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Hi Jennifer! I head up the support team here at Modern Tribe and I wanted to reach out after a colleague let me know about this thread. Thank you for your follow-up…and for making your frustrations known. You are right that we haven’t done enough to communicate where we are with this functionality and how we’re trying to address the Eventbrite-related time zone concerns. I apologize on behalf of the whole team for letting you down.
The good news is: we have exactly what you’re requesting here – the ability to make timezone conversion optional – shipping in our forthcoming release. I notice that in both Leah and Barry’s replies to your thread from last year, they noted that this had come in too late to make the cut for our 3.9 release. But we did it view as a high priority and started work on it immediately after that release shipped. This has been an abnormally long release cycle given that we’re making a lot of fairly substantial changes to the plugin suite across the board, but the fruits of those labors – a 3.10 build to follow 3.9 – still haven’t shipped. That is wrapping up QA now and I expect will go live over the next month or so. But I want to stress that we have been moving on this since you reported it about as quickly as our release cycle allows. We have not, for example, been releasing new updates that address other issues but ignore this one.
We are expecting to kick off a small beta for the 3.10 suite next week, and I would love to have your feedback if you were interested in testing this new feature that makes time zone conversion optional. Would you be interested? Let me know if so 🙂
As for the second issue you noted: that is definitely a pain. We have a smaller update to Eventbrite Tickets (3.9.3) that will be releasing before the end of the month, aimed purely at converting the existing codebase to use the newer version of Eventbrite’s API. I suspect that moving to the current API is going to clear this up – but if it doesn’t please let me know. That plugin will be shipping around the 20th of this month. Think you can hold out until then on this second problem?
Let me know your thoughts about the above. I really appreciate your feedback here – we do understand your frustrations and want to get this next release out as soon as possible to help those suffering from time zone-related problems. I also want you to know that, if you find the update satisfies your needs and your faith in the product is renewed, I’d be happy to provide you a free renewal for whatever license you’d like – as a “mea culpa” for the poor communication and for the hassle you faced with your own frustrated customers.
Hi Zoe,
I head up the support team at Modern Tribe, and Brian brought this thread to my attention. I wanted to both apologize for taking this long to get involved and, more importantly, for your poor experience so far. This is certainly one of the longer threads we’ve had recently and I appreciate your patience as we try to work through this with you.
Best I can tell, everyone else in this thread (except perhaps Andrew who we haven’t heard back from) has solved their problem due to a conflict or a permalinks refresh. While I’m hesitant to call this a bug yet for that reason – there may be something conflicting within your system or its possible the snippet provided was applied incorrectly – I want to get this sorted for you, especially if there is indeed a problem with our plugin.
It would be great if we could get a copy of your database for testing. Would it be possible to provide one? Unfortunately we cannot do direct FTP into your site, but we could look into this further with a copy of the database.
In the interim: I see you have a test site and that you upgraded to the 3.9 version there. Can you confirm whether this was a fresh installation of the 3.9 release, or an upgrade from 3.0 to 3.9? If the latter…would you be willing to do a fresh install on a site not running the 3.0 build? We’re wondering if this might be an issue related to upgrading from 3.0 —> 3.9 (a fairly massive jump that we haven’t seen a lot of users make). Having a test on a site that wasn’t upgraded would confirm whether or not we’re on the right track here.
Let me know your thoughts on the above. We appreciate your patience on this so far. If there is a bug here, we will definitely do what we can to get it patched in as timely a fashion as possible.
Hey Lars – thanks for the follow-up here. Sounds like Z-index issue is resolved, which is awesome! I’m so glad to see Geoff was able to point you in the right direction 🙂
I see your most recent follow-up references the featured image thumbnail issue (which we previously did already provide some ideas on in the separate thread you linked to). As you may be aware based on our forum guidelines, we try to avoid having multiple issues addressed in the same thread.
I’m not sure how much else we can really do on that, but I just chatted with Geoff for a quick follow-up and it looks like this should be pretty straightforward: we grab the featured image using
the_thumbnailand that respects WordPress’ default thumbnail sizes. The WordPress codex (http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/set_post_thumbnail_size) should be able to help get you where you need on that…we’re unlikely going to be able to provide much more support from there though. Good luck!Since the core issue here is addressed I’m going to close out this thread. Thanks again for your support so far.
