as "private"???

If I clicked on a message I got a 404 Error message.

A cynical person would maybe think that many of the less positive posts were being purged, but as I am not such a person (???) I choose

to believe this is a mistake.

 

Joshua, if you are actually watching this forum please check and advise.,

Thanks

Andy (a user of the trial version but not currently because the programme is not stable enough)

 

 

 


   
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Jean-Pierre DRUFFIN
(@jeep35)
Member
Joined: 5 years ago
Posts: 5
 

As long as you disagree with the program by comparing with other best products your posts may be (are) privatised. I think this is a counter production and a counter advertising but this is reality.
Jean-Pierre


   
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AndyW
(@andyw)
Member
Joined: 4 years ago
Posts: 53
Topic starter  

If that is in fact the case then it is another reason why Photopia should not have gone to market when they did. If they cannot handle criticism or

comparison to a product that they are "replacing" then there is an issue.

They tell us that the developers were ex photodex (proshow) and how the programme is able to import all (or at least most) effects

and shows made in Proshow.

If, when we point out the errors and compare with a programme that they profess to be more or less compatible with, they "hide" these posts then

it is not good for anyone.

Most of the posts which have now been made private have been up for quite a while and were all genuine issues which I and others were having (many of which still seem to be an issue)

I go on forums to discuss issues and, where necessary, point out errors or faults. I am sure many others do so any new users are likely to come on here, see loads of "good" things about Photopia but not see any negatives which could in fact be very helpful to them when they encounter these things themselves.

 

Sorry Photopia, but if what Jean-Pierre says is the case then you are wrong.

 

P.S. if you need an experienced beta tester/slideshow maker and experienced marketing person then my rates are quite reasonable.

 

 

 


   
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Jean-Pierre DRUFFIN
(@jeep35)
Member
Joined: 5 years ago
Posts: 5
 
Maybe I'm wrong but since they are ex-developers of Photodex they should have managed the new product much better.
There are undoubtedly copyright reasons that have forced them to recreate new software from scratch and this explains
why so many bugs.
This post was modified 4 years ago by Jean-Pierre DRUFFIN

   
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AndyW
(@andyw)
Member
Joined: 4 years ago
Posts: 53
Topic starter  

JP,

I absolutely agree about managing the product or at least the launch better.

As to copyright, I am sure there were/are issues but it would appear that some of the stuff they have used (transitions etc) seem to be directly lifted from ProShow and I remember seeing a post or mail somewhere where it said they were working in conjuction with Photodex on some of the issues. So it would seem that there was collaboration going on and these things are pretty simple to sort out.

Photodex were no longer developing Proshow and I think that the reason the developers started Photopia was to continue where photodex finished as there is a requirement for a good dedicated slideshow producer. I personally use it for numerous different types of customer and produce all sorts of stuff with it.

Some of the stuff in Photopia is good and has potential to be very helpful for folks like myself. But.... and it is a big BUT, at the moment it is not ready for "power users" (or whatever you want to call them).

It is a shame and even though many of my posts were critical, they were (in the main)  constructive in that they pointed out errors and highlighted some pretty basic stuff  which needed to be addressed.

They seem to have provided fixes for much of the stuff but I am just not prepared to invest in a progamme until I know that it is at least 90%+ ready to use in anger.

I installed the trial again recently and straight away I could see that it wasn't there yet as it was just not running as it should, so it is back in the delete bin I am afraid.

I will continue to check in on here, although it has gotten very much quieter, and also check the progress of the programme in the hope that they can sort out some of the issues they still seem to have.

Cheers

Andy

 

 

 


   
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Joshua
(@joshua)
Member Admin
Joined: 5 years ago
Posts: 1196
 

@andyw

I'd like to take a few minutes (maybe more) to address some things from this thread.

Missing Posts:

We did see an issue with our forum software yesterday that resulted in a number of older threads being removed.  I believe the issue was isolated to threads of a certain age with no replies.  It's something we're looking into so that it can be prevented in the future.  As you may have noticed, we did a bit of catching up on the forum this weekend, responding to many different posts / threads, which may have precipitated this behavior.  We apologize for the inconvenience and confusion caused by those missing threads.

