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SimplePress is a real Rip-Off. The basic “free” plugin is worth nothing, it takes a lot of extra plugins to make it work….

“Worth NOTHING?” Literally NOTHING?

That seems like a pretty harsh indictment. Could you be more specific about what you are trying to do with SimplePress that takes “a lot of extra plugins to make work?”

I’m using the utterly free, “out of the box” version. I won’t pay them anything, so I’m not “advocating” SimplePress to push “customers” their way, and I’m in NO way affiliated with them. I was just groping around for SOME forums plugin that would “just work.” And SimplePress indeed “just works” for everything I care to do with a forums package. It is the ONE WP forums plugin that has “just worked” for me without causing theme problems or outright errors.

For people looking for a FREE WP forums plugin, I doubt they are looking for scads more “functionality” than the free version of SimplePress does provide. If they are looking for more functionality, it’s not really fair to compare the other free (and largely problematical) WP plugins with the FREE version of SimplePress. For FREE, I haven’t found a better one than SimplePress. Again, what are you trying to have it do?

Of course, the key point of this thread is that if you are one of the “unlucky” ones with Mingle Forums, at least now you know to not waste one minute on trying to “resolve” the issues! If for you it does NOT “just work,” just instantly uninstall and move on. And, comparing FREE functionality heads-up, SimplePress appears to be a very good alternative. ??

<I never once said that you were affiliated with simple:press. Your username is the email of the president of conclusivesystems.com. It’s rare that I see an email address on a forum as a username, let alone as the companies president. Behaving so hostile representing one’s company must be great for image.>

Sorry I didn’t chose a username that suits you. Mine is, for me, unique and easy to remember. That’s all there is to read into it.

Furthermore, our company is in a totally unrelated field, which you know since you clearly checked out what we do (something almost nobody else will bother to do). I could not be “plugging” our company in this setting, as you immediately accused me of, because our “market” is entirely, totally unrelated to this sort of context. Your opening shot across my bow was this accusation, and you have yet to sustain it in the slightest.

YOU are the one who has been hostile from the outset, as I just pointed out. I’m still trying to figure out why YOU have such an ax to grind to “protect” a free plugin.

<If it doesn’t work out, I’m fairly sure simple:press will hire you though as a brand champion. Besides managing to rubbish Mingle Forums in all of your posts on Support, you’ve do a great job marketing simple:press.>

Ahhh… sarcasm. Another sign of the hostility with which YOU have approached this from the outset.

<My suggestions were for other people who may come across this thread. In none of your posts have you even mentioned how you configured Mingle Forums. How can anyone help you? Did you even want help? I doubt.>

If you had read the other threads as you say, I mean read with understanding of the struggles others are having with this, you would have noted that it is repeated that EVEN ADMINS with a fresh install do not get the missing button. This is not a function of “configuration,” which is why your tirade about configuration is a red herring.

So, rather than to, again, impugn my character and motives, you might instead offer some explanation of how it can POSSIBLY be (in a properly functioning plugin) that the site ADMIN does not get the button! If the ADMIN cannot create the first topic in a forum (lacking the needed button and all), then I think it’s safe to say: “Houston, we have a problem!”

Then you quote me repeatedly from other threads, ironically by so doing thwarting your own case that I’m nothing but a SP fanboy. Your own quotes of me tell the real story: I spent a significant amount of time trying out all of the major players in terms of WP forums plugins, and Mingle forums, THE “just works” one, was the ONE (the only one) that did NOT just work.

You can debate on an on the relative merits of this or that plugin. Those are all going to be very subjective assessments. But the OBJECTIVE fact is that Mingle is the ONLY forums plugin in which for (some/many) people, the site ADMIN cannot even get far enough to create a topic in a forum! THAT is a fundamental problem, and it is a problem the other forums plugins do NOT have.

All of my efforts were an attempt to save others the efforts and time I spent. That’s my spirit. You take it as a “bash” on the developers, which it was not. This leads me to again question your relationship with this forums’ developers. I had no “ax to grind” and simply expressed the results of my pretty extensive research on the subject, hoping to help others “cut to the chase” with their own valuable time.

