I haven’t sat down to work out how I would change the interface - I was interested in hearing from AdHominem actually as he seemed to have given this some thought. I can tell you I feel that I seem to go all over the place sometimes. For a seasoned pro the current interface I’m sure is perfect. 
It’s not obvious to me where these videos exist can you provide me the link?
Thanks,
You really didn’t understand what I was pointing out. I personally don’t taint the pool because I don’t undersell or under quote. If I was to do the install direct the end user would be paying 2-3x more than what the MSP I contract with charges for the same install.
As for your comments on the new laws, you’re helping me make my point. You are stating because you’re actually not in the business of doing PBX installs but just do it for funsies makes you immune to these laws. Perhaps you are right but I wouldn’t want to put money on you if things got serious and legal. However, you installed a PBX for a business and like most things they will have an expectation of service from you. Doesn’t matter that you aren’t charging them and are just helping them out, they are using you because they are expecting your experience and skills to be a benefit.
That was my whole point about tainting the pool. When hobbyist come in and isn’t in tune with the industry, doesn’t follow or know laws/regulations but offer to do the same job that those who are professionals and are in tune and follow the industry, laws and regulations. You have tainted the pool. You’ve undercut the value of what installing and maintaining a PBX system is. You’ve left the end user open to things because you aren’t aware and in the end the attitude because “this isn’t my real job, this was for fun now it’s not so I’m done” (and before you go crazy I’m being general with that statement not directing it at you)
Yes but again I thought part of this was FreePBX’s lack of being intuitive for the end user. I don’t need to use commercial modules because I know Asterisk so yes, I can avoid using commercial modules because I know how to do what is needed in Asterisk. So again, this goes back to the point of FreePBX being a glorified Asterisk management GUI because if FreePBX can’t do it but I know Asterisk I can make it. I can make it so the actual GUI is non-usable because of all the things I can make Asterisk do but the GUI can’t. Again, at that point is FreePBX an actual PBX system or is it a glorified Asterisk management GUI?
The first one was linked from the FreePBX blog: Happy New Year – A Community Update | FreePBX - Let Freedom Ring
I edited that section of my comment to delete the reference to you personally, but it appears that you read it before I did so. That portion of my post now only refers to your former employer. I agree with this portion of your response.
Not quite. I did point out that your claim that the law applies to everyone is not correct. I also said that these laws impose commonsense requirements that everyone already should have been following. I certainly have. I’m sure you have as well.
I also noted that the dispatchable location requirements are a bit more nuanced, but they probably won’t impact most small businesses.
FreePBX and Asterisk came about as a result of hobbyists. Mark Spencer started writing Asterisk in college for fun. FreePBX was initially developed by hobbyists as well. The entire project developed by enthusiasts.
It worked so well that it turned into a business for Mark (Digum), and people like Tony Lewis (a serial entrepreneur) adopted FreePBX and made it into a successful business as well.
I appreciate the clarification, as your use of the word “you” would cause most people reading this to think that you were talking about me, specifically.
As I explained above, hobbyists are the reason that we have FreePBX and Asterisk.
For the reasons that I’ve already stated, all of the problems that you’ve identified ultimately come down to the lack of documentation. FreePBX and Asterisk are great because they can do almost anything. That level of sophistication comes with a level of complexity.
The complexity can be mitigated by good documentation and good UI decisions, or made worse by the opposite.
I think we may have devolved into semantics. “Is FreePBX an actual PBX system or is it a glorified Asterisk management GUI?”
The simple answer is that it is both, and there’s no reason that it cannot be both at the same time.
And it can continue to be both while at the same time having a simple, easy to use UI and good documentation. None of these things is mutually exclusive.
It is literally impossible to satisfy all the people all the time. If anyone out there perceives there is a lack of documentation on any subject they feel they know (or are willing to learn), then you are encouraged to be the change you want to see. Contribute to the community doc initiative here: FreePBX Community Documentation
What’s interesting is if you go to YouTube you can’t find this video even by the title - Open Source Pro Tips by Sangoma. Also if you click on the publisher - Sangoma
It doesn’t even list this video as it’s published works. .
Will I need to go to the blog site every time for every video?
