Question Are there a public demo of Kunena & why/why not?

sozzled wrote:

couple of hundred dollars. Interested? :woohoo:

Ill do it for $25

@Sozzled Sorry bud, I need milk haha

@sozzled
Im not trying to make you believe something. Im talking from own experience, as I have reviewed some very different CMS' in the recent past.
If you think otherwise, it is perfectly okay.

I think you are right about it is a more commonly feature amongst paying customers (wanting a 'try-before-you-by'), but it is still a very good feature in any project? (to have a demo)

Please keep your Swahili and the negative attitude towards a constructive comment to yourselves. I was asking the community (and especially project owners), but I appreciate your oppinion too.

I still see it as a strength, to have a demo.
Dont you?

Best regards

LittleJohn, you've got to understand that both Joomla and Kunena are free software. You are more then welcome to install them and being GPL licensed are free to do with as you wish (to the extent of the licence, which is very open, I'm sure you know).

It's very easy to set one up and have a play around (especially for someone that has reviewed other CMS). Hosting is cheap and I don't see why someone that want's to run a forum wouldn't have the knowledge to be able to set up Joomla + Kunena.

Plus it's obvious that this forum that your speaking on right now is powered by Kunena, so I think that's all the demo that is necessary.

I think it's not a strange thing to add to this (or any other) site.

A demo is not the same as a testing environment and playing around in this forum is not the way to go. Then they need 10 extra mod's.

In the process of convincing people Kunena is the thing they need it is the most easy and fastest way if you can play around in a controlled environment created by pro's.

Setting up Joomla really is a breeze, installing Kunena normally is too but after that you need to configure it to make it do what you want. This process can scare the less advanced users and make them choose another piece of forum software that does provide them this learning process. Making this process easier and faster will convince more people to choose Kunena.

My vote for this option.

@PLURboy
Im basicly agree with you. It is easy and painless to set it up.

I did it myself eventually, just to see what administrative options Kunena provided (as I personally have a few crucial needs).
A demo would have revealed this in a very much more "friendly" manner :
- the possibility to turn off karma
- use remote userbase (CB/few others)
- using custom html in specific categories
- how to define moderators / administrators

But I think DTP2 nailed my point even better:
Testing enviroment != demonstration
and also:
"Making this process easier and faster will convince more people to choose Kunena"

Thats worth a thought?

Best regards

LittleJohn wrote:

I think you are right about it is a more commonly feature amongst paying customers (wanting a 'try-before-you-by'), but it is still a very good feature in any project? (to have a demo)

I still see it as a strength, to have a demo. Don't you?

I completely agree with you. However, I don't necessarily think it's essential for a software developer to provide users with a test bed because, to do so, may not be worth the cost, effort or the diversion of one's priorities.

If one was to create a demonstration site in one's own language this immediately marginalises all those who don't understand it and, before you know, everyone is clamouring for their language to be represented. Instead of providing a service, the developer has built a rod for his/her own back and now has the additional burden of "internationalising" the site and all the attendant problems that involves.

The second difficulty is that, no matter how "general-purpose" one creates a demo site, everyone's need is as diverse as everyone's implementation of Joomla is different. This community, for example, still has a representation of people who, for various reasons, are stuck with Joomla 1.0.x. So, do you build two sites - one for J! 1.0.x and one for J! 1.5.15? And, what happens when there's a new version of Joomla that's released? Again, your energy is siphoned off into spending time maintaining your test site instead of answering user queries or maintaining the product.

The third problem is that everyone's web-hosting service is different. What may work on a demonstration site may not be supported by a user's web-host. That's why it's imperative that users need their own test site. It's in that sense that I am in complete agreement with you.

Fourthly, a demonstration site doesn't answer everyone's questions. "I wanted to do such-and-such at your demonstration site but I could not figure out how to do it." And now you're back at square one again.

Lastly (and these few thoughts were just my initial ones), there is the wealth of anecdotal evidence, the opinions of users, the references in technical journals, magazines, books, etc., that probably gives more weight to whether or not a particular software product is worth the investment. In the short time that Kunena has been in existence, several thousand users have downloaded and installed the product. That fact alone must be somewhat persuasive for those who may doubt its worth, wouldn't you think?

There is one significant fact that may dissuade users from using Kunena, and it has nothing to do with technology. It is unfortunate that there aren't any "big guns", those whose Joomla products have been around for years, who use Kunena for their discussion forums. For example, despite their support for Kunena, neither Community Builder nor JomSocial use Kunena at their sites. The same thing goes for the Joomla forum, too. If one of these sites would change their forum software that would give Kunena a huge boost.

In spite of people's misgivings, this website continues to grow. This website is very active (considering its somewhat "narrow" focus). I'm not a developer, I'm just a user. Kunena is not perfect but, then again, I'm not a perfectionist, either. I just like to think that I can give something useful back to this community that has given me so much.