ThemeHouse and Audentio Design

[Bionic Rooster]

You're right, I retract that observation because I didn't add a space between the words I copied from GH and pasted them as is into the search parameter.

He's complaining about the meaning behind the icons being 'confusing' when in the end, it doesn't really matter.

It may not matter to you and what he's complaining about is what matters to your customers who don't understand. So it would suggest it also doesn't matter to you that customers are confused?

 

[Bionic Rooster]

The fact that they seem to change their plan consistently shows that they are taking this feedback and trying to adjust.

I agree and I think this is a good sign when they are listening to their customers and trying to adapt. I'm sure it will all work out in the end when they get it dialed in.

 

[Jake B.]

It was that you tacked on money for what were once free addons without doing anything to them to warrant the price.

If you don't think the price is worth it, then don't buy the add-on, that's not a difficult concept.

Along with that, you got rid of the free versions so that no one could download them.

Yep. Why would we want to manage the resources for duplicate add-ons? It was far simpler, and less confusing to remove them. That doesn't mean you can't continue to use them. You just won't receive support

Then you started with this ridiculous quasi-crowd funding thing on top of it all.

Again, there is nobody forcing you, or anyone else to use it.

Add those up on top of the second rebranding of your company this quarter, and you're going to have a bunch of people wondering as to what the hell was going on with the company.

The first "rebranding" I wouldn't even necessarily call it a rebranding, nothing was actually released with that name (apart from a couple add-ons we fixed bugs for). I can think of a company here that still likely doesn't know what it's brand is, and they've changed theirs multiple times in a single month. I don't think it's really confusing since most people did not see the HexThemes reference, and even if there was a link to hexthemes somewhere it would redirect to ThemeHouse so anyone with any sort of common sense would be able to figure it out.

It may not matter to you and what he's complaining about is what matters to your customers who don't understand. So it would suggest it also doesn't matter to you that customers are confused?

How are the icons any more confusing than if we just used a bunch of icons that had no meaning behind them. Any meaning to the icon can easily be figured out in other methods.

For example:
The paid Add-ons (with the background color) will have a price listed with them.
The free add-ons will not have a price

It's not essential to know what the icon means, it's just there to identify the add-on. We just happened to add some extra meaning behind it and whether you know that meaning or not it doesn't make it any more or less confusing than if the icons did not have any sort of meaning. A lot of people are just complaining for the sake of complaining, which is completely unproductive. From what I've seen, your posts have been much more constructive than most.

 

[sbj]

For the record, I like the idea with the new avatars.

 

[The Grand Potentate]

Yep. Why would we want to manage the resources for duplicate add-ons? It was far simpler, and less confusing to remove them. That doesn't mean you can't continue to use them. You just won't receive support

This is a lie debunked in this thread by management. All you had to do was mark them unmaintained and then post a link in the discussion thread for continued support. The files could have led a long, unmaintained life. You chose to do this to back people needing the addon files into paying for them.

And for the record, that's actually ok. I would have found it a bit scummy, but I've certainly seen much worse, and $10 isn't a terrible hit. Of course, if you actually had a human being on your staff who had the first inkling of how to treat customers and garner good will, you could have just come out and said "Hi guys! We're going to be charging the $10 to recoup our investment in Waindigo. Going forward, any updated Waindigo addon is going to be $10. If you need the old, outdated files, please download them by X date." and everyone would have praised you as being fair and thoughtful. Even if you deleted all the files by that date. Instead, we have this horseshit situation.

If you don't think the price is worth it, then don't buy the add-on, that's not a difficult concept.

Again, there is nobody forcing you, or anyone else to use it.

This is a LOT of attitude. And, as most of the people in this thread have come to expect, its accompanied by no answers or substance. You may as well have replied "tough titties!" for all the good this did. For roughly the fifth time, its not about the money or whether people think its worth it. The question on people's mind is why, after you literally did nothing but re-title the addons, did you slap the $10 charge on it? No bugs were fixed and nothing changed. You could have simply waited until you did actually fix something to then charge people the $10 fee. At least they would have known there was something worth paying for as opposed to your vague implications of eventual fixes and updates.

The first "rebranding" I wouldn't even necessarily call it a rebranding, nothing was actually released with that name (apart from a couple add-ons we fixed bugs for). I can think of a company here that still likely doesn't know what it's brand is, and they've changed theirs multiple times in a single month. I don't think it's really confusing since most people did not see the HexThemes reference, and even if there was a link to hexthemes somewhere it would redirect to ThemeHouse so anyone with any sort of common sense would be able to figure it out.

Just as I'm sure that business people with any common sense could have easily avoided this fiasco. But, as we know, if common sense were common we wouldn't have these issues.

 

[Dad.]

Thanks for all the feedback and support everyone. Things will improve we are taking the steps we can to move forward.

 

[Mike Edge]

He's complaining about the meaning behind the icons being 'confusing' when in the end, it doesn't really matter.