Having said that, there were some intentional removals.  We understand that it can be difficult to figure out what is appropriate on a forum without clear 'acceptable use policies' posted, but we were hopeful that those would not be necessary.  In practice, we're pretty open to almost any reasonable topic / discussion.  Threats, inappropriate language, and things of that nature will not be tolerated but I think those are commonly understood standards.  One other topic that will not be looked upon favorably, that we hoped would not become an issue, is advertising / promoting competing products.  The competition isn't a problem, we've all personally been around the industry long enough to take our lumps from some of the great programs in this market, but advertising for competing products on our forum presents a number of complications that we're just not comfortable supporting.  We hope you understand.

To be very clear, posts related to ProShow are NOT a problem.  We have a working relationship with Photodex and intentionally support as much of their content as possible.

Private Threads:

A number of threads were recently marked as 'private'.  This was a mistake on our part resulting from a misunderstanding by one of our staff members.  We've updated our training on this detail and are restoring those threads.  They should not have been marked 'private' in the first place.  In the future, threads may be temporarily marked 'private' while we work with the original poster to clear up areas of concern, but those incidents will be considered on a case by case basis.

Reporting Issues:

While we do read through the forum regularly, it's not the best place to report issues.  Forums can be busy places and sometimes details get lost.  The best way to send in bug reports and feature requests is through the Contact Us form on our site.  These messages are addressed by eMail where we can engage in a one-on-one discussion to get further details, request relevant files, and obtain other private information as may be required.

Make no mistake, we'll continue to be around on the forum and may even pop in more frequently for quick updates, but the forum is primarily for all of you to share information with each other.  We'll be over here with our noses to the proverbial grindstone trying to make Photopia the best slideshow tool it can be.  If you see an area that needs improvement, please send that information over through the Contact Us form.

Customer feedback is so crucial to any good product and we're very aware of that fact.


   
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AndyW
(@andyw)
Member
Joined: 4 years ago
Posts: 53
Topic starter  

@joshua

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

I understand that mistakes happen and clean ups need to be done on databases and forums etc. It just seemed a bit sus. but then that is my inbuilt cynicism kicking in.

None of the posts I have made have contained anything which could be considered unacceptable in language or content.

Sure I have been quite harsh about photopia at times but in my (and others) opinion much of it has been warranted and I certainly hope that you guys are not that thin skinned that you cannot take criticism when warranted.

None of the posts I have made have contained advertising or promotion for any other company. Sure Proshow has been mentioned quite a few times. But as you say this should not be a problem since you are promoting your products compatibility with and relationship with that company.

I come on these forums from time to time to check and see how people are getting on with the programme and to see if you have sorted out the many issues which I and others encountered.

It would seem that despite the 130 or so "fixes" so far (in two months??) there are still some issues and people, especially new users, will often hit the forums to see if others have encountered the problem before reporting through e-mail or the like. That is why forums are important for more "specialist" progammes like this.  There was a new post regarding fonts posted a couple of hours ago asking exactly that!!!

I have no doubt you guys are working hard to get the programme working as best you can. No one starts this sort of thing without being fully invested in making it work.

Shame I cannot help anymore as I don't have a working version of it since the trial ended and I am not prepared to invest in it as it stands.

Good luck with getting it up to scratch

 

Thanks

Andy

 


   
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Joshua
(@joshua)
Member Admin
Joined: 5 years ago
Posts: 1196
 

@andyw

Thank you for the followup.  You should still be able to access the program once the trial period has expired.  If this is not the case, please reach out to us through the Contact Us forum and we'll figure out what's going on.


   
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Ledge1962
(@ledge1962)
Member
Joined: 4 years ago
Posts: 16
 

@joshua

I have been following Photopia in the hope that the glitches would be sorted, but once the trial period ended, the Photopia Splash screen indicated "The trial had ended and you must purchase to continue". I deleted the copy and a few weeks later, I went back in to see if there were any improvements, but the system would not let me download and install another copy against my email address. I had to use a new email to reinstall the trial.

I found afterwards, that I could have continued using the trial by clicking on "Continue" despite it being greyed out. This still brings up the green line indicating Valuation Mode, so not sure why it is not changed to green and the wording changed to Continue Evaluation.

