Post by onefish » Sun Dec 17, 2017 6:46 pm

Sorry for the somewhat stupid question but I have 2 pre-sales questions I'd like to ask the Journal theme devs before buying and I can't seem to find any way to contact them. Does anybody know how they can be contacted? The support system on their web page requires that I have already purchased Journal and have a valid purchase code in order to submit. Also, the email address they say to enable in my spam filter bounced (it isn't listed as a contact email though). Any ideas?

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Post by JNeuhoff » Sun Dec 17, 2017 10:21 pm

Normally I would have used the Opencart marketplace comments section for pre-sale questions. However, the Journal theme is not there anymore.

Having said that, I strongly advise against using any OpenCart themes which don't abide by the OpenCart standards, like the Journal theme or some others. This will cause conflicts with many other 3rd party OpenCart extensions. There was a good discussion on the pros and cons of various OpenCart themes on this forum thread.

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Post by straightlight » Mon Dec 18, 2017 12:10 am

Or, this link can be used to contact the developer: https://support.journal-theme.com/

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Post by IP_CAM » Mon Dec 18, 2017 12:37 am

The support system on their web page requires that I have already purchased Journal

... meaning, that you use an illegally downloaded Edition of Journal.
But so, you will not receive any support, neither by Journal, nor here, it's as easy as that... :P
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Post by cyclops12 » Mon Dec 18, 2017 12:45 am

straightlight wrote:
Mon Dec 18, 2017 12:10 am
Or, this link can be used to contact the developer: https://support.journal-theme.com/
I assume that is the link the OP tried to use but when you click submit a ticket you need to put in the purchase code to be able to actually submit a ticket.
BUT as the OP has not yet purchased the theme, he just wanted to ask some questions about it prior to buying it then that link cannot be used.
IP_CAM wrote:
Mon Dec 18, 2017 12:37 am
The support system on their web page requires that I have already purchased Journal

... meaning, that you use an illegally downloaded Edition of Journal.
But so, you will not receive any support, neither by Journal, nor here, it's as easy as that... :P
Ernie
Ernie see above :)

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Post by straightlight » Mon Dec 18, 2017 12:49 am

BUT as the OP has not yet purchased the theme, he just wanted to ask some questions about it prior to buying it then that link cannot be used.
In this case, the assumption is correct. This developer requires that the extension gets purchased before providing support to its product. Quite a limited and positive insight, I might add, but unfortunately the case here.

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Post by onefish » Mon Dec 18, 2017 7:59 am

Thanks for the feedback guys.

IP_CAM, I don't use an illegal copy of Journal, I don't use any copy of Journal yet. I am looking to purchase and use it but I had a couple questions about it first that I wanted to ask the developer.

JNeuhoff, your advise is kind of along the lines of the questions I wanted to ask the Journal devs. I had read the thread you linked to from memory I think the final conclusion was that there is no certification system to say wether or not a theme abides by Opencart standards and Journal seemed to be the theme most people are successfully using. It still left me with these questions that I wanted to ask the devs:
Q1. Does Journal modify core Opencart files and if so what happens when I update Opencart with latest versions and security patches?
Q2. All items in the store will be hand crafted "one of a kind" items. When an item is sold it will never be in stock again. Therefore I need to hide out of stock items from customer's view. Can I configure this in Journal? If not, I have found an extension that does this but is it likely to conflict with Journal?

I am new to Opencart and I expect to spend some time learning. I just don't want to spend it learning the wrong things.

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Post by IP_CAM » Mon Dec 18, 2017 12:58 pm

Well, sorry for the mis-interpretation, it just did not sound like a pre-eliminary matter to me,
but I am not of english origin either... :choke:
But Journal is sure not just a Theme, it widely uses it's own 'things', among it's own Script
compressing tools, as you can see in the Code, shown below, otherways, a 'loaded' Shop
would be as slow as a snail. :D And such makes it sometimes a little difficult for some Extensions,
to do their Job, without beeing adapted to match a Journal Theme and Setup.
Ernie

Code: Select all

<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://static.journal-theme.com/2/journal-cache/_0c70d0dc8600413566bda7078b7ad71e.css"/> 
<script type="text/javascript" src="https://static.journal-theme.com/2/journal-cache/_3ac8fd140c606247bb5da08ca330f0c9.js"></script> 

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Post by onefish » Mon Dec 18, 2017 4:39 pm

It's no problem Ernie, I know I am probably in the minority of people these days who have absolutely zero pirated movies, music or software on any of my hardware. Sadly, it is often easier to grab a crack than a license these days and therefore extremely common.

