How can we better support the distriqt extensions?

[marchbold]

So after almost a year of using Uservoice, we've realised that it's not meeting the needs of supporting our extensions so we wanted to ask for suggestions on how we can better improve the experience and support we provide. We do strive to provide great support but comments from the community seem to indicate we're not meeting your expectations.

We are a small team and the extensions by no means pay our bills so what we are looking at is improving our usage of available tools to provide better support.

Our current thoughts are to move completely to github for issues and wiki, and start a public forum, perhaps a group on Google groups, but we are very open to suggestions at this stage.

We're hoping to update over the next month. Any suggestions you have as to better software or ways to utilise github will be most welcome, or even if there's something that you feel we're not doing well enough at the moment.

Cheers,

Michael

[Infin8]

I'm not sure what the full capabilities of user voice are but I've always thought your implementation was severely lacking content, making it pretty useless.

e.g. The extensions area only includes info regarding 3 extensions.

What I think would be very useful to both Distriqt and users is an area where you can select a particular extension (and list all your extensions) and have searchable content which includes tips, faqs, questions asked and answered, i.e. a forum of some sort.

As far as I can see GitHub has no search functionality so if I run into a problem that I cannot resolve the first step is to contact Distriqt. I also think it's important to only have one location to go to for information. i.e. Don't use Github for reporting one kind of issue and another area for general info. It's confusing.

Having the community help resolve other peoples questions I imagine would cut down your time in answering the same issues etc. To encourage users to contribute perhaps implement a points system for correct answers. (similar to stack overflow). The points then being used towards discounts on future ANE purchases.

[itlancer]

We need complex and powerful ANEs. And not only for mobile platforms!

We would like to see OpenCV extensions, computer vision libraries and other features for working with images and videos (camera, live streaming, local and remote files).

Also we want to use extensions that improve performance and provide new possibilities like easy working with HID, USB/COM ports, external devices and so on. Also useful features: new video and image formats and codecs support to use it with Stage3D and classic DisplayList.

[furian]

Guys, it's not about what new extensions you want, but how to help Michael having better support for it's products

michaelarchbold - I think what Infin8 said is pretty good example. A kind of forum would be much appreciated - this way people can get help from others who have the know-how. Those problems/solutions could be converted into kind of articles about how to use specific extension, what are the best practices and what are the problems you can face.

Another cool thing of forum-like format is that there will be people which will actively participate in it and would moderate it's content for free. A real community would save you time answering non-experienced users, and would help you focus on features development and complex problem solving.

I think it's important what Infin8 said - those extensions to be listed and have some kind of their own space in that forum/web/whatever you call it. Because now, users must browse through several type of pages/documentation/files with code, in order to get an idea of what's really going on and what that extension can do. A more detailed explanation would be appreciated.

We are very happy you still spend time and efforts in developing those extensions, as they are the only real way out of the black hole that is sweeping Flash, and the only bridge to real app development. So keep up the good work and state any kind of way that users can be helpful to you!

[marchbold]

These are great suggestions,

I do agree that we need to get the community involved, and I know our knowledge base is quite lacking at the moment. Up to now we have been putting a lot of work into the ASDocs but obviously that isn't the best place for knowledge base type information.

I want to make sure that whatever we go with, we reduce the fragmentation we currently have. As you said having multiple areas to search is not only hard on you but it's hard for us to monitor the questions everywhere and I believe we've missed a lot of your questions due to this.

So we need:

- community based forum

- improved knowledge base

- bug tracking system

Any ideas on software to do this?

[neo2031]

Maybe a roadmap for each extension

[janfw]

A video ANE for live streaming and proper video playback for Android an iOS would be exactly what we are looking for. I'm working for a video surveillance company specialized in CCTV and IP based video solutions and we are currently expanding our product range to mobile platforms.

[bjudy003]

Is there anyway to piggyback on StackOverflow?  I find it one of the best to get answers through.

[marchbold]

bjudy003 This is an idea we were considering, similar to what Parse have done : http://parse.com/help . I totally agree that Stackoverflow is a great system for questions.

My concern with this, is again with fragmentation, so we'd probably have to limit it to either stackoverflow or a forum.

[Infin8]

I like the parse.com example. If I had to choose I'd go with stack overflow. I'm sure most devs are already have accounts and if you gave clear instructions to your subscribers on how to sign up for notifications regarding Distriqt ANE questions I'm sure that would get traction pretty quickly. This would also create more awareness for Distriqt ANE's to non customers.

A dedicated forum could have some unique advantages but I think this in itself is fragmentation from the main source of dev info (which in my view is stack overflow).

I think we saw how the airscene.org forum started up but failed to really take off. A great idea but it just isn't the goto place for answers.

Dated release notes and version numbers would also be useful as sleeper suggests.

I also agree with efecomert in that Milkman games do create some great documentation for getting set up but I do understand that this in itself is a big undertaking, especially when you factor in having to update them when things change. Perhaps there is some way of utilising the community here as well, tasking one member to look after the 'Getting Started' tutorials for each ANE. A template could be set up for each tutorial to follow.

[sleeper1111]

would like to get emails about updates (bug fixing, release notes) to my email. but not too many emails, periodic once or twice a month max IF there is something.

you did it in facebook, however, i stopped using facebook.

also your Release notes doesn't include DATES!! so i have no idea how to relate to updates.

maybe release notes per product (ANE) ? i think it will be better organized

also would like to know more stuff, like, is there support for IOS 8? air sdk 15? whats sdk inside?

[efecomert]

Please write more simple documentation to extensions.

I'm using milkman's ane files, and their functions are more easy to use. Their documentation pdf is step by step writes everything.