 

 


   
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(@Anonymous)
Joined: 1 second ago
Posts: 0
 

@andyw

Hei Andy, nice to see you  here. You write very well. I wonder what you mean this program is not ready for "power user". Who are they ? For me Director still works perfect in both PC.  I only want to understand what you mean with those words, please..

My best wishes to you year 2020    Mirja

 

 


   
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AndyW
(@andyw)
Member
Joined: 4 years ago
Posts: 53
Topic starter  

@mirja

Hi,

I have been keeping my eye on the forums and updates to see what has been happening then I found that I could continue using the "evaluation" copy just by clicking continue !!

Anyway, what I meant by "power user" was basically someone who uses the programme more or less on a daily basis for business and makes a lot of different shows for different clients.

I know of a few who used (still use) Proshow for business purposes. They (myself included) could produce 200-300+ shows a year. These shows ranged from quick 2 minute basic slideshows through to complete stories running 30 minutes or more. So as you can imagine that would mean working on a number at one time.

I do this by using completed shows as templates and "tweaking" as necessary where possible. Obviously I also have a lot of styles/transitions and other stuff which was used in Proshow.

When Photopia stated that they would be "mostly" compatible with existing Proshow produced shows and styles etc. then I saw that as only good news for me and when I saw that the included styles and transitions were in the main lifted directly from Proshow then things were looking good.

Sadly though that has not been the case, at least for me. I have had nothing but problems with the basic programme, and trying to use existing shows or styles etc from Proshow has proven, well let's just say it has been interesting. I do know of a couple of other heavy users of Proshow who were happy that Photopia had arrived on the scene but who think basically the same as I do now they have tried it.

In the last couple of days I have gone back to very basics to see what has changed with the numerous updates/fixes and I am afraid to say my very first attempt failed pretty miserably.

I used the wizard to make a short 25 slide show. The sort of basic thing a new user might do once they got the programme.

Sadly it was a disaster. Using only the built in styles and transitions it still made a total mess of it. I have e-mailed Joshua with a bit of a breakdown of where things went wrong so maybe they can look at it.

I have been having a little play today and found a few things which I think need fixing/adding and I will be e-mailing Photopia with a list of things next week when I collate it properly.

I am glad that things are working properly for you and although a lot of my posts have been pretty negative I still have high hopes for Photopia.  I am sure the guys have a lot invested in it and being ex Photodex they have (or should have) the necessary skills and experience to be able to sort things out.

I just think maybe their marketing dept needs a bit of a kick up the proverbial......

Anyway, I will be around on here for a while but not as much as before.

Good luck

AndyW

 

 

 


   
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AndyW
(@andyw)
Member
Joined: 4 years ago
Posts: 53
Topic starter  

@mirja

Hi,

I have written an answer to your question about "power users", but it looks like it might have upset the powers  as it is still awaiting moderation after two days??

Will be interesting to see if this answer gets posted first or not at all.

AndyW


   
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Joshua
(@joshua)
Member Admin
Joined: 5 years ago
Posts: 1196
 

@andyw

I know that we discussed this over eMail, but I'd like to reiterate a bit of that information here for the benefit of everyone else.

Some of you may have noticed your posts 'awaiting moderator approval', or at the very least other people discussing the topic.  Due to a recent influx of junk posts from spam bots we had to find a quick solution to prevent the forum from becoming overrun by posts full of 'garbage' characters and highly suspicious links (almost certainly infection vectors).  That solution involved requiring moderator approval for posts from accounts without an active subscription.

This is not the ideal solution, but for now it's the best choice available while we look into more sophisticated options.  We'll be getting a better system in place for minimizing these 'approval' delays in the meantime.

Thank you for your patience as we work through this problem.


   
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(@Anonymous)
Joined: 1 second ago
Posts: 0
 

@andyw

I did not know what was a power user.Now i can read it on internet. It has nothing to do with a software, only with users. Thanks för caring.

P.S I accept and it is ok that my post is taking away from forum.  Mirja

This post was modified 4 years ago by Anonymous

   
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