Feedback from current group co-organizers

[patriciabt]

Feedback from current group co-organizers based on the tests conducted on https://demo.gatherpress.org/

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[patriciabt]

Feedback received on the Demo site:

• the anonymous feature was misunderstood, and thought to be totally anonymous where we still need the attendee to login and the organizers to see who they are. Maybe need a name change?
• had an error on editing a template, not sure it's GatherPress related, I could recreate the error and here is the error code. It happens when we click on the template link on the sidebar inside an event (and it opens the site editor), but it's fine when we go to the template from the Site editor

Error log

```console M/i<@https://demo.gatherpress.org/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/wp-content/plugins/gatherpress/build/panels.js?ver=24014ba7345244e47c2e:1:4786 Xe/s

@carstingaxion wrapped the error in <details> for readability

[patriciabt]

Feedback from one of our testers: "How do I send a message to people after the event has passed?"

The Compose Message box is available on upcoming events but not past events

[carstingaxion]

Let's not forget about the long feedback, @pbrocks brought to https://gatherpress.slack.com/archives/CNZS6PPFZ/p1723817169236769 from the WordPress meetup slack.

We might separate this into singular issues over