First of all let me thank you for the honest feedback. I have passed it to the head of our sales department. We appreciate you taking the time to inform us about your dissatisfaction and the delay with a quote.
I was hoping that either a suggestion for a plugin would come or a tutorial or some help to develop the plugin myself.
I’m sorry, but we cannot provide you with any code or guidance on how to write one. Giving some advice implies responsibility for the correctness of its implementation and we cannot guarantee it unless the code is written, reviewed and tested by our specialists. So, I can only offer you two plugins or custom development.
I mean where do developers go to get acquainted with the codex of cs-cart?
It usually takes days or even weeks on end to get the quote, after several emails back and forth asking for access to ftp and the website, even when requests are pretty straightforward as the one I made here.
Getting the access to the admin panel and server is a mandatory condition for providing an accurate quote. When estimating a modification, we need to take into account numerous factors including:
- CS-Cart and PHP version
- Add-ons and theme installed
- Any modifications done
- My changes add-on, etc.
If we don’t do that, the estimation can be incorrect.
Our sales manager replied within onу business day after she has been assigned to it on November 18th. The quotation has taken 3 business days, she gave you recommendations not requiring any financial investments.
When you eventually get the quote it will most probably be so overpriced, it will not be worth it.
I agree with you that our costs are higher than those of some of the CS-Cart developers. Our development process also might be a little bit longer than in other companies. This is the price to pay for the quality.
Examples:
1. A quote is always analysed by a senior developer to make sure that we take into account all possible details and pitfalls. For your convenience, we provide an account manager who is ready to discuss the project in HelpDesk/Skype or any other messenger you prefer. If you agree with the price, we make a very detailed specification that allows you to double check everything to be done and correct any misinterpretation.
2. The development involves not only writing the code, but also code review and testing on an exact copy of your store. You get an add-on with clean, easy to read and modify code created with your business in mind.
3. Two weeks are given for testing, so you can take your time and make sure that the work is done exactly as it should. Furthermore, you get 100 days of post-release warranty. That means that even if you first confirm that everything is fine, we upload on production and you find a bug within three months after the release, you get it fixed for free.
Just so you know, I've already made a request for a simple addon last monday (monday the 18th of November) and it took 2 days to get a response asking for screenshots and FTP access.
Our sales manager gave a response the same day she got your questions.
If it takes 10 days on end to get a quote for a plugin that deals with how variable products appear when they only have one item of the specific variation variable... imagine what would happen for a plugin that needs to disable the pay with points field if the user's reward points are below a certain threshold…
As far as I know, you wanted to make an option to be shown in a drop-down rather that after a comma for the cases when only one product option is available. According to the default CS-Cart functionality, it can be done if you create a product variation
http://joxi.ru/12MgpJ8Hlj3Oqr, so you need to have at least one variation to do this. No development is required
http://joxi.ru/RmzBzdaCYy6ljm
If you need further counselling on the default CS-Cart functionality, the following resources are available:
- Official documentation https://docs.cs-cart.com/latest/index.html
- This forum
- CS-Cart support service https://www.cs-cart.com/support-service.html
- Simtech Development dedicated development and technical support. https://www.simtechdev.com/services/services-dedicated-developer.html
As it comes to the estimation duration, we normally provide a rough quote within 2 business days. A precise one may take a bit longer because new details can be revealed.
So I still look for some help to kickstart me in plugin development and a few tips on how the func.php works. I have figured out a bit of the code but I still need some help with the hooks on the chekcout page.
Having experience with Woocommerce and Wordpress you can definitely become comfortable with CS-Cart coding fast. The materials I’ve mentioned above will help you with that. We have not got a school for developers, unfortunately. That is why I have offered you the most effective ways to reach your goals besides creating the functionality by your own: custom development or ready add-ons.