Dont buy this product. Noone will help you get it working
After Three weeks of useless condescention, and NOT ONE Single helpful answer... I can honestly say that THIS SOFTWARE and all of the STAFF associated with it are useless.
This response is aimed both at the users of this site, and the staff of ckEditor.
This software is incredibly powerful - and incredibly complex. You can't necessarily blame the staff for the quality of posts in the forums (unless it's ONLY staff who are posting answers in the forums, but I have another point on that to make.)
The problem in my view is the documentation. It assumes a huge amount of knowledge of scripting and callbacks - but it is 'free' software with a huge user-base, so you're going to have a lot of people new to scripting/programming using it. There is no information catering for that audience.
If you compare it to the jQuery site, for example, I've got up and runnign pretty quickly due to the quality of documentation and the helpful nature of the staff. I can get very close to the ballpark because they include demos and their code for just about every single variable. If I get it wrong it's because I don't know the actual logical steps to use (should I use load() or get() for example). In that scenario I would search, search and then seek advice. And I get it.
I've been coding in php for a while, but I'm still no expert and I still seek help when I can't find a solution on google. For me, there is no better forum than phpbuilder.com/board - the users there are willing to help. Of course, they get asked the same questions over and over again, and sometimes they get snarky. I can understand that (I've done it myself having spent 6 years on an IT Helpdesk) BUT...
...if a particular question has been asked which has already been answered, the regular users (or mods) at phpbuilder will post a link BACK to that original post for the user to work through. Sometimes the user will have simply not searched. In other cases (as I am finding myself in the ckeditor forum) they simply don't know what to search for. So they explain their problem, and hope someone understands it. If they still have issues after that they will respond on their original post and get further assistance. THAT is how the forums here should work.
To return to my earlier point about staff - why should they spend all their time providing support in here when it quite clearly states on the site that they have a dedicated and proper support system - OK, you have to pay 600 for it, but it IS there! Now, I'm playing devil's advocate here because I kinda think there's no point in a support forum if you're only going to provide help to people that pay.
In a separate note to any staff that DO post in here - thank you for providing such a good piece of software - but can I please ask that if you (understandably) get annoyed by people asking the same questions please consider this in your responses:
"Read the documentation" - which bit, precisely? There are pages and pages of it. Quite often all people need is to know which tool they should be using, and a solid example of how to use it. You have the knowledge, we don't. All we're asking for is your help.
If a question has been asked before and answered on a separate post successfully, provide a link to that post in your response. Help us to learn - and stop bothering you. You might just find that the better your initial responses are, the fewer queries you have to answer because people will find them when they search!
Revise your documentation to include more examples - especially concerning when and why you might want to include certain functions.
And if anyone cares to render further assistance with my query here: http://cksource.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=21620 please post your helpful suggestions there! I'm more than happy to learn myself, but I just need pointing at which function I should be using!
@dasaven - this is amazing. You have spent so much time on complaining about everything and didn't write even one single post to help anyone else... If you don't help anyone, why should anyone help you?
Re: DONT buy this product. NOONE will help you get it work
I have to disagree - but only slightly.
This response is aimed both at the users of this site, and the staff of ckEditor.
This software is incredibly powerful - and incredibly complex. You can't necessarily blame the staff for the quality of posts in the forums (unless it's ONLY staff who are posting answers in the forums, but I have another point on that to make.)
The problem in my view is the documentation. It assumes a huge amount of knowledge of scripting and callbacks - but it is 'free' software with a huge user-base, so you're going to have a lot of people new to scripting/programming using it. There is no information catering for that audience.
If you compare it to the jQuery site, for example, I've got up and runnign pretty quickly due to the quality of documentation and the helpful nature of the staff. I can get very close to the ballpark because they include demos and their code for just about every single variable. If I get it wrong it's because I don't know the actual logical steps to use (should I use load() or get() for example). In that scenario I would search, search and then seek advice. And I get it.
I've been coding in php for a while, but I'm still no expert and I still seek help when I can't find a solution on google. For me, there is no better forum than phpbuilder.com/board - the users there are willing to help. Of course, they get asked the same questions over and over again, and sometimes they get snarky. I can understand that (I've done it myself having spent 6 years on an IT Helpdesk) BUT...
...if a particular question has been asked which has already been answered, the regular users (or mods) at phpbuilder will post a link BACK to that original post for the user to work through. Sometimes the user will have simply not searched. In other cases (as I am finding myself in the ckeditor forum) they simply don't know what to search for. So they explain their problem, and hope someone understands it. If they still have issues after that they will respond on their original post and get further assistance. THAT is how the forums here should work.
To return to my earlier point about staff - why should they spend all their time providing support in here when it quite clearly states on the site that they have a dedicated and proper support system - OK, you have to pay 600 for it, but it IS there! Now, I'm playing devil's advocate here because I kinda think there's no point in a support forum if you're only going to provide help to people that pay.
In a separate note to any staff that DO post in here - thank you for providing such a good piece of software - but can I please ask that if you (understandably) get annoyed by people asking the same questions please consider this in your responses:
"Read the documentation" - which bit, precisely? There are pages and pages of it. Quite often all people need is to know which tool they should be using, and a solid example of how to use it. You have the knowledge, we don't. All we're asking for is your help.
If a question has been asked before and answered on a separate post successfully, provide a link to that post in your response. Help us to learn - and stop bothering you. You might just find that the better your initial responses are, the fewer queries you have to answer because people will find them when they search!
Revise your documentation to include more examples - especially concerning when and why you might want to include certain functions.
And if anyone cares to render further assistance with my query here: http://cksource.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=21620 please post your helpful suggestions there! I'm more than happy to learn myself, but I just need pointing at which function I should be using!
Thanks, and apologies for the long/ranting post!
Re: DONT buy this product. NOONE will help you get it work
@dasaven - this is amazing. You have spent so much time on complaining about everything and didn't write even one single post to help anyone else... If you don't help anyone, why should anyone help you?
Note: the editor is offered for free, we are contantly working on improving the documentation (feedback is welcome!), but we are unable to read and answer every single post on the forum.
I guss that even if you got a brand new car for free, you'd start complaining that you have to pay for the gas.
PS. even the subject of this topic is wrong, because each commercial license for CKEditor includes 1 year of personal e-mail support.
Wiktor Walc
CTO, CKSource - http://cksource.com
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