Hey Jasper! Rob from Modern Tribe here – I head up the support team and wanted to thank you for the follow-up. I’m so sorry to hear we’ve let you down! It’s always a bummer to see that we’ve disappointed someone, especially in a situation like this where it’s clear someone is frustrated.
Right off the bat I will mention that if you aren’t satisfied with the plugin and how it handles languages, we’d be happy to provide you a refund if we’re still within 30-60 days of your purchase. We don’t want anyone feeling like they aren’t getting sufficient value out of our product.
When it comes to the core issue you reported here: it’s an interesting point. I’ll admit though, I’m not sure I entirely understand what you’re requesting. Are you saying you want to be able create your own language files and drop them into the plugin’s “lang” folder? Are you asking that language overrides work the way our template overrides work? Or is your request something different entirely? If you could elaborate, that’d be most appreciated – while the first option should already be possible and I think the middle option would admittedly be outside the scope of our broader roadmap (we haven’t had any requests for this before), I’d love to hear some further thoughts on your goals and examples of how other plugins/themes handle this that we could look to for guidance.
I will say that while the current way we handle languages seems to work for 99% of our users, we are always open to exploring other options. One option the team has been exploring recently is a move to GlotPress (https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/glotpress/dev) for managing our plugin translation files. Would that be a more appealing option to you?
Let me know. Please keep in mind that we ask users to create their own threads – rather than chime into existing ones – if they have concerns. Please also note that we like to maintain a base level of respect here on the forum…I got the sense from your last note that the tone of certain comments is verging on hostile, which isn’t something I’m going to subject my support team to going forward. We’d really appreciate if you could keep that in mind for future communications.
Since this was a separate user’s thread, and the core issue for that user has been resolved, I’m going to close this thread. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly (rob @ tri.be, via email) if you’d like to continue this discussion. I want to make sure your voice is being heard and that we’re serving you in the best manner possible 🙂 Thanks again for your feedback and for helping us improve.
Sincerely,
Rob La Gatta
Head of Quality + Support, Modern TribeHi Stephanie! Rob from Modern Tribe here. I followed up with you directly about this thread via email a moment ago, to the address we had on file. If that didn’t come through please let me know so I can resend it. My email address is rob (@) tri.be. Thanks so much for your patience so far!
This is so awesome! Thank you, folks, from all of us here at Modern Tribe – this is the type of community involvement we love to see. Our tests of this code were successful and we do get the sense there are a number of users who would find value in this.
To draw greater awareness to it, we’ve just published a blog post sharing your code (which has since been posted on our Twitter/Facebook feeds): https://theeventscalendar.com/cross-site-events-widget-for-multisite-users-from-shenandoah-university/. Thanks again for sharing this great solution.
You make a great point here, Catherine, and I can absolutely understand your frustration. We sincerely apologize for failing to meet your expectations here. I think this is a really good example of how we can do a better job of setting user expectations from the offset regarding what the calendar can and cannot do out of the box. I admittedly haven’t seen a ton of requests for people wanting the venue information displaying in the tooltip from the offset – but at the same time, just knowing that there is ONE user who has that expectation is enough of a trigger for me that I’d like to get our docs/pre-purchase page changed so that we’re better outlining this from the offset. Out of curiosity: would a screenshot on the product page showing the tooltip and what it contained have been useful to you? Similarly, were you aware of our demo site at http://wpshindig.com as a frame of reference for checking out the plugin before buying so you could see it in action?
I can also understand your frustration regarding the amount of time it has taken. I think it is worth highlighting that Gustavo did give you a solution that accomplished your goals here early in the thread (within 2 days of your original post), and that the subsequent struggles since then have been with getting that implemented. Not to say that makes it any better for you as the end customer; but I hope you can understand where we’re coming from in that having a solution but being unable to implement it is perhaps a slightly different situation than having no solution provided at all.