YOU hop on and, by contrast, take this whole thing amazingly personally. Your responses do not come across as “telling the other side.” They come across as defending the indefensible at any cost and whatever the tactics.

So, quit bashing ME personally just because I have a story to tell, even though it’s a story you don’t want to hear. Nothing you’ve had to say against me personally changes the FACTS.

You are right that “nothing is ever so black and white.” I didn’t cast anything as “so black and white.” I told my experiences, which were carefully researched over a lot of effort. I found in Mingle a plugin that simply would NOT work correctly. It is TOUTED as “just working,” and it does not… for me and quite a number of others. For those of us “unlucky ones,” the plugin not only does NOT “just work,” it WON’T work. If you want to beat your head against those FACTS, and defend such a ridiculous “line” from the developer in the face of the FACTS, well, good luck with that.

And, btw, even IF you could come up with some configuration solution that addressed the FACTS, the way you have approached this has so muddied the waters that you would not benefit anybody by burying your “solution” in such a morass as this thread. Again, an irony in the face of your claim to be trying to help with a possible configuration issue. I would suggest starting your own thread with that solution rather than bury it here.

Meanwhile, one FACT that would not be thereby changed is the FACT that something remains very wrong with a plugin that installs with a default configuration such that (for some installations???) the ADMIN cannot start a new topic. If there’s some exotic configuration “fix” for that problem, then it should BE the default configuration! Apparently NO other forums plugin puts any site admin into this situation.

Debating features, etc. is pretty meaningless until you can start with the baseline of plugins that really do JUST WORK. Once they’re installed and WORK, then you can debate ease of use, ease of configuration, and features. For some/many people, with Mingle forums, you’re just never going to get that far!

On a few occasions, I’ve argued with somebody like you in the past. I’ve learned that such arguments are not about facts; they are about “winning.” However, the facts remain unchanged. There are easier to configure (and also free) forums plugins out there than Mingle (SimplePress being just one very good example), and Mingle does NOT always “just work” for everybody. Those FACTS were my only thrust throughout.

YOU have turned a discussion of FACTS into strange and personal speculations, baiting, and sarcasm. You need to “win” by any tactics. So, whatever else you want to say, I’ll just concede: you “win.” I’m done. The FACTS have been clearly expressed, and that’s what mattered to me all along. I continue to hope that my experiences and research will help people save some time AND not beat their head against the wall if they are among the unlucky for whom Mingle forums does not “just work.”

Haydenator, let’s take your post line by line….

<Wow, you’re sure going out of your way to rubbish a developer who’s been providing free plugins for years. I’d be embarrassed if I shamelessly plugged my own company while disrespecting a developer of free products on the same screen.>

“Rubbish a developer?” I think not. I simply point out that “just works” is not fact. Many people are having the same problem, and the developer is not responding to this fundamental problem in timely fashion. FREE is meaningless. Our time is worth far, far more than the cost of a commercial product. If a developer is going to tout “just works,” then the thing SHOULD just work. This plugin doesn’t!

Oh, and where do you get the idea that I’m “shamelessly plugging” my own company? You SO leap to “the developer’s” defense that you confuse yourself and clearly did not even carefully read my post, as I’ll further point out below.

Where do I “shamelessly plug” my own company? I have NOTHING to do with SimplePress whatsoever, and where would you deduce that I do? Again and again in your post, as I’ll further point out, you make logical leaps over tall buildings that would make Superman proud!

<I’ve had Mingle Forums installed since May and while I find some things are counter-intuitive, I’ve had no problems with it, nor likely most Mingle Forum users.>

TOTALLY missing the point! The fact that “most” users don’t have a problem does not mean that MANY users are not having the problem I describe in this thread. It does NOT “just work” for many users, which is the topic of this thread.

<Considering the number of users that download it each week (1,800 just for last), I’d say the number of questions on the support forum is fairly low.>

TOTALLY missing the point! Most people will just uninstall and move on. Most people won’t bother to take the time to try to resolve something that is this fundamentally broken, and they won’t take the time to warn others off.

