I was paid to do a Social Media Install and some tweaks as we moved forward so out of this comes a script review to save others a headache.
First of all the script is a mess of smarty templates.... a real nightmare to edit / redesign the ugly template that comes with it... 500000000000000 individual template pages to edit all with code
FUN FUN FUN
The admin panel is tedious and super huge of individual one click options.... have fun spending a year in there with all the wrong options set taking 7 hours to find what you want to change and get it changed.
The script was very very slow outta the box, can't imagine it once
traffic gets going...
The paths to many tools were hardcoded inside many individual scripts in lots of places... made for a HUGE headache during install, because the paths to these tools are different on every server....
The script had no installation docs that I found, nor a installer. well the installer i think only imported db, didnt do nothing else like check paths etc.
I had to basically tail the error log while uploading and browsing to fix all the bugs and bad paths, find out which directories needed to be writable etc.
Support? OMG what a bunch of jerks these guys are, details to follow.
The script was ordered by my client with no copyright.. client paid an extra $80 for this
The script came with copyright notice in tact, and when I removed the copyright in the template which we had paid to remove, at the bottom of the page in huge 50px font this appeared.
DO NOT REMOVE SOCIAL MEDIA COPYRIGHT.......and so on
It seems this script contacts their server every page call???? and checks if domain has license to remove copyright... Who knows what else is being transferred during this proccess??? Could be Spyware???
This is probably why script is so slow..... waiting for their shit to respond..
Does it do this everytime page is called??? thats crazy
Anyhow, I go to their forum right to get support, I have login/pass for the client account, so I logged in right? Well, I go to Script forum actually looking for like installation docs and whatnot, access denied...
Nice, a paying customer needs to request access to forums and wait a day...
Ok, now they have the account name requesting support (its the forum name) , the domain name ordered from, they know the problem is the copyright, (they actually went to the domain and seen this)
and all they have to do is whatever they do on their side to remove the copyright flag which they know client paid for.
So do they go and remove the copyright thing??? No, they say, I see what you want but you have to email support your account information...
Now, this might sound like something realistic, however the same email this information has to be sent to, is the email telling me this.... After 5 more emails of WTF are you kidding me, seems they share this same email account with many people, or in my guess, the aliases of the same kid behind the scene acting like others... lol
I gave them some criticism about what they are doing wrong...
Did they like this? HELL NO, they decided to play games,
and tell my client that I was rude to them, still while not giving the client
what he paid for, the removal of the copyright notice. 3 more days of this has gone by and still they have not removed the copyright.. They chose arrogance route, not smart business route...
Do yourselves a favor..
PASS ON THIS SCRIPT GUYS....