When someone buys a license and begins using our code, they are getting literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of development for a $65 license. Our mindset is that at this point customers have all the pieces to a website puzzle; what they then need is someone to connect them. But we also try to stress that the $65 doesn’t buy access to a developer, it buys access to user support. I’ve been working with Gustavo on this issue from the offset and it’s clear to me that he’s going above and beyond to help you out here. But at the same time, the issue of adding a snippet to the functions.php file is a pretty common task in WordPress that I think we could find a number of existing resources for you on. (The one I linked to previously should be a good starting point, but let me know if you find it isn’t and I can send over another one). At this point the solution is there; it’s just a matter of how to implement it.
All that to say: let us know what we can do to make this right. While we can’t log into your site and do it for you, I’m open to whatever ideas you have that would help put your mind at ease. Since it sounds like we’re quite close to having you set – it’s just a matter of finding the appropriate way to insert this snippet to the functions file – I’m optimistic that we’ll have you on the right path shortly. If the link I shared isn’t helpful, let me know and we can provide another.
Sincerely,
Rob La Gatta
[email protected]Hi Catherine. Thanks for the follow-up here; Gustavo brought this last reply to my attention, and I wanted to jump in since it looks like you’re still having issues here.
I think at this point it may be worthwhile to hire a developer on your end: I’m going to be honest and say that I think this issue is verging on the borderline of how much support we can provide. Gustavo has already spent a good deal of time troubleshooting here (the video tutorial he put together is far more detailed than we generally do for more users), and it sounds like the problems you’re faced with now are more a byproduct of a misunderstanding with how to use the code Gustavo provided than any actual bug within the codebase.
While we’re happy to provide basic user support here on the forums, I’m not sure how much deeper we’re going to be able to go here – from the looks of things you need a developer to help you out and provide an overview of how to effectively add snippets to the functions.php file. (This tutorial may also help in a pinch: http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/beginners-guide-to-pasting-snippets-from-the-web-into-wordpress/).
My apologies that we couldn’t do more at this time. If you are interested in a list of freelance developers, we do have a group we generally refer out to users who are looking for more support than we can provide. I’d be happy to pass that your way if the link I provided above doesn’t help clear up the issue.
Since it looks like Geoff has answered the core issue here, Lars, I’m closing this thread. Please see the email I just sent you and let’s continue our conversation there.
Since it looks like Geoff has answered the core issue here, Lars, I’m closing this thread. Please see the email I just sent you and let’s continue our conversation there.
Since it looks like Geoff has answered the core issue here, Lars, I’m closing this thread. Please see the email I just sent you and let’s continue our conversation there.
Woohoo! That’s about as good an outcome as I could have hoped for 🙂 Thanks for confirming, Riza. Definitely do open a new topic if you find the issue comes back and I’ll work with Geoff to get you a timely reply.
Otherwise: I want to give teammultiverse a chance to reply in case they have any other feedback here, so I’m going to leave this open for now. Thanks to you both for your understanding and patience so far.
Thanks a ton for the follow-ups, folks. Since I’ve written you a pair of novels already – I suspect you don’t want to read another 🙂 But I did want to acknowledge that I saw these both, and wanted to reply on a couple of items that warranted it.
Right off the bat: I will note that I got a reply from Joost and his team this morning after my email yesterday, and they’re interested in working with us to drive things forward. I’m optimistic that this will improve our timeline and will definitely keep you posted. It does sound like – independent of Yoast – we should prioritize the 404 issue, and I’m simultaneously going to do some digging into whether any of the code cleanup work we’ve got in our forthcoming 3.10 build (which is pretty massive) will address this. Either way, I will keep you posted in this as well. Teammultiverse, I may reach out to you directly – outside of the forums – for some additional context on your situation if we can’t glean enough from your forum threads. But the 404 issue is concerning and should be addressed sooner rather than later, to whatever extent possible.
I appreciate the clarification from you, Riza. I apologize for the confusion – as this was originally a thread related to Yoast, and you posted after Teammultiverse’s original entry outlining the problem with Yoast, I assumed you were in the same boat. Generally when multiple voices pop up in the same thread it’s due to the fact that they’re facing the same issue (we generally ask users to open up their own threads in situations where the core problem differs). It was wrong of me to make that assumption. The problem you are reporting is definitely not a core function of the plugin – when I test locally on my stripped down install (no other plugins, a stock theme), my title tags for the home page are:
Upcoming Events | My Site Name
Have you tested for a conflict, in case one could be the cause here? Based on my own testing it seems possible this could be the case. If that isn’t the solution it may be worth opening another thread so we can work through it undistracted and in as timely a fashion as possible.
