Posts by cloud9

yeah i see it appears first time loading, As it preview is not working. If i refresh the list the rollovers then work.

Yes i think this may be the reason. It has been slow all day accessing here from Australia.

Anyone else having this issue? It is causing me great grief, as now there is no rollover preview image. I have to manually click into an item to see the preview image…

Anyone else having this? I have tried to chrome (default) and safari.. please fix this.

YOu theme authors also whinge about the issues you have with envato, what you want changed and the things they wont change for you. Well I have to say, I spent time, blood sweat and tears trying to launch another theme marketplace last year spending tens of thousands and no-one poked a slight bit of interest.

So don’t whinge whinge whinge and then be prepared to do nothing about it. You sold out to envato, live in the bed you made for yourselves.

@Kokotee you have to remember that it takes MANY hours of time, thought and energy to come out with a well rounded polished theme. You also need to take into account that yes you want to purchase a completely BUG free wordpress theme, but also you need to take into account your only paying $45 for a well designed theme often with great UI design, with a little tweaks will save you thousands. So if you have to send an email, and yes the developer might be a little upset, or tired, perhaps, spare a thought.

I am one of the top buyers here on TF, I have seen alot fo well rounded themes and some with the bugs as you say. It always goes 10 miles longer if how you communicate with any bugs or issues goes a long way.

Next time anywone wants to whinge about a theme, test the demo site. Understant you are buying a theme, NOT a developed website, and when you ask for support do so remembering that you only paid $45 instead of $4000.

Also note to developers, test you effin themes. Have un related beta testers. Give them a blank WP install and get them to setup your theme as per your demo. Find out what they falter on, and fix it. And include that in YOUR DOCUMENTATION. If people fault or get stuck, chances are most novices will too.

Just my two cents.

kokotee said
I would not considered myself as an experienced Wordpress user. I have bought several themes over the last year or so. There are themes that are easy and intuitive, other are plain hard and buggy. I think Themeforest needs to be more vigilant with the Developers/Sellers. Developers seems to think it is just about the money, so they create a theme that has several issues that needs to be worked out and put it out there for sale. When you contact them with the issue they are irritated. Oh, and don’t get me started on the number of updates you have to continually do because of the buggy themes that are sold to us unsuspecting customers. Please, Developers who take their time and create good themes would always get 5 star ratings and plenty sales because they give quality work. Some themes are just so frustrating, in the end you just never use them and it is just a waste of the buyers money. Or and lets not forget about the Documentations, very little details just general information. Imagine a seller would not even state the size images that should go in a slider. So naturally you have to try and try or ask for support. Good ratings belongs to those who take their time to produce good designs, technically functioning themes with detailed documentation that communicates clearly to both the novice and experienced user/buyer.

I had planned to unsubscribe from this thread, however given that i had accidentally ticked the ‘email me’ button i owe it to my inbox now to contribute.

There are so many different topics that this discussion has covered. I will try and address some of them as my position is unique in that i am both a designer / developer as well as buyer here on TF. I am probably one of the bigger spenders here on the Envato marketplace, so i can say my opinion is balanced between authors and also the buyers who are using the products.

There is a key fundamental problem with this type of marketplace, but i want to start by saying that Envato should carry the key responsibility in coming up with answers / solutions to the KEY problems on the marketplace.

The balance here is that authors want to earn FAIR money for the efforts, time and skills they have used to create work for sale. The problem here is that envato has profits they need to make, but also have due responsibility to authors and users. One side you have users who are being marketed to by envato to purchase ‘website templates, and themes’ from $15 for HTML and from $40 for wordpress. Authors are told they are not required to support their items, however if you do not, you run the risk of bad ratings and bad commenting etc which in turn can affect future sales.

