IMPORTANT: Starting with September 14, 2011, the developer works both at a university of technology and a telecommunications company, which means he has little time to devote to answering support questions regarding sigplus. Please take this into consideration before purchasing a license. The developer replies to e-mails typically between 18:00 and 23:00 UTC both weekdays and weekends. If you need immediate dedicated support that does not fit into that time frame, the developer suggests checking out one of the several truly commercial products. In order to reflect limited developer availability in sigplus license prices, they have been reduced by nearly 40%.
Step-by-step guide to getting support
- Check whether you are using the latest version of sigplus; your problem might have already been fixed in a newer release. Upgrading is free and migrates your existing settings.
- Take a look at the official documentation. There are step-by-step instructions as well as tutorials on the most common tasks you might want to get done with sigplus.
- Do you get an error message? See the list of standard error messages with recommended solutions.
- Check out the FAQ for solutions to common problems: an entry is added for each of the issues that had been frequently arising with the extension.
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Do you use sigplus in a commercial environment?
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Purchase a support license. The license fee includes consultation cost as well as a (small) contribution towards sigplus development. The support license is limited to a single website. (You are welcome to use sigplus on unlimited sites but a single license entitles you to get support regarding a single site. In other words, the extension is free but support is not.)
sigplus support (EUR)sigplus support (USD) - E-mail the This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . For faster service, please include as many specifics regarding the problem as possible. A URL to the page in question is most appreciated.
- If we are unable to get the extension operational on the website or you are dissatisfied with support, contact the This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to issue a full refund (please supply buyer information so that your payment can be identified). No questions asked.
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Do you use sigplus in a non-commercial environment?
- Enable Debug mode. This is the very last setting in the Advanced parameters section within the sigplus configuration panel. Choose Extensions/Plugin Manager from the menu in the Joomla administration back-end, click Content – Image gallery – sigplus and click Advanced Parameters. Set Debug mode to Yes and click Save. Debug mode uses uncompressed versions of JavaScript code shipped with sigplus, making possible conflicts and errors much easier to spot.
- Disable cache usage. Choose Site/Global Configuration from the menu in the back-end, click the System tab, look for the panel Cache Settings, and set Cache to No. Otherwise, changes to sigplus configuration or usage might not be immediately reflected in your site.
- E-mail the This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Include a full link (a direct URL) to the page where the problem occurs. Taking a look at what sigplus outputs usually reveals a lot of information on how you are using (or possibly misusing) sigplus. Indicating whether you are a novice user, a power user or a developer can help you get the type of answer you want.
- Tell your experience to other users. Post a rating and a review at the Joomla! Extensions Directory.
- Foster future development of the product by making a donation (see far right, near top).
Background
Since its publication in the Joomla Extensions Directory (JED) on March 13, 2010, sigplus has grown a mature product. We strongly believe that most of the errors you might encounter are due to aggressive templates, uncooperative extensions your site uses, deviation from the usage syntax discussed in the documentation, or other unique issues in the operating environment we could not possibly foresee and prepare for. sigplus is offered for free (and will always be) but end-user support costs money in terms of time that could have been spent on other projects we get paid for. Consequently, we would like to strongly encourage you to read the comprehensive sigplus documentation and browse the list of frequently asked questions and standard error messages for solutions. If your problem is not addressed in these and you need professional help by the This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it targetted specifically at your site, you must purchase sigplus support (or if you are a non-commercial user, you are encouraged to make a donation). Those who help (or have helped) support the project financially are entitled to free support; we usually reply promptly but do not be mad at us if we do not.
As apparent from this website, the author is not a full-time web developer but has a regular job at a university of technology. This means that
- You might occasionally get tech-savvy answers to questions. The developer does hard to try to avoid this but may sometimes fail to. This is none of your fault, please make sure to let him know that you do not have a technical background if this happens.
- The developer is not available for contracted work or anything that is not strictly related to one of his extensions.
- Any help is welcome. If you use a beta version of sigplus and run into a problem, please This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it so that he is able to provide a fix before the final production release. Thank you in advance for your help.
How do I get free support?
We are willing to help if so do you. In exchange for evaluating the latest development snapshot of sigplus, we provide free support for any issues you run into with this version. (This option is only available if there are snapshots to test in the latest private releases folder.) Of course, free support is not meant to save you reading the documentation or checking out the list of configuration settings. Needless to say, you are also entitled to free support if you discover a bug in sigplus that is not yet addressed in the latest public or private release. In addition, free support is available to contributors (of translations, tutorials, etc.).
Does sigplus support “X”? Is “Y” a supported feature?
If you would like to know if a specific feature is supported, skim through the list of configuration settings. This is a fairly comprehensive list of all features sigplus has to offer, which covers 95% of all sigplus settings; it is very likely that there is a (combination of) parameters that can solve what you want. You are welcome to make feature requests but they will not be implemented unless they have a universal merit (i.e. they could be useful to a general group of users) and you help support the project financially (see Donate button in the top right corner, typical donations range between 15 and 20 EUR or 20 and 25 USD). For each unit of money donated, the developer donates two of his own (in terms of work hours), i.e. you can have 60 EUR worth of features implemented by making a donation of 20 EUR.