Thanks again to you both for the feedback. We’ll keep you posted, and you should always feel comfortable checking in for an update if you don’t think things are moving quickly enough.
Hey folks!
Thanks to both of you for the detailed and civil responses…I appreciate it, and you both raise some great points here. Rather than try to reply to you both independently – I’m going to try and speak more generally to the points raised here.
At its core, it sounds like we’re discussing really two issues here that are probably worth divorcing from one another:
1) How The Events Calendar handles SEO on its own, independent of how it interacts with other plugins; and
2) How The Events Calendar integrates with third-party SEO plugins like Yoast.I get the sense – and correct me if I’m wrong here – that #1 is not an issue here. The plugin has its own way of handling SEO and we tweak/modify that from time-to-time to make sure its performing as intended. But what we’re concerned with is #2 here: how the plugin behaves alongside Yoast, which takes over from an SEO perspective and in this case conflicts. So users in your positions are ultimately left having to decide: do I want to run The Events Calendar without an SEO plugin, and have SEO covered on the calendar but none of the rest of my pages? Or do I want to run Yoast, which adds SEO value to the rest of the site content but causes a problem with events?
Please do correct me if I’m wrong here – for example, the |Wilton Town problem reported by Riza doesn’t seem like it’d be a problem if Yoast wasn’t running. (Our plugin on its own handles title tags better for the events page).
To me this sounds like a matter of having to choose which is more important: SEO on everything but the calendar, or SEO on just the calendar itself? I certainly can see why the former would be a safer call that 99% of users would opt for, but I do want to stress that this isn’t “the plugin doesn’t do SEO.” It’s instead, “the plugin doesn’t work with this SEO plugin.” Which is admittedly a more narrow scope than the alternative.
That said, I do appreciate the concern and the need to integrate with Yoast. And as I mentioned previously this is a priority for us. But we do have to weigh it against other concerns, and admittedly bugs in our own codebase – things that are impacting everyone who runs it, rather than the subset of those running it alongside X or Y plugin – take priority. In the interest of being fully transparent there is even one other plugin, WPML, that is higher on our priorities list to address before we hit Yoast. But Yoast is a close second (where All-In-One falls is TBD, since we haven’t seen as much demand there) and is something we are committed to doing.
It’s also worth noting: we actually have been in contact with the Yoast team about better integration. Back in August of last year, we were contacted by Joost and sent along the top concerns we see related to how the plugins integrate, as well as a fix we’d identified for one of them. (The issue highlighted here was among the items we mentioned as well). While I never heard back from him on that, this thread prompted me to follow-up again today to see if his dev team was able to make any progress.
The idea of giving specific SEO fields within the plugin is a solid one, and is worth exploring more as a team. But I also think it risks diverging from what this plugin is intended to be. Before we go so far as adding SEO fields to our plugin – which is meant to be purely a calendar solution, rather than a calendar with robust SEO capabilities – the right solution is integrating with the popular plugins. That would solve your problems and likely many other users who are concerned with SEO.
So where does that leave us? In the short-term, realistically, I think the snippet provided initially is the best we can offer up. I’d love to get this 100% squared away for you both on the spot, but due to the level of code work required to do this right, it’s unfortunately not a change we can make on-the-spot. I can appreciate that competing plugins such as Event Manager may be making progress on this at a faster pace than we are…which is awesome. I’m optimistic that if our plugin isn’t serving your needs, Event Manager or one of the other calendar plugins out there will.
Thanks again for the feedback and for pushing for this. If I happen to hear back from Yoast’s team that they’ve made progress on their end, I’ll definitely let you both know.
Tomas: excellent to hear you’re all set here! Geoff is out today, traveling home from his vacation – but I wanted to confirm that we saw this and that we’re thrilled you’re in good shape. Since the thread has been marked RESOLVED I’m going to close it out…but if we can do anything else down the road, don’t hesitate to open a new thread and let us know the problem.
We appreciate your interest in our plugins 🙂 Have a great evening.