The ‘gap’ in the marketplace here, is that users who have no clue about html, css, or wordpress for that matter are being sold items for which they have no idea how to use, then come back to the authors on TF and demand support far and beyond which should be required. I have thought many times about becoming an author here on TF, but i struggle to see how anyone can turn a REAL profit and / or get paid any fair hourly rate for the work involved. Like a previous poster has mentioned that most mornings they wake up to find dozens of angry emails from users who have purchased items for which they have no idea how to use, and end up providing FREE ‘web development’ to keep the user happy. On the flip side, some authors do not write effective documentation and for me, someone who knows web development, find it extremely frustrating when the documentation is not straight forward. I often think its best to let a 3rd party developer write your documentation because you know the theme inside out, however nonone else does.

Meanwhile envato sits pretty taking their % of sales, and leaving all the authors to try and scrape together some sort of liveable income.

I think it is FAIR and realistic that unless envato slows down on their marketing, and creates some fundamental shift in the marketplace to look after users as well as the authors, envato needs to look at perhaps creating a job board for individual themes and integrate this on EVERY SINGLE item for sale.

It may impact on sales, but its better to be more OPEN. Create a notification before someone purchases a file stating – “THIS IS NOT A FUNCTIONAL WEBSITE. YOU WILL BE REQUIRED TO ADD YOUR OWN CONTENT. CREATE YOUR OWN PAGES. THESE FILES ARE JUST AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT YOU CAN BUILD YOURSELF” as well as ‘support for items is ONLY related to functionality or errors for the provided code itself. Any support requests outside of errors will be charged “

Authors are left to do far to much leg work, for the money received. Unless you are selling thousands of items, and outsource basic support your left with stay at home basement authors, and a lucky few who have gotten in early and sold a heap of themes.

I feel envato spends too much time concerned about locking in authors to their marketplace, and not enough time looking after the marketplace itself.

Just my two cents. Ratings need to stay. But some changes are needed to the marketplace.

Also if you are consistently having issues with buyers, UPDATE YOUR DOCUMENTATION to be straight forward. You’ll probably find, the documentation is NOT straight forward.

Before posting your item, get it tested by a beta group. If its a wordpress theme, give them a blank install and get them to set it up as per the demo. If they can’t or run into issues find out what they are. And write step by step instructions for it.

ENVATO you need disclaimers, and notifications for novice users. Be open to the people who support and purchase on this community. You might loose a few sales, because you have told a complete novice that the html template he is about to buy isn’t a working website, you may loose his $30, but everyone else wins. You may also give a developer an opportunity to earn $$ by offering him a custom coding project as well.

Ok let me clarify my post. I have tried to find frontend developers on odesk, freelancer and the likes and the misrepresentation of skills and ability is crazy. I think the level of quality of TF is great, hence the reason to try and find someone here. The term ‘superstar’ was more to quantify a persons ability to perform the tasks asked, at the level of quality found here on TF. Superstar term for you might be in the top 10%, however superstar for me, after a long tail of un qualified searching, would probably 95% of authors here on TF.

$30 per hour might be low, however perhaps there is an author here who’d has some downtime, a break in project development and wouldn’t mind some freelance work at rate paid ‘on the day’ not waiting in line as you do with themes.

If the rate per hour needs to be increased, so be it. But so would obvious expectations.

Hi,

I am a long time TF user. Bought close to 500 items here so far. I have an existing website, custom coded site html/css and php mysql backend. I have a list of design updates and tweaks I need to make. All just html and css updates like:

1. Updating the design of our site notifications with new html and css notifications that i will provide to you. 2. Adding simple html text widget into the sidebar as a info tool tip. 3. Updating login and registration form design. 4. Updating navigation menu html and css design. 5. Update product listing detail page design. Just clean it up, make smoother, and cleaner.

Just small stuff, but it is VERY URGENT. I can only offer $20 – $30 per hour at this stage for the right person. Its urgent, so looking to get someone started today if possible.

thanks

Alex

Thanks for the replys. I have sent PMs.

Hi,

We love this project file from SmallScreen however he is currently not available for customizing to our business. Just logo, perhaps a slide colour updates and obviously text.

Anyone interested in helping out on the project?