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Post by JNeuhoff » Mon Dec 18, 2017 10:55 pm

onefish wrote:
Mon Dec 18, 2017 7:59 am
JNeuhoff, your advise is kind of along the lines of the questions I wanted to ask the Journal devs. I had read the thread you linked to from memory I think the final conclusion was that there is no certification system to say wether or not a theme abides by Opencart standards and Journal seemed to be the theme most people are successfully using. It still left me with these questions that I wanted to ask the devs:
Q1. Does Journal modify core Opencart files and if so what happens when I update Opencart with latest versions and security patches?
Q2. All items in the store will be hand crafted "one of a kind" items. When an item is sold it will never be in stock again. Therefore I need to hide out of stock items from customer's view. Can I configure this in Journal? If not, I have found an extension that does this but is it likely to conflict with Journal?
To answer your questions:
Q1: Journal modifies way too many OpenCart core files unnecessarily. Last time I looked at it for an OC 2.x project the Journal 2 modified 60 core PHP files via OCmod, and used 173 '.tpl' files, many of them replacing standard opencart '.tpl' files. It does not modify the core files directly, rather it uses OCmod for this. But still, enough to clash with many other 3rd party extensions.

Q2: You could simply disable any product which was sold and has zero stock, though this would have to be done manually via the admin backend, or perhaps via the Export/Import tool. There may be extensions out there which can automate this bit. I don't think Journal does this.

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Post by onefish » Tue Dec 19, 2017 6:48 am

Thanks JNeuhoff. After reading your first reply I posted my queries as comment number 8800 something over on the Themeforest Journal page and didn't really expect to get a reply but DigitalAtelier did reply with the following:

"1. We replace 3 opencart core files and we modify a few others via OCMod so you can always update Opencart to the latest version then reupload all Journal files to your server and refresh Opencart modifications after.

2. This will be possible natively with admin options in Journal 3, our next major theme coming soon. Journal 3 will be a free update so you can still purchase Journal 2 now and will have both themes.
Best Regards."

I queried when Journal 3 would be released and he/she said a couple months. I have found several extensions that claim to manage the out or stock items workflow how I need. Still don't know if they will conflict with Journal, but I have also found several references to where to insert additional tests in logical statements within the existing OC code to do it directly (easy way, but maybe not the best way). I'm sure I can find a way to do it somehow, manually isn't really an option as we'd have to be constantly monitoring the store in order to keep up.

So I guess I'm now faced with the same dilemma as probably most noobs to Opencart:
1) spend a month or two learning the OC code base, framework and how to code for it to make the necessary customisations and future maintenance and mods; or
2) spend $1k+ and hire someone to make the necessary customisations and hope they do a good job of it because I would have no way of knowing, and budget for them to do future maintenance and mods; or
3) pay $55 for Journal and take a day or two to make the necessary customisations and future maintenance and mods in a simple noob friendly user interface, knowing that it will create management issues when Opencart updates and security patches are rolled out.

None of the above options are perfect, but it's easy to understand why 17,456 people do date have gone with option 3. Decisions, decisions........

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Post by JNeuhoff » Tue Dec 19, 2017 6:50 pm

A web theme shouldn't have to directly replace any OpenCart core file, if it does then there is something fundamentally wrong. At the most it may modify just a few files, mainly *.tpl ones, via OCmod. Ask the author for more specifics, e.g. why they have to directly replace 3 core files, and which ones.

Also, ask yourself: Do you buy a web theme because of its look & feel, or because it also offers additional features beyond that of a web theme, such as a CMS or Blog or other modules, and do you really need latter?

Your situation illustrates the need for OpenCart to do better quality control for its marketplace.

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Post by Evilonion » Thu Dec 21, 2017 3:42 am

I've used journal theme since opencast 1.5 and tried also to install it on oc3.
It has thousands of sales/downloads but i can honestly say don't do it.

So many issues arise from using their theme.
Firstly updating opencart causes constant problems... you cannot update until they have also updated their theme due to code conflicts.
It runs SLOW.

Ive opened a lot of support tickets due to their theme causing a bottleneck on my site yet they refuse to accept that it causes anything to run slowly.
I've proven it myself by running the site both with journal and without... with journal the load time is almost 30 seconds!!! thats insane.
without journal the load time is 4.9 secs (with no seo work or compression)

Its such a complicated use of opencart that it literally changes everything with how you would use it... now for my last issue.

SECURITY!!!
In the past 10 years of me running zencart sites and then opencart I've only ever been hacked 3 times.
Twice using Zencart and once a few months ago using journal theme. Its not secure, even though they run bug fixes to stop issues i have a live site with 4000 products with a lot of orders per day. Whatever they did wrong allowed a script to add tons of porn to my server along with porn landing pages over tens of folders.
This was easily fixed at source and the backdoor/bug was fixed by journal but who's to say it won't happen again?
Im now done using journal and have installed the theme called oxy. Its a decent theme that has the exact same look as journal once you tweak a few bits. Most importantly it runs FAST and i only have opencart to update now as and when needed from github.

hopefully my review helps!

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Post by JNeuhoff » Thu Dec 21, 2017 6:58 pm

Thanks for sharing your experience with us. We too had to recently deal with the Oxy theme on a customer's website, and it's indeed closer to Opencart theme standards. It would be good to compile a list of OpenCart themes which are actually more standard compliant.

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Post by straightlight » Thu Dec 21, 2017 9:32 pm

There's already an existing topic for themes. Although, it is agreeable to state it would need to be more compliant.

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