Thanks,
Not impossible, just impractical. You could conceivably develop multiple UIs at the same time. You shouldn’t, but you could if you wanted to.
As far as the documentation, I’ve already covered that. A lot of people have contributed to the documentation over the years, but most have given up after unnecessary UI changes made their contributions obsolete. In other cases, the CM simply deleted or moved large portions of those contributions.
The fact is that if a dev is going to change something, it should be on him to update the documentation before he commits the change. Requiring the dev to document his changes will also go a long way towards keeping the UI simple. If you cannot explain the UI (or a change to the UI) in documentation, then you need to rethink it.
If it is left to the users to document things, the documentation will always be behind development, and sometimes be wrong.
If you are hoping for consistency from any aspect of the FreePBX team, you will be disappointed.
Sometimes things will only be on the blog. Sometimes they’ll only be in the wiki. Sometimes they’ll only be in forums. Sometimes they’ll only be in the tooltips. Sometimes it will be something that everyone knows, and they’re sure that somebody documented, only nobody did.
Don’t bother bookmarking a web-page (any web-page), because eventually they’ll reorganize all the links. If you find something that’s useful, print it to PDF and keep it yourself.
As you can see on YouTube, this video is unlisted.
Why this is unlisted? I can’t answer that.
However, if someone is looking for a good way to learn FreePBX (besides the Wiki) Sangoma has online training.
We get it already. Can you move on to talking about something else. Maybe specifically about the design or gui changes. It’s exhausting seeing you post about the same thing over and over and over and over again. (You did documentation and it was deleted/moved) I know I’m not the only one. You’ve made your point about your work on the documentation and how (in your opinion) it was deleted/destroyed. We all understand that fact and point and we believe you as you’ve beaten it into the ground in about an average of 2000 words. Please.
Edit: thanks @AdHominem for flagging this post as off topic.
We have seen essay after essay after thesis about your desire for the project to remain stagnant. There are still trixbox 2.6.2.3 and old elastix images on sourceforge. Feel free to go use the “classic FreePBX”. Frankly things move forward. The GUI changes you keep going on about and subsequent documentation updated happened 5 YEARS AGO. Yes your documentation was a lot like your forum posts. Long, unorganized and useless to the majority. It is a wiki nothing is deleted just versioned so all the old work exists in version control. 5 YEARS AGO I went through and organized and normalized the documentation for the project. Created a formatting and concise information for every module and field. It wasn’t just paragraphs of text with a hope and a dream. You know other lawyers put their diatribes on their own blogs. You should start one.
Seriously after 5 YEARS if you are still traumatized by GUI changes of a product you get for FREE, please seek counseling.
I didn’t ask you to STFU. You interpreted that because you are angry. I asked you to stop beating the dead horse anytime someone brings up documentation. We understand you won’t participate in documentation because of what happened 4 years ago to your old documentation. However what Lorne and Jared said about anyone is free to modify the documentation and even Sangoma is paying community members to write documentation is valid and should not be dismissed with “well the CM deleted all the documentation”. That was (again) more than 4 years ago.
I don’t expect you to STFU about anything you are saying except for beating the dead horse about documentation being deleted every time documentation is brought up.
My one and only single gripe about this is that in almost everything you post these days in regards to freepbx is about how your documentation was deleted by the “CM”. I think everyone understand this by now. So stop beating it into our heads. We are four or five years past that event. Move on.
The GUI could change tomorrow under new leadership and it wouldn’t bother me. I don’t think the current GUI is amazing. I can see how it’s complex and could be simpler in some area. There’s definitely room for many improvements. I’m all for that and it wouldn’t negate what I or others have contributed to freepbx as most of that is in the backend code that you don’t see. In fact if Sangoma makes the GUI even easier that’s great and well only help to propel freepbx into the future.
However. Wouldn’t another change in the GUI go against your mantra of “DONT CHANGE THE GUI”. Even going back to the old “classic” freepbx would be changing the GUI.
I’m also not taking anything personally but when your 2000 word responses keep lighting up the forums and it’s just more of the same (you don’t want to do documentation because it was deleted) it just gets annoying. So I replied in response to my annoyance at those specific statements. Because they are beaten into our heads. Much like what I am saying now. Where I continue to beat this into your head. Get it?