It's the attitude just like this that is really making customers have a bad opinion about it all.. Regardless how trivial it might seem, it should always matter how a customer feels or even a protential one for that matter. Maybe it's just me but I really seen the company on a downhill spiral ever since you came on board Jake. Your always very rude and condescending in your posts to many of us here, imo. In all honesty, I think the company was at it's prime when it was just Creuzer, doing his thing. Being a customer for several years now, I have seen several phases of the company and looking back at it all, that is when it was the best.

 

[Mike Edge]

Thanks for all the feedback and support everyone. Things will improve we are taking the steps we can to move forward.

I hope so I would like to be able to recommend you to my clients again. The way everything is just up in the air, I don't feel like I currently can.

 

[The Dark Wizard]

What ever happened to voting with your wallet?

If you don't like the idea, don't use it. Stop this silly thread and stop wasting their time, so we can get back to the real thing we can judge them for, addon fixes, the quality of their support for all their products. No one benefits by wasting their time here .

 

[Blast]

Mike, with these much things in your plate, you need round-the-clock support. It seems that everyone seems to be in -6 - -8GMT. If you can hire more people in different timezones, you'll have my business. Also, $10, are you kidding me? We don't want half-assed jobs. I don't care if I pay $30 for an addon, if it's well-maintained then it's worth it. That's my current complain. Lots of addons for $10, but with 1 line of description and no screenshot. I'm never gonna pay for that kind of stuff.

 

[Dryline]

I think some of these comments are like the pot calling the kettle black. Throwing repeated stones means anyone doing so better be ready when a boulder comes crashing through their front window. I've been confused by some of the rapid changes taking place with Cruezer and Company, but a little light reading cleared it all up. I agree with The Wizard to lighten up on these folks, as they hardly deserve a public caning this early on in the game. If this keeps up they might just pack it in for good and that won't benefit any of us.

 

[Dad.]

Just a quick update. We have a new bug tracker to be pushed out publicly, the goal being that at any given time you can see whats in our work queue. We hope to extend this to themes and even UI.X in the future but will start with just add-ons. Any bug you find just pop it in, it will get sorted by priority and all taken care of.

Will post a link when its ready.

 

[The Grand Potentate]

I think some of these comments are like the pot calling the kettle black. Throwing repeated stones means anyone doing so better be ready when a boulder comes crashing through their front window. I've been confused by some of the rapid changes taking place with Cruezer and Company, but a little light reading cleared it all up. I agree with The Wizard to lighten up on these folks, as they hardly deserve a public caning this early on in the game. If this keeps up they might just pack it in for good and that won't benefit any of us.

FFS. No one is interested in a public shaming. The people who've responded to this thread with questions have, to a man, been customers of Audentio. They're questioning because they're concerned and they care, not because they're out for blood. TH is one of the biggest developers left these days. No one's interested in seeing them take their ball and go home.

Out of curiosity, who would the pot be in this situation?

Just a quick update. We have a new bug tracker to be pushed out publicly, the goal being that at any given time you can see whats in our work queue. We hope to extend this to themes and even UI.X in the future but will start with just add-ons. Any bug you find just pop it in, it will get sorted by priority and all taken care of.

Will post a link when its ready.

This sounds promising.

 

[Jake B.]

We've just gotten the bug tracker setup and ready to go for all of our add-ons and styles, and have it open to the public to add any bugs to.

Visit our Jira Tracker

How to add a bug*

1. Go to our Jira
2. Navigate to Projects -> View All Projects
3. Search for the project you want to report a bug for
4. Click "Create" in the navigation after you've opened that project
   
   
   
   
5. In the modal that comes up you will put a full description of the issue you're having as well as your ThemeHouse/Audentio Design username (These will migrate over to our new site/proprietary bug tracker once they're complete). You can also assign the appropriate priority for the issue, please do not make every bug high priority unless it actually is.
   
   

This will make it much easier for us to track any issues. Naturally, if it is a security issue do not post it on JIRA as all issues there are public, please create a ticket or send me a private message either here or on themehouse.com

Visit our GitHub

* Only our free and premium Add-ons/Styles are located here. For open source projects you will need to use the GitHub issue tracker

 

[Bionic Rooster]

Seems to have a bug already, I can't log in. ;(

 

[Dad.]

Seems to have a bug already, I can't log in. ;(

You won't be able to login. Jira asks for paid accounts per user, so you have to post as a guest.

 

[Bionic Rooster]

Post as a guest? Really? How will you know if reports are legit then as any guest can post?

 

[Daniel Hood]

(These will migrate over to our new site/proprietary bug tracker once they're complete).

Post as a guest? Really? How will you know if reports are legit then as any guest can post?

It's a temporary solution and obviously not perfect.

 

[Dad.]

Short of building a ticket system from scratch, settling with a not-so-good ticket system, or paying Jira $1800 a year, we're going to stick with this for now as we feel its the best solution. Doesn't matter who posts it, there isn't really a reward system or credit system for those who do post currently. But those who consistently post we may give an account to.

 

[Bionic Rooster]

It's a temporary solution and obviously not perfect.

Doesn't matter who posts it, there isn't really a reward system or credit system for those who do post currently.

I wasn't thinking in terms of rewards or credit system but more about anyone not being a confirmed customer of yours posting as a guest and sending dev's on a wild goose chase wasting valuable time that could have been constructively put to use updating your software.