I myself was one of the many users that added to the download statistic you are mentioning here, and I ALSO uninstalled it after it did NOT “just work.” Do you have a statistic on what percentage of the downloads resulted in quick uninstalls? Of course not. The fact that many people TRY this plugin says NOTHING about how many people then reject it, as I did.

And your idea that you can extrapolate ANYTHING from the relative “fairly low” number of people posting here is ridiculous on so many levels that I won’t even start to take the space to point them out. They SHOULD be obvious. Terrible statistics, and terrible logic. Don’t be so defensive!

The thing does NOT “just work,” and I (and many others) have every right to point that out and warn people off of the product.

<I also haven’t noticed much activity from the developer lately, but I don’t expect to considering that I don’t owe them anything.>

Yup, and we that warn people on this thread and many other threads across the Net aren’t COSTING the developer anything either. TIME is our most valuable commodity, and I would not have wasted mine on this product had I found the many threads about this before devoting hours to trying to get this thing TO WORK (without success).

<I moved from simple:press because it was a bit bloaty for my needs and I couldn’t skin it the way I wanted. I had been using BBPress before that and found it didn’t suit me. There’s nothing wrong with them though but they don’t magically set themselves up or “Just work”.>

Uhh… you’re simply wrong. They DO just work. You install them and CONFIGURE them. Done. They WORK as advertised. They are not “magically” just MISSING fundamental components, like a BUTTON!!!! You are conflating “working” with configuration! Of course all products need to be configured. It’s ridiculous that you would compare a MISSING and CRITICAL BUTTON with the need to configure a product.

<Finally there is no “Add Topic” button. It’s “New Topic” and provided a user is A) Registered and B) added to the user group and C) user group assigned to the category (if private), they can see and participate in the forum.>

Whatever, and, again, missing the point.

The exact verbiage on the button is not the point. And I’ll be forgiven for not getting the exact verbiage right when I CAN NEVER SEE THE FABLED BUTTON!

The point is that everybody having this problem has gone through your suggested steps, A through C (they are obvious). My own configuration was trivially simple, and the button still does not appear. I’ve troubleshot according to developer instructions, to no avail. Hours spent on this stupidity. Nobody is served by you basically telling us (that don’t get the button) that we’re all stupid. We are not, and there IS a fundamental problem with this product.

<If you’ve disabled “Registration required to post” obviously the above doesn’t apply.>

You might have ASKED this question before launching into your defensive tirade. But your goal was not to be helpful. Your goal was to demean a poster in defense of the developer.

Think about it….

If all you have to say might well NOT even “apply,” then you should have ASKED first.

In fact, I’ve configured it both ways, with the same result. Again, we having this problem are NOT stupid, and there is a fundamental problem with this product.

You might acknowledge that possibility before you LEAP to the defense of this oh so wonderful developer that is touting a product that “just works” and that in fact JUST DOESN’T (for many people, apparently at random).

<If an unregistered visitor makes a topic or post in a public forum and it does NOT show up for them, it’s likely due to caching (conversely, logged in users generally don’t get served cached data, so they’ll get the update in real-time).>

NOTHING to do with it, and obviously not.

There are countless variations of how a site might be caching, ranging from plugins to WP settings to web-server settings, and so on (all the way out to the routers themselves, if a person is using a hosted domain), and even browser type and settings! And, browsers like Firefox will clear cache AND Javascript by refreshing the page with <ctrl>+F5.

If this plugin has this problem as a caching-related issue, then, again, something is VERY wrong with it… because NONE of the other related plugins suffer from such a fundamental problem as THIS one has!

Caching has nothing to do with it. You’re groping.

<If I cannot see “New Topic” I’ve found it’s generally because….>

All your suggestions are red herrings. Been there, done that. Those of us having this issue are not stupid, and it’s not a configuration or, as you call it, “set up” issue.

If you read the many threads on the Net about this problem, you will see that people are finding this issue with brand new WP sites, with just this plugin installed, with no registration required, etc., etc.