I have no other gripes about what you say because you don’t detail your issues anywhere.
For reference. The last bug I fixed that you reported you replied with a snarky response about how it took five years to fix it. That response along with asking for a commercial documentation module is not the encourage this community needs.
If you are still unfamiliar with changes from 5 years ago I can recommend a video series
Andrew, I don’t get angry. I’m not angry. I’m trying to make FreePBX better.
I get that much of my criticisms are directed towards things that you did when you were on the dev team, and that you’re taking my criticisms personally. But, for me, there’s nothing personal about this. I want FreePBX to both survive and thrive.
I think you’re contradicting yourself here. In the first quote above, you state that you’re not asking me to stop posting (i.e.,STFU) and that I only think that you are because I’m angry. But, in the second quote you admit that you are asking me to STFU about the documentation, which you claim that I’m only raising because I’m angry.
Again, I’m not angry. And I’m not raising any issues out of anger. I’m raising the issues because they are still relevant to comments made by others in this very thread.
Ultimately, I believe that the devs should be responsible for the documentation for the reasons that I’ve stated. If you disagree, tell us why!
Most of my posts are about the deficiencies in the current documentation and about unnecessary GUI changes that make configuration more time consuming.
To the extent that it comes up, I certainly do mention the deletion of the work that I did. But, that’s an ancillary point, and I typically only mention it when people respond that I should contribute. I think its important for people to know that I did contribute and why I and others have decided that its not worthwhile to do so.
Anyone who is thinking about contributing should understand that the time and effort they spend on the Wiki can (and likely will) be be deleted.
If someone really wants to contribute to documents, a better approach would be a post to the forums. At least then, they’ll be preserved.
I think that you’ve misread, or misunderstand what I’ve said in the past. I have never taken the position that the GUI should not be changed.
Rather, I’ve always stated that you need to be careful when you change the UI so as to avoid making documentation obsolete, and to avoid making configuration more time consuming. Change can be good, or bad. I’ve definitely been critical of change for change’s sake, but I have never suggested that the GUI should never be changed.
I have never written any posts that have suggested that the project should remain stagnant. Rather, I’ve always advocated for improving the product, but for being very careful to ensure that improvements are implemented in the right way.
Since you were the person who removed much of the documentation that I wrote, I understand why you are taking my criticisms personally. I understand why you’d prefer not to see criticisms of your work, and why you’d rather that I just go away.
Thank you, but I’d rather stay and try to make FreePBX better.
Not true. There have been new GUI changes, making things even worse, in the last two years. And it doesn’t matter when the GUI changed. What matters is that there’s always the opportunity, even today, to reverse course and make the GUI better!
Tony apparently felt differently, as he called me to personally thank me for my contributions and even offered me the CM job that you got after I turned it down. Other than that, I’m not sure how to respond to this other than by pointing out that posting personal insults doesn’t move the discussion forward.
Again, these types of personal attacks are totally off-topic. If you disagree with me on the merits, I encourage you to explain your reasons.
Okay this is nuts. I’m locking this thread for a bit. Anyone who feels there is benefit to unlocking it tomorrow can like this post. Do not like this post for any other reason!
All are encouraged to use the post edit button and flag feature that Discourse has conveniently provided.
as someone that installs FreePBX professionally I don’t have any problem with the Web GUI it was not that hard to learn after watching all the videos of crosstalk solutions and watching all sangoma University videos and sometimes when I needed something specific I go to the wiki and the forums were very good when I needed some help, I like all the advanced features there are so many implementations one day someone will use that feature, there is a huge silent majority of people that implement this solution professionally as an IT and these people do not want a simplified cotton candy version we love Advanced options, and we hate when menus are changing places there is a reason why in Windows the control panel never changes , and the feature that is most important to us is Rock Solid stability because all we needed to do is make phone calls day in and day out and when it’s unstable it ruins our day, and I would rather pay for a few modules one time then have a monthly or yearly fee so the other systems are not a comparison, this is an advanced product and you need to take the time to train learn about SIP and networking as well if not your customer will have a bad experience, no one can just pick up an advanced product without training and install it at a customer site the next day, I used it as my phone system for a year before I sold it for someone else