The plugin works, and its support is great, but…

The free plugin works and allows configuring and generating feeds, but I can’t give it 5 stars because:

• Some really basic features (like having product EAN code or brand name in the feeds) are deliberately restricted to the paid version only, even though they would realistically amount to maybe 20 lines of mostly copy-paste code.
• Custom XML feeds are quite limited, partly due to existence of the paid version, and partly because some things are just not implemented at all. A common limitation many will likely face is the lack of possibility to configure a feed with non-flat structure of the product element (e.g. with multiple category or image URL elements grouped under a parent element). Basically, custom feeds can only be flat, like root > product > property or root > products > product > property. I have configured XML feeds of 5 types so far, and not one of them could be fully done as a feed of Custom type.
• No extension mechanism to add your own custom merchant types is provided. If you can’t find a suitable feed template and want to implement one yourself, you end up having to modify the mostly undocumented code of this plugin, meaning you can’t benefit from easy automatic updates anymore, unless you hijack that functionality as well.
• In my not-really-humble opinion, the source code of this plugin is overly complicated and difficult to grasp. Some classes seem unnecessary, and the shear amount of these classes, as well as their inconsistent naming and dated code style, contributes greatly to the feeling of working with a huge pile of mess. Although I’ll admit I have a similar feeling each time I’m asked to do pretty much anything code-wise on a WordPress site, so it’s either my personal problem, or a broader issue with the WordPress ecosystem.

EDIT. On the bright side:

• A lot of preconfigured feed templates are provided. If they suit your needs, you can start serving your feeds pretty quickly.
• The dude supporting this plugin on its support forum (I don’t know if he’s its author as well) is really friendly, positive and responsive, as can be seen from his comment below this review. I’m giving the plugin the fourth star just for that. ??

• This topic was modified 1 week, 3 days ago by Rimas.
• This topic was modified 1 week, 3 days ago by Rimas.
• This topic was modified 1 week, 3 days ago by Rimas.