C1 Community

Well, we've finally bitten the bullet and decided to replace C1Preview with two systems; an MSHTML based component to display the document (which does not support pagination but does support fundamental features like table layout properly) and an extortionately expensive Word document component and another extortionately expensive PDF generator to do the exports. This code changes to incorporate these were significant, particularly after spending so many months struggling to get the C1Preview to render properly, but the constant comments from customers about Word documents not matching the display preview, and complaints from Microsoft that they couldn't represent tables layouts properly due to the column sizing has forced us to make these changes.

By my estimates we are spending about $20K in software and time to make these changes, but our investment in C1Preview to date has been at least five times that amount, and I think it's important to remind the support teams in C1 that the purchase price of your product is generally a very small part of the real cost to your customers.  As customers we invest in your company's expertise, and as can be seen in these forums the assistance we require resolving issues relating your product are more often than not due to bugs and/or unclear documentation, and as such can't be resolved without your input.

Input that takes days or weeks to appear (or never appears) is crippling to development. We invested in C1 because your support was excellent.  In C1FlexGrid we received responses (i.e. *hotfixes*) to bugs within a few hours, providing a symbiotic relationship with our testing and suggestions helping you produce a more marketable product, but this relationship seems to have totally dissipated in C1Preview to the point at which we can’t tell a customer if something is ever likely to be fixed.

I will probably use C1Preview again in the future when we require a simple and fast report generator, but for serious projects it now takes a back-seat.

I hope my months of work and 117(!) posts of bug reports, sample code, questions and suggestions have helped you improve the product slightly, and please consider returning to the excellent support levels you had in here 12 months ago.

Cheers,
  Jason

I feel your pain, Jason. I've been trying to get a showstopper bug fixed for over four months.  I can't deliver to my customers while the bug persists and my deadline is fast approaching.  I may need to cut my (substantial) losses and try a different product.  That'll mean at least a month of double shifts to get my code re-written and re-tested.  I really feel like the folks at C1 just aren't trying very hard anymore.

-- Bryan 

I would like to add that replies from the development guys are of very high quality.  They have given me top class solutions to my issues.  The problem seems to be that they do not visit or have the time to visit the forum that often. May be it is problem for the management to resolve.

Documentaion with examples would have saved a lot of my frustration.

-- Joginder Nahil

 Hi all,

I am very sorry to hear that you have had bad experiences with C1Preview.

Jason - I am guessing that it is too late now, but if there is anything else that we can do to help you, please let me know.

bpric - I sent you an email from the site, but if you can provide more information about the showstopper that you're encountering, please let me know.

starprint (and all) - our documentation team is working very hard and very closely with our developers to make major improvements to the C1Preview documentation for our 2008v2 release. If there are any suggestions that you have, please send them to documentation@componentone.com

All - thanks for your feedback.

John Franco

I have been watching this post for some time now as I was interested to see if C1 would ever notice that it was here.  As usual they did, but very very late.

I would like to be the first to throw in documentation suggestions.

 1.  This is the easiest, Make sure your samples build and work.  Often, if not all the time, your samples error when the most up to date C1 components get put in.  So, anytime after the samples are distributed if C1 updates anything it fails to check that behavior in the samples.  Then, when I or another customer opens the samples they will not build and it is up to us to figure out how to fix the samples that we were hoping would teach us. 

2.  In your chm file, provide examples not just generic definitions.  In other words, how do I use this property, function etc in practice.  This will serve 2 purposes.  One, it will help your clients.  Two, it will help C1 actually think about the tools and changes they make to their tools from a user point of view.  Something that has been drastically missing in the past.

3.  In your readme distributed with each dll update be honest.  Yes your tool has bugs, lots of them, every tool does and every user expects them too.  We are realistic and realize the complex endeavor you have taken on.  Admit that there were specific bugs and list them as fixed.  Do not be generic, general, and dishonest.  If I have been waiting for a bug fix for 3 months and I find out that it was fixed 2 versions ago but no one documented it I will be far more angry than if I had to wait 2 months and knew the day it came out.  This is a constant issue.  There is no reason for C1 to have a release, if no bug fixes are listed.  And this happens often. 

4.  This is most important.  When you put out a major release/upgrade give your users a clue as to what an upgrade will entail.  Maybe look into a little backwards compatibility, maybe an example of what code changes may be needed, or an idea of conceptual changes and what they will affect.  Maybe work with a client or 2 and make sure that an upgrade is even possible with your new tools.  If it is not, figure out some way to appease your long time clients when they have to do a complete rewrite to keep up because of your decisions.  Expecting your users to figure that out on their own, rewrite entire projects all without guidance, reason or documentation, is unnacceptable.  This is the reason that people stick to your old products even when superior releases are out.

5.  Fix your licensing system.  Enough has been written about this, you know the problems with it, everyone does.  Just fix it. 

 All your comments duly noted. Thanks.

I have used 3rd party controls developed by Exontrols, obout and Telerik. I think that they have got it right. These guys:

1. Provide technical support is 1st class (My guess is that the support is provided by the developers)
2. Have websites with gallary showing how their customers have expoilted their controls
3. Have documentation and websites with full of working examples in C#, VB and other languages
4. Their installed products have lots of working applications
5. Their documentation documents each method and property of every control with example

Have look at the websites of Exontrol and Telerik. I am afraid ComponentONE is long way to go to match them.

Joginder Nahil
www.starprint2000.com
 

What amazes me is that ComponentOne used to be such a good company when it was VideoSoft.  The controls were affordable and worked great.  Now - more then 7 years after the introduction of VB.Net - their controls are undocumented and so buggy that most of our time is spent trying to figure out how to do simple operations.