Dear COOK Forum users,

I just wanted to write a quick How To post to help you write effective forum posts that get you the help you need, if and when you need it because everyone needs some from time to time...

First and foremost, PLEASE READ THE DOCS & FOLLOW THE TUTORIALS then SEARCH, SEARCH MORE & SEARCH AGAIN for your issue:
Everyone's guilty of posting something that's already ben discussed many times and under some circumstances - Tickets for instance - you will possibly need to open a new thread. However, ALWAYS try to follow-up on a thread. This makes finding information MUCH EASIER!

Why??? There's nothing more frustrating when your trying to find or give help than finding fragmented information scattered all over the place.

If you can't find anything, try as hard as you can to search for as many alternative keywords relating to your issue as possible to ensure you've searched thoroughly.

If you can't find the answer to your issue, check the boards on the forum index to ensure you are going to post your query into the correct forum and;

1. ALWAYS provide details of your builder config & developer environment IF APPLICABLE (and it almost always is), including;
   • Joomla Version
   • Is the issue in sandbox or dev/live environment?
   • Cook VersionCook 1.5 or 2.0?
   • JS: JQuery or MooTools?
   • Form Style: Condensed, Exploded or JDom?
   • Features: Reduced, JDom Complete or Maximum?
   • DB Automation: Table or Model
   • Timeout: 20, 30 or 40secs
2. DESCRIBE your issue/problem concisely and as precisely as possible, highlighting any symptoms you've experienced. Which...
   • project
   • table
   • layout
   • fields
   • files
   ?
   Ordered and un-ordered lists are useful to explain these.
3. DESCRIBE the steps you've taken to try to resolve the issue and briefly describe the results/links to related posts and how they've helped or not. Again, lists are useful for keeping your post concise and readable
4. PROVIDE your code where applicable
5. PROVIDE debug info from XDebug and/or your browser console as much as possible

ETIQUETTE
With all of that in mind,

1. Post POLITELY - no matter how frustrated you are, nobody wants to answer angry , ranty posts...
2. Respond to some posts that are within your experience/expertise - this is a community after all - and A GREAT ONE AT THAT so let's share!
3. When someone's been so kind as to help you, ALWAYS post back how it helped, what you changed, adapted or whatever and finally!!!
4. Thank people that help you out using the thank you button - no need to to go OTT. If they've done an awesome job, you might like to increase their Karma using the plus button.

In short, there are a hell of a lot of active forum users prepared to help so let us help one another as best as we can so that Jocelyn (admin) concentrate on his relentless development of this wonderful application

All that's left to say now is LET'S COOK!

Best wishes,

Gez

Nice one Gez

Edward.

Hi There
I just want to add for NEW TICKETS
- if you can reproduce the issue in a test project it makes it much easier to find the problem both for you and Admin

Take the time to make a new test project
- Only include the parts tables / layouts and fields... that are needed to show what the issue is
- Set the config settings the same as your problematic project - test it
- test it yourself different config settings
- download it and inspect the code yourself - can you see any thing here?

- Report your findings

Thank you sooo much !

Yes, you are right, this last week, I had to limit my presence on the forum because I wanted to concentrate on developpement. I would also like to take some holidays, but when the weel is going on, it is impossible to stop.

And a big thank to you and to all the most active users here, your support is infinitly appreciated.

You missed me
I am back, and a new upgrade is coming to fix these last issues.
K+1

Hi Jocelyn,

No problem! Hope you had some time off over the weekend! - and yes, I think I speak for many of us when I say we missed you...

Look forward to checking out the new update!

Kind Regards,

Gez