[tamak1234]

Thanks for this up for ane users input.  Another good signal as far as I'm concerned and gives me a comfort level using your ANE's and keeping up with the great work you guys are doing at Distriqt...

1.) Ability to see other ANE users questions / answers for common issues  / problems with specific ANE's -- Im willing to bet you guys get asked the same questions ALL THE TIME about common issues and having access to something similar to how stackoverflow works where users can vote up or down and vote on the best / correct answer sort of maintains itself -- the good answers / responses rise to the top and users can easily find answers themselves.

2.) Ability to have access to user-contributed code snippets for commonly used, basic (or advanced) uses of ANE's.

3.) Categorized resources for people using Flash Builder, Flash Develop or developing natively... maybe through the use of 'tags' on users questions and answers / responses.

In short, I love the stackoverflow model (though I have my own issues with StackOverflows model - generally speaking -- and that has more to do with HOW people use it, not so much the mechanics of it)... its self-service oriented and when users all chip in, it quickly becomes a deep resource of info and solutions that otherwise require a user inundate you all with repetitive questions or scour the web to pull together different resources and figure it out themselves.  I say lets 'pool' our knowledge / experiences and all ride the train together, so to speak!

Thanks Distriqt team!  Keep up the good work and focus on better supporting the ANEs.

[marchbold]

Thanks everyone for the feedback!

It's greatly appreciated.

To start, we are going to spend some time putting together a much better knowledge base, including individual pages for each of the extensions, and as much information as we can, tutorials, code snippets etc. I think from the feedback this is one of the common suggestions.

Then we'll look into questions. I do like the idea of utilising stackoverflow, so I'm going to do some research into how we can integrate that into our process.

We also like the idea of rewarding your contributions so we're going to have a look into how that could work for us.

Cheers

Michael

[phillipkerman]

Generally, I feel like you're doing very well.  I don't know if you need a huge support infrastructure.  However, I do think the sample code you've produced is fine for me--but it's a bit of a chore for a couple reasons (none of which are show stoppers):
--.as files don't have correct newline/carriage return to look nice in notepad on Windows.
--they're all reliant on flex.

Documentation is otherwise pretty good!

Support via email is great but probably not super manageable from your perspective.

[marchbold]

Hi,

Yeah we develop on linux/osx so probably going to have different carriage returns in the examples. How do you mean they are reliant on flex? The examples? They should all be pure AS mobile projects.

And yes we are trying to get away from email, it's too easy to miss questions and hard to handle as a team.

Cheers

[Paul_Coates]

How do I get support on purchaed products?

Its not obvious and I urgently need help.

Purchased both Battery and Camera ANE

Trying to use in Flash Builder 4.7 Flex based app fot IOS & Android

Both are installed in the app correctly.

The Battery one worlks absolutely fine in both.

With the Camera ANE it seems to get confused, do you have any simple flex example apps?

Thanks

Paul

[marchbold]

Hi Paul,

Just log your issues in Github for the moment. We're currently reviewing the whole system and will have something better set out soon.

Regards,

Michael

[tamak1234]

Paul, in the meantime, I recently finally dived into the camera ANE about a week ago for a new project, and if you can elaborate on what you'd like to see in a demo / example I'll take a stab at throwing it together for you to use as a starting point.  

One of my recommendations was for a way to allow users to share bare-bones code examples with each other so hopefully that is a part of the support overhaul they guys are working on over at Distriqt.

The ANEs are good and well documented, but I know first-hand that sometimes you just need a starting point of reference to look at and sink your teeth into.   Im running FB 4.6 premium (still havent upgraded to 4.7 yet) but the mxml and as3 code should work for you.

Thanks and good luck.

[sleeper1111]

just downloaded latest ANE ZIP from GitHub...could be nice to know what version is this ZIP.

the changelog.txt doesn't have numbers/version numbers, also its not compatible with updates in release notes

simply would like to verify that the zip i downloaded is latest version

when i scroll down changelog i found some version 1.42..and release notes latest is 1.39. but latest updates in changelog doesn't even has a number

release notes – native extensions support

[marchbold]

Hi,

Since we've moved to github the change logs can be found as the history on the actual ane file in the library. There are no zip files anymore. The old version numbers you are referring to were phased out when we stopped distributing the extensions as a packaged zip. You should use github and grab the latest versions from the repository.

Cheers,

Michael

[marchbold]

Any of our customers here who want to have some input on the future of the extensions and the license there's currently a discussion on github that we'd love your input on.

https://github.com/distriqt/airnativeextensions/issues/258

Regards,

Michael

[marchbold · Accepted solution]

Hi all,

The new support and license extension site is now available.

As promised the new extensions are available through the site and all have had the server check removed. Each of your applications will now be completely independent of our servers.

To get started with the new site you should:

• log in with your GitHub account
• import your old developer key to get access to your extensions and a free support period! (http://airnativeextensions.com/knowledgebase/tutorial/2#import)
• generate application keys for your applications
• and get developing!

Each of the extensions now has a dedicated area and we are planning to further expand these areas with getting started guides, screenshots, code snippets and FAQ's. Check out the Adverts extension here.

Get started now http://airnativeextensions.com

[Harry248]

We use your extensions a lot and really like them. But there is a big problem with all iOS extensions when using Stage3D. Permission requests (access to camera, accept push notification, etc.) will always cause a context error. The scanner ane is really bad - the camera access request will cause a context3d not available error. We hope you can check and fix these bugs soon.

[marchbold]

Hi Harry,

We keep all our support questions in the github repositories so if you're having issues please log them there.

Cheers,

Michael