During the past couple of days, I’ve been literally bombarded with emails with general support questions about LauncherPro. Most of these emails are asking the same two or three questions.

As you can imagine, replying to emails takes time. Time that otherwise would be spent improving the product. I’ve literally only had a few hours to work on LauncherPro the past two days due to the sheer amount of emails. You can also see it in the blog comments here, the same two or three questions being asked over and over again, despite me having already answered them in the same comments section. Namely the three questions that kept popping up are about how to download/install the Plus version, how updates for the Plus version will be handled, and Facebook pictures in the People widget, all of which I have answered in the comments and in the forum.

So it’s time for some changes. From now on, the LauncherPro Forums are the one and ONLY way to get answers to general support questions. If you have a question or a billing problem that cannot be resolved in public, you can still email me (please read below for instructions on doing so). But any general support questions sent by email will not be answered. I know it sounds harsh, but it’s the only way for me to be able to keep spending the necessary time on actually developing LauncherPro.

If you’d just like to send a comment that doesn’t require an answer, and you’d rather not post it on the forum, you can email it to me too (assuming you don’t expect an answer, of course). I still read all email that comes this way, just won’t be replying to those that should have been posted on the forum instead.

So if you have any general questions, please head over to our forum (there’s a link at the top of this page, next to “Home”) and post them. But first, some ground rules about posting in the forum:

  • 1. SEARCH FIRST: A support forum is useless if it has 100 different topics, all asking the same question, or suggesting the same feature, or reporting the same bug. You can find a search box at the top right corner on the forums. Do a search for keywords relating to your question/suggestion/bug. Make sure nobody has posted about it already. If there’s already a topic about it, feel free to add your comments to that topic, but don’t start a new one. If there’s no topic relating to your issue, then start a new topic.
  • 2. Read the forum announcements first: On top of every subforum, you’ll see a section with announcements. Please make sure you read them carefully before posting. There you’ll find an extensive list of features that have been already requested, and their current status in the “todo” list. There’s also a topic with frequently asked questions and answers.
  • 3. Use the right forum: Inside the forums, we have different subforums for feature requests, bug reports, general questions/help, etc. The titles are self-explanatory. Please look at the different subforums and choose the one that best matches your issue. The LauncherPro Plus forums are meant to be used only for issues related to Plus-only features. That means that if you want to request a feature that’s not related to LauncherPro Widgets, you must post it in the LauncherPro suggestions forum, even if you’re a LauncherPro Plus user. Sames goes for General questions/help; if your question is not about Plus features, post it in the LauncherPro questions forum.
  • 4. Be POLITE: At all times, please remain respectful of your fellow LauncherPro users. Even if you disagree with what they say or how they think. No swearing, no disrespecting, and no trolling, please.

Ok, so with those rules we should be able to have a peaceful community where users can help each other without me having to take time away from development to answer questions that have already been answered or could be easily answered by a more experienced user.

Now here’s a couple of rules for sending private emails:

  • Include “[Private]” (without the commas) in the subject line. This will help me filter emails that are actually private and from people who can follow a couple of simple guidelines.
  • If you have purchased LauncherPro Plus and are not satisfied with it, I’m more than happy to issue you a full refund within the first week of use. If you’d like to request a refund, please include your Paypal Transaction ID (it’s on your Paypal invoice) in your email. I need this ID to properly find your purchase and issue a refund.

 

I hope you’ll understand the reasons to have this new system/rules. It’s not because I’m too lazy to reply to emails. It’s because LauncherPro is still a one-man-show (until I can afford to hire more people) and having to answer to a lot of unnecessary emails is hurting the development of the project.

Thanks in advance for following the rules.

Fede