I myself set up a pure test-bed environment with JUST this plugin, just to get to the bottom of THIS ISSUE, in an attempt to get THIS ONE PLUGIN to work right. No joy.

If this plugin needs some wild, exotic set-up combination beyond all I tried, then this plugin is far too complicated to “set up” to be worth using! I DO enterprise web-based application development for a living. And THIS plugin is fundamentally (and seemingly randomly) broken!

<Nothing “Just works” without setting it up properly first.>

Again, your ridiculous conflation of “set up” and a properly functioning product. EVERY other forums plugin does JUST WORK in the sense that it functions properly. This one does NOT. It is not a configuration or “set up” issue (unless, again, it takes some really wild, exotic “set up” to simply get that damned button to appear)!

There is, of course, no “perfect” forum plugin out there. Nobody is asking for that! I was looking for one that “just works,” and this one does not.

If “setting it up properly first” means doing more than I tried on my test-bed (to no avail), then this plugin is FAR too difficult to “set up properly” to be worth the time. “Just works” implies what EVERY other forums plugin I tried actually delivers: You install it, and ALL of the basic functionality is immediately present. “Configuration,” then, becomes a matter of look/feel and permissions issues.

And whatever is WRONG with this plugin is not fundamentally a permissions issue!

When even a site administrator user cannot see the “New Topic” button, something about this plugin is patently ridiculous! There is NO configuration/settings combination that should have that result! And NO other forums plugin has that result!

Oh, and I’m not going to get into a back-and-forth with you on this thread, so if you reply, I won’t be baited. The facts are what they are. This plugin does NOT “just work,” and those of us that find it does not are not missing something in the “set up” or stupid. It’s BROKEN for many people, and until that FACT is resolved, this plugin is NOT worth the time to install and “set up.”

Okay, the update on Simple Press.

In short, THIS is the forum application that installs neatly into WP, is wonderfully configurable, is incredibly robust, AND is in fact IS “Forum Plugin for WordPress that just works.”

I’ve done about everything imaginable with it so far, and it’s utterly without hiccup. I love the configuration options, including how “skinnable” it is.

Best of all… it HAS an “Add Topic” button that “just works.” LOL

Perfect integration with existing WP users and user groups. Even a “badge” system for ranking users by number of posts, WITH the ability to auto-assign ranks to user groups (so, for example, you could establish a ‘major contributor’ rank and auto-add somebody reaching that rank to the ‘moderators’ group. Very fine-grained in every way.

This is, honestly, the best forum software I’ve seen in or out of WP.

Two thumbs up.

I’m just finishing configuration of Simple Press, and so far I’m very impressed. The basic forum seems far superior to those on the WordPress plugins pages. And the settings are extremely fine-grained, yet intuitive! Both signs of back-end power and thoughtful coding.

The company charges for support, premium features, and plugins to the software. But the base forum is extremely configurable and robust even as a free version! You can even match component colors to your theme on one single configuration page, so that in a few minutes you can have every bar, button, etc. matching your existing theme. Count me impressed so far.

I’ll update later after a thorough test. But, so far, this seems to be a better option than what’s on the WP site, and less trouble than trying to integrate an external forum into WP.

This is both hilarious and pathetic. I quote: “Have you been looking for a Forum Plugin for WordPress that just works? Then look no further!”

Well, count me as one that’s “looking further!” It’s absolutely absurd that something as “simple” (what the developer takes PRIDE in) doesn’t work at this most basic level.

And note: no response on this forum about this issue. So, it seems that if you’ve got this problem, well, tough luck.

I think I would have nothing to do with any for-pay products offered by Cartpauj & iComNow. Again I quote: “All plugins are FREE (as-is) therefore we cannot promise all requests will be answered or considered. If you need more immediate help then send “cartpauj” a message on this site and we can discuss Paid support.” Translation: “We will charge you to get our ‘free’ product working as advertised.”

Big developer-credibility problem here! I HATE wasting my time. So, I hope my post helps steer people away from this junk to something that will work. I’ll update when that search is ended.

Deleting and trying something else.