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DOCman 1.5 FAQ

10 December 2009

We’ve had some great feedback in our first 24 hours of releasing DOCman 1.5, and also some confusion. We’ve tried to answer all your questions in the FAQ below.

UPDATE: The latest version of this FAQ is available here: DOCman Pre-sales FAQ

Where can I ask pre-sales questions?

In the dedicated forum: http://forum.joomlatools.eu/viewforum.php?f=51

Why do I have to pay to download DOCman?

DOCman has been free of charge since it’s conception in 2003 until December 2009. With one million downloads a year, many sites depend on DOCman to keep their data secure. This is a big responsibility for Joomlatools. By charging for DOCman, we can assign more resources to make sure DOCman remains the most stable, preformant and safe document manager for Joomla.

What if I don’t want to pay for DOCman?

DOCman 1.4 will
always be available free of charge. DOCman 1.4 runs on both Joomla
1.0.x and 1.5.x. However, no new features will be added to 1.4, and
only security issues and high level bugs will be fixed.

What is the license for DOCman?

DOCman 1.5 is released as Free Software under the GNU GPLv2.

How can DOCman be Free Software / GPL if I have to pay for it?

“Free
Software” is about freedom, not about price. Free Software gives you a
number of rights, most importantly to use the software as you wish. See
http://commercialgpl.com for a (very short) introduction to commercial
Free Software.

When I purchase DOCman, can I use it on multiple domains?

Yes. DOCman is released under the GPL license, which means you can install it on as many sites or servers as you wish.

Do I have to pay again when a new version is released?

When
you purchase DOCman 1.5.x, you will automatically get all maintenance
releases (1.5.y, 1.5.z…) free of charge. You will be notified by email, including a link to download the update. However, feature releases
(1.6, 1.7…) are not included in the deal and have to be bought separately.

Can I try DOCman before I buy it?

Yes, there is a demo site. There’s no trial version. However, as DOCman 1.4 is free of charge, you can download and install it, and buy DOCman 1.5 if you decide it suits your needs.

How long is a download link valid?
Links to a dedicated download location will be sent immediately after your purchase. Download link expire 1 month after purchase and can be downloaded 3 times.

I can not use paypal, are there other options?
At the moment paypal is the only option, we are looking into adding more possibilities.

Where can I get support for DOCman 1.5 ?

You can get free community support in the official forum: http://forum.joomlatools.eu.

Can I upgrade from DOCman 1.4 or 1.3?

Yes, follow the instructions in the included README file. http://www.joomlatools.eu/products/docman/read-me.html

What are the requirements for DOCman 1.5?

You need the latest Joomla 1.5.x and PHP 5.2 or higher. Please make sure you have these before installing DOCman 1.5.



I am using Joomla 1.0.x, can I use DOCman?

You can use DOCman 1.4 with Joomla 1.0.x. DOCman 1.5 is not compatible with Joomla 1.0.x.

Will DOCman run on Joomla 1.6?

At the moment Joomla 1.6 is still in development. When Joomla 1.6 reaches beta stage, we will start working on a compatible version of DOCman. Our goal is to release this at the same time as Joomla 1.6 stable.

Where can I submit feature requests?

In our
UserVoice tracker

Where can I submit bugs?

In the forum


Where are DOClink, the modules and the search plugin?

These addons are now installed automatically when you install DOCman 1.5.



How about AutoPopulate, AutoThumb, Blogtheme?

Updated versions of these addons will be released in the near future.



Will my 3PD or custom themes and extensions work with DOCman 1.5?

Some existing themes and addons will need the legacy plugin to be enabled. It should be fairly easy to migrate them to native 1.5. There is a guide to migrate themes.



Why is the Joomla extensions directory not updated?

We have contacted the JED team. They are usually very busy, so please allow some time.



What is DOCman’s versioning scheme?

1.4, 1.5, 1.6… are feature releases. They add new things, and they are mostly backwards compatible. This means that upgrading from one feature release to the next will be fairly easy, and 3PD addons such as themes, translations, utilities, … will work with little to no modifications.

1.5.0, 1.5.1, 1.5.2… are maintenance releases. They consist only of bug fixes and security fixes, are 100% backwards compatible.

What is included in the package?

When installing DOCman 1.5, the following extensions are installed automatically as well:

  • DOClink: plugin to insert documents in articles)
  • DOCman search: integrate searching for documents with Joomla’s core search
  • Standard Buttons: plugin with the default buttons for the DOCman frontend (download, view, details, checkin/out, publish, approve, update)
  • Latest downloads module
  • Most downloaded module
  • Category documents module: shows docs from one category
  • Lister module: Show a list of popular/latest documents.
  • Admin modules (displayed in the DOCman control panel)

There’s no need to unzip the package, the addons are installed automatically.

  • KC

    Just a clarification:

    above you said –

    —-
    How long is a download link valid?
    Links to a dedicated download location will be sent immediately after your purchase. Download link expire 1 month after purchase and can be downloaded 3 times.
    —-

    When updates are produced that fall into the 1.5.X release tree, how are we notified and how do we get access to the updates? Is a new download link generated for us to download the new files which would be available for download for 1 month or up to 3 downloads?

    Thanks!

  • http://twitter.com/iapostolov Ivo Apostolov

    Another FAQ, that sounds reasonable for me.
    Will you charge additionally for AutoPopulate, AutoThumb, Blogtheme?

  • http://mathiasverraes.com Mathias Verraes

    We are working on new versions, and on some new productivity tools as well. The plan is to charge for them, but we haven’t decided price points, nor whether we bundle them or sell them separately. Suggestions are welcome.

  • http://johan.janssens.me Johan Janssens

    Yes that is correct. You will receive a email with a new download link. Files become available for 1 month and can be downloaded 3 times. Just like with your original purchase.

  • http://telaran.myopenid.com/ Telaran

    There are several ways you could handle this.

    Memberships:
    Version Based (1.x), Annual

    “Service Levels”:
    Level with different tools or release date (Cheapest Option will get a Update 7 days later, than the other options. The “most expensive” Option would include Beta-Test or something like that?)

    Options for both concepts:
    Bronze: No Additionals
    Silver: : Additional Tools (just the “small ones” or 1,2)
    Gold: All upcoming tools compatible with this version or released during the Membership

    Other possibility:
    Pay per Item -> But in that Case -> Make Bundles, Upgrade-Paths and so on.

    There is no easy solution.

  • http://mathiasverraes.com Mathias Verraes

    Thanks, you are quite right: there are no easy solution. That’s one of the reasons we decided to go for the simplest solution: low price point, automatic updates for the 1.5.x release cycle, forum support, and keeping 1.4 available for free. Watching how the release goes in the coming weeks will help us to decide if we have a similar deal for the addons or not.

  • http://buzzworkers.blogspot.com/ Ben Borges

    Great here we go updating to 1.5 :)

  • Paul

    Packaged payment has an a big advantage for accounting purposes. I would rather pay a bit more and have autopopulate in the base package.

  • http://johan.janssens.me Johan Janssens

    Thanks Paul for the feedback. We are working hard on getting Autopopulate ready for release. Our current thinking is to package it together with a number of other tools for DOCman 1.5, like Autothumb.

  • jo

    I want to translate a few word to dutch.
    The most of the terms i’ve find in the file language english.php in the map components/com_docman/themes/default/
    But I can not find the term: “Date modified:” . Where can I find that term?

  • http://johan.janssens.me Johan Janssens

    We have a Dutch translation for DOCman which you can download here : http://www.joomlatools.eu/docman-15/cat_view/15-docman-15/16-translations-15.html

  • Rolf

    Hi, will Docman 1.4/1.5 run with PHP 5.3.1?

    cheers,

    Rolf

  • http://johan.janssens.me Johan Janssens

    Yes, there are a few smaller issues that have been reported which w are being fixing for DOCman 1.5.2.

  • http://mathiasverraes.com Mathias Verraes

    To be complete:
    DOCman 1.4 doesn’t run on PHP 5.3
    DOCman 1.5.1 runs on PHP 5.3, but you need to turn off E_DEPRECATED in the php.ini file, to surpress a couple of harmless error messages.
    DOCman 1.5.2 is fully compatible with php 5.3 and will be released soon

  • Anonymous

    i’ve problems with internet explorer (use IE7). When I try to open a category with a document I get a fault message which tell me that IE cannot open http://www.mysite.be/download/cat_view/...
    In Firefox it works perfect.
    Anyone who knows the reason of this problem?

  • Rolf

    Will there be a patch or do I manually have to make Docman 1.4 run on PHP 5.3?

  • http://johan.janssens.me Johan Janssens

    Can you post your issue on our support forums, our support engineers are happy to assist you there : http://forum.joomlatools.eu

  • http://mathiasverraes.com Mathias Verraes

    There will be no patch for 1.4. You might not need to make changes in the code though, you could try turning off E_DEPRECATED. But we haven’t tested that.
    If you want to be on the cutting edge, we advise you to upgrade to DOCman 1.5. There’s a upgrade path from 1.4 to 1.5, you won’t loose any data or functionality.

  • Anonymous

    Hello together,
    I`ve got a big problem. Please help me.
    It`s an error message from “DOCman productivity pack Populate”:

    Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or ‘}’ in /homepages/36/d90368299/htdocs/badminton/administrator/components/com_populate/tables/config.php on line 58

    This is line 58 from the document:

    public function __construct( $db ) {
    parent::__construct(‘#__populate_conf’, ‘id’, $db);

    Thank`s a lot for help
    Cold anyone help me please :)

  • http://johan.janssens.me Johan Janssens

    Please post your question on our support forums (http://forum.joomlatools.eu), we are glad to assist you there and help solve your issue.

  • Aj

    Hi, now that Joomla 1.6 has been released some weeks ago, when can we expect DOCMAN support?

  • http://johan.janssens.me Johan Janssens

    We are working on an announcement about the future of DOCman. Stay tuned.

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