stewade:
I just wanted to know if it was cool to kill it off. Seems it is.
It is. However, it will do nothing to promote the ozpost services, and as I have repeatedly stated, Australian merchants are small in numbers. The subscription fees don't even come close to covering the costs of running the servers (and maintaining the code). I almost closed the system down 2 years ago due to lack of demand/support, not to mention the unthankful comments that I used to get because people decided to be offended by some of my blunt responses, and this was when there were no fees at all. I seem to get far less of this now that the servers are subscription based than I ever did before then, and the only people that seem to hassle me now are the non-subsrcibers that somehow seem to expect more for less.
stewade:
However
I don't normally bother splitting hairs but a simple "Delivery Options" graphic would have done the same job
Yes it would, but please refer to the paragraph above. If you want/expect the ozpost system to continue well into the future then it is in your best interests to help promote it, just as it is in my best interests to do the same thing. Why on earth would I want to do what you are suggesting and provide this free code that other people (including merchants) can see being used, but not have any clues as to what the code/module is that is providing the quotes?
I do many things to shoot myself in the foot, but failing to promote my own wares isn't one of them.
stewade:
and if someone couldn't spot a 1x1 gif - well - Zen Cart is probably way beyond their grasp anyway.
On the same token, you haven't spotted (or commented) on the 'space' character around some of the quotation borders, so does that mean Zencart is beyond your grasp to? (of course not).
stewade:
Besides, you chose to have an animated gif that advertises. That's a choice thing,
Apparently you had a little bit of trouble comprehending some of my previous reply.
stewade:
not the coding neccessity you make it sound. "Belief" has a different meaning when there are "facts" to reckon with.
Suit yourself. I'm not prepared to argue your belief. It is going to be far easier for me to demonstrate your miscomprehension.
Load /shipping/ozpost.php into a text editor.
Line#163 (or thereabouts) is where the module identifier is located. It reads 'ozpost'. Change it to suit your needs.
Then go to line #178. This is where the logo is defined. Change it to suit.
Then finally go to line #524. Delete or comment out this entire line. (This is where I replace the logo with the space).
Save the file, and check the results. It won't take you long to realise why having a logo is a necessity rather than a matter of choice.
stewade:
And yes, Ozpost is "free" but correct me if I am wrong - after 60 days it stops working if you don't pay for it.
You are wrong. The client module can and will work indefinitely. There is no code anywhere within the module itself that activates or deactivates it. The code used by subscribers is exactly the same as the code used by non subscribers.
stewade:
That's a paid service (as I stated) -
Lets get this straight shall we. PayPal charges to use their service. Banks charge to use thier services. Credit Card gateways charge to use thier services.
If I wrote a client module to support any of these services, would the module I wrote be considered a 'paid' module? No, of course not (Well, not unless I charged for it). Would you expect PayPal or the Bank to provide you with a free service just because you happen to be using a free module to connect to their service? I suspect not.
If I charged for the Bank/CC/PayPal module that I created would you expect these businesses to provide you with a free service because you paid for a module that connects to them? Again, the answer should be, no. Why should they?
Ozpost is no different. The client software provided free, and like a lot of other free software, it is paid for by advertising, the same advertising that you wish to remove.
The ozpost servers do require a subscription, and the folks that manage these servers have an agreement that they will provide 60 days free access in exchange for having thier logo placed in the client module(s).
stewade:
GPL or otherwise.
I will point out that the server code is not GPL. This code is strongly and actively protected by copyright, and I will take legal action against any person or company that uses this code without explicit written permission. To date, no such permission has been granted.
stewade:
As such I am a customer
At the moment you are not my customer. You are just another user of the free software that I have made available to anyone that is interested in seeing what the ozpost.net service can do for them. In spite of this, you appear to want to do nothing more than give me a hard time. It's not much different than when I was maintaining the free code that connected to the now obsolete edeliver.com.au servers.
stewade:
and my sub is on the way quite soon (at devs end). Therefore. Be nice to me.
LOL. I don't go for this type of 'bribery'. I recently stated elsewhere that I try to treat ALL people EQUALLY, which means I'm no nicer (or nastier) to subscribers than I am to non subscribers. (Although I have to admit, I do go that 'extra step' to support the needs of subscribers, and many of the ozpost's features are a direct result of addressing individul subscribers needs. Non subscribers don't tend to get this 'extra step' support.
stewade:
I am ALWAYS right :)
In that case we have a problem, because I'm never wrong (occasionally misinformed, perhaps, but never ever wrong) :)
It may be better for you to refrain from communicating with me, else friction will occur. <grin>
Oh, perhaps I misread you. Were you trying to say that "The customer is always right" and therefore as a customer you are always right? If so, I'm not a subscriber to this belief (I was in the electonic repair business for far too long to know that this isn't true). I'm one of the group that beleives that 80% of the profits come from 20% of the customers, and that trying to pacify the 20% minority is a waste of time and rescources.
I've been spending a lot of time jumping in and out of the Ozpost code looking for some pesky formatting errors. Nice work bloke \o/
Ahem. Any formatting errors that you see are nothing to do with my code at all. The ozpost module itself doesn't actually output any data whatsover. It simply accepts the results from the servers, filters out the methods that have been disallowed, and stores the rest of the data into an array that is passed back to the zencart calling code. Any output you see is handled by the zencart code itself, which I agree, could do with a fair bit of improvment.
Now, having said that, the ozpost distribution code does come with a file called tpl_modules_shipping_estimator.php which is an optional replacement for the original zencart file of the same name (to be placed in your custom templates folder). This code has had very minimal changes, specifically, it has included the output of the dimension fields (which is added as an extension of the code that outputs the weight and number of packages information), and the suburb names (as an extention of the To/from data in the header fields). I've kept these changes minimal so that 1) I have less work to if I need to merge these changes into updated zencart code, and 2) so that people have no reason to blame me/ozpost about what they consider to be 'bad' formatting, or how the output can be improved. Simply put, It's not my problem.
Now having said that, as of ozpost V3.x.x I added some javascript/ajax code to this file to improve the data input functionality, specifically to perform the suburb names lookup based on the postcode input. This was deemed essential because unlike australia post (which only needs postcodes), the courier companies require suburb names, and these names must match the format used in the australia post lookup tables. The original text input field that was used for this purpose caused a lot of people a lot of problems, because apparently many of their customers didn't know how to spell the name of their own suburbs, not to mention differences such as "Saint" vs "St" or similar variants. Nonetherless, this is still considered an optional file. If you don't like it please use the zencart default tpl_ file instead, and then you can direct your formatting errors back to them, and leave me out of it.
There. you've now got the ranting and raving that you were expecting. Happy now?
Cheers
Rod.
