So if I understand this correctly, I have to spend my time building the component before I will know how much it costs? That seems counterproductive since my time is money and I have to give my clients a bid for the work to be done. I do not base my bids on predictions or guess work but if I use this system then I am really gambling that my project will cost X amount.

I am very excited to give this a go but I won’t gamble, or spend time developing a project to find out that it puts me over budget for a project. I would much rather use a pre-built tool that I can find on the JED and keep the guess work out of my projects. Good business is not based on what if, but rather what I know I can do for how much.

You say that I do not have to be a skilled PHP developer but I think you are really limiting your service to users who have this skill set. Or who don’t place a high value on their time and have time to spend unwisely, taking the chance that they will be able to build their projects within the budget.

I don’t know what others think of this credit system but for me it is too big of a gamble and I would hope that some other system is put in place that would make my job bidding projects more accurate than playing Rock, Paper, Scissors or pulling the handle of a slot machine. Perhaps I am over exaggerating but that is what I see happening if I decide to use this tool.

Hi, and welcome to the community,

You are right, lot of users gave me this feedback about points.
- It is complicated.
- It is difficult to estimate the cost of a project.

If you subscribe an account, you have unlimited access to the builder, so you are sure of the price.
In a very close future, it is possible I totally change the politic in order to simply avoid the 'points' concept.


If you never heard about databases, this tool can be difficult to handle, I agree.
But if you already have experience with 'Microsoft Access' for example, or with whatever database system, Cook should not be a problem for you, even if you are not experienced in PHP. Definitively.

Obviously, if you are not experienced at all in PHP, your project will be limited to the strict functionalities of Cook. Nothing more.

If you already choosed for a Joomla technology, Cook Self Service is maybe one of the best tool that can write such components in a simple, fast and ergonomic way.

If you don't want to write PHP, I think you are searching for artificial intelligence.

The more functionalities Cook will handle, the more complicated will be the interface.
Our politic is about simplicity of use.

Thanks for your reply, I am going to play around with this and see what I can build with it and hopefully get a feel for the time it can save me. I have a good understanding of PHP/MySQL (not great but good;) and I guess it is like any other new tool. I am just going to have to spend the time to understand it. Codelobster with the Joomla plugin has been my tool of choice for many years now and it is time to test newer functionality.

I am old school and I doubt I will ever fully accept this SaaS concept...