Disappointing UI in BuddyBoss

[Frank]

I have to say that I am very disappointed with the UI of ‘Inbox’ in BuddyBoss
Additionally the features are not standing out .. at best it’s a $25 module when using it with BuddyBoss.

After seeing the video and the sales pitch I thought it would be a nice facelift for the current sad interface in the Messages area only to find that there is no change to the UI, that’s the only reason I purchased it.

It has a few more bells and whistles that you have to dig out to find …

Very disappointed for a product and very disappointing for the price.
I was expecting more UI for BuddyBoss as displayed in the video

[Alyssa]

@frankwarwick I’m sorry to hear you are disappointed with the BuddyBoss Inbox Plugin. The plugin was designed to be compatible with all themes compatible with the latest version of BuddyPress. With the development of the Boss theme alongside the Inbox Plugin we were able to create a better look and feel to integrate nicely into the Boss theme. If you need a refund please fill out the request here: https://www.buddyboss.com/contact/ and we would be happy to process that for you.

[mth75]

@tjchester

He TJ, i reclaimed. I believe I was almost the first user and the 79 dollar don’t justify the offered functionality or changes to the GUI for one. Second, the plugin still has bugs (for which we payed and clearly not tested thoroughly). So the issue is two-fold.

You know I love the theme and a lot of the plugins, but please don’t push plugins just for $$$ when they are clearly in beta state. Lately i’m only finding bugs, bugs and more bugs with every new update or release, which could be tested “out” It’s not the first time i’m reporting this.

In casu the Inbox plugin, which also took a lot of my time, i’m waiting for another x% price-of to make my effort vs the price acceptabele.

The answer for @frankwarwick shouldn’t be a refund, but taking his remarks and mine for that matter to heart.

Best regards,

Marc

[Frank]

Hi @tjchester and @mth75
Let me start by saying I don’t want a refund.

I feel like BB are putting everything into Boss and have ignored the original theme and that extends to plugins and their UI.

The inbox looks great in Boss but falls flat in BuddyBoss.
The functionality works but has a lot of room for improvement to bring it up to the standard of the themes and other plugins.
This is the same for the other new plugin ‘Reply by Email’ it was released prematurely without testing all scenarios.

Having said that, I am looking forward to updates for these plugins and the BuddyBoss theme

[Michael Eisenwasser]

@mth75 @frankwarwick

As always thanks guys for the feedback. I’ll explain our reasoning behind our decisions.

We don’t like to add too much UI in plugins if we can avoid it, as it breaks 3rd party themes to do that. Our plugins should work on any theme, as many of our customers are using 3rd party themes. Boss theme styles Inbox to look a special way, as it does with almost every BP plugin it supports, but the plugin itself is all about functionality. It adds features that make your inbox behave like Gmail. If those features are important to you, then it’s worth the price tag. It takes hundreds of hours to develop and maintain our products, and we need to charge for them. The $29 plugins are often loss-leaders.

As for testing, we test non-stop. We have three people whose only job requirement is to test full-time, and in some cases we’re testing a product for months before release. BP is complicated and people have all kinds of setups, plugins, server requirements. It’s impossible to test every scenario. Once a plugin is considered bug-free with internal testing, we release. Then we do our best to patch any discovered bugs as quickly as possible. That’s the nature of software development, especially with very complex plugins like the ones we build. We have an Inbox update due soon. For Reply by Email we tested in every advertised use case many times, and we were not able to get it to fail. Once it’s out people will inevitably find some issues, and we patch them.

We updated BuddyBoss theme 3 weeks ago, to be fully compatible with all our new plugins and latest versions of BuddyPress, so it’s not ignored. However it is true that we put more focus in Boss theme. We want BuddyBoss theme to remain clean and light, and Boss theme to have every feature you can ask for. They serve different purposes. If we start adding all kinds of additional UI to BuddyBoss theme, other customers will come here and complain about that, so it’s a bit of a balancing act. Although, perhaps we will do a refresh on Inbox layout for BuddyBoss theme if people really seem to want that. We want you to be happy with your purchase 🙂