Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

[Rick Wilson]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

We did make that extra change you describe, so it now shows Delete Product, or Delete Page, etc...

Also I was reading this article over the weekend and it struck me as very insightful: http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/06/why...hem-suck-less/

We certainly fall in that abyss all the time too and try hard to stay out and get out of it. If you wonder why we don't fight to keep up with the kitchen sink mentality of many of our competitors, this article is why.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

We did make that extra change you describe, so it now shows Delete Product, or Delete Page, etc...

Also I was reading this article over the weekend and it struck me as very insightful: http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/06/why...hem-suck-less/

We certainly fall in that abyss all the time too and try hard to stay out and get out of it. If you wonder why we don't fight to keep up with the kitchen sink mentality of many of our competitors, this article is why.

This one should have been #1, and its especially relevant to Miva Merchant:

5. Customers demand sucky products.

Not intentionally. But they request features that make your product suck, with depressing regularity. This is doubly true if your product allows some users to manage other users. There are features that they think they need but don’t, and features they actually do need but nobody else does. There are billions of people out there and you will never, ever satisfy even a tiny fraction of them. So be very selective as to which ones you let dictate your roadmap, and make sure they’re taking it to the promised land and not into a tar pit. They’ll threaten to never use you, or to quit, or to say bad things about you. Some will actually follow through. But most will eventually realize you were right all along. That is, if you actually were right in the first place.

Just browse through these suggestions. Sure there are some great ideas (and most of them are simple), but the majority, while they appear to appeal to the masses, are actually appropriate for 1% maybe 3%. The better solution, IMO, is to make customizing easier, less problematic (i.e., less likely to cause problems with the basic code or other additions) and robust. For ever 100 bucks some addition feature saves a small group of users, a much larger group has to live with un-needed complexity, and spend hours debugging code that looks like something from the Rube Goldberg Institute of Technology. (RGIT pronounced "regret")

[kayakbabe]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

THAT article is worded so well! Thanks! It going to be in our company staff inbox in the morning!

[SunCam]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

A study in negative affirmations if you ask me right down to the company tag line--

“Expense reports that don’t suck."

Does anyone want to put that on their business card?

I try to think of my customers as very smart people who know exactly what they want. If I can't give them what they want, it is not their fault. If you accept orders that you don't want to fulfill then you do yourself and your customer a disservice but it is still NOT the customer's fault.

[William Davis]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

This one should have been #1, and its especially relevant to Miva Merchant:

"...make customizing easier, less problematic (i.e., less likely to cause problems with the basic code or other additions) and robust."

I concur.

[habreu]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

Minor feature request: Ability to adjust (in the admin) alternating row colors OR perhaps the hover effect.

Problem: Our product codes are long, so they break at the '-' and wrap two 2 lines. The hover effect bolds the text, increasing its size so that the when you move up and down the list the column width and height 'bounce' a lot making it difficult on the eyes; all of us at work have this feature turned off for that reason. That then makes it hard to scan through large product lists and make sure you are clicking on the right line item to edit.

[garciap]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

I believe you can already turn off this hover effect in the admin. Check your global settings. It was a problem for me too, but I know Rick guided me in turning it off.

Minor feature request: Ability to adjust (in the admin) alternating row colors OR perhaps the hover effect.

Problem: Our product codes are long, so they break at the '-' and wrap two 2 lines. The hover effect bolds the text, increasing its size so that the when you move up and down the list the column width and height 'bounce' a lot making it difficult on the eyes; all of us at work have this feature turned off for that reason. That then makes it hard to scan through large product lists and make sure you are clicking on the right line item to edit.

[habreu]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

Thanks. I am aware of that and we have it turned off but we actually could use it -or an alternating row color scheme- as there are long lists of similar products and frequently will click on the wrong one

SomeProduct-1234567890-SS
SomeProduct-1234567890-SI
SomeProduct-1234567890-SJ

If I could edit the style sheet I would just unbold the hover effect as the subtle background color change is enough to make sure you click the right one.

[Datagg]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

The ability for the view settings once you update to stay. Example, in the products list, the option to remove the code, etc from the fields you see... They don't remain once you select them and update.

For us this is a big deal as we use the "Code" as the product name for the url.. This makes for a page that jumps all over the place when you go down the list making it hard to select what you want to edit. Check off the "code" box and all is great, until you come back to it and all is reset.

So my wish would be for when you press update, the setting you chose remain intact from then on.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

A study in negative affirmations if you ask me right down to the company tag line--
Does anyone want to put that on their business card?

I try to think of my customers as very smart people who know exactly what they want. If I can't give them what they want, it is not their fault. If you accept orders that you don't want to fulfill then you do yourself and your customer a disservice but it is still NOT the customer's fault.

no fair bill, your customers are engineers...(i.e., smarter than average consumers?)

[p4k]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

Ability to exclude individual products from certain shipping options.

[garciap]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

I believe this is already an option using several different modules readily available from Emporium Plus.

Ability to exclude individual products from certain shipping options.

[Conard]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

My only dream feature on the list would be for an easy way to import and export inventory down to the attribute level without exporting and importing all the products in the store along with all of the information for each product.

[p4k]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

I believe this is already an option using several different modules readily available from Emporium Plus.

I was referring to Miva's built-in shipping modules.

[garciap]

Re: Miva Merchant 5.5 Dream Features

Indeed, but I think Rick's team is trying not to put existing popular modules out of business, where possible.

I was referring to Miva's built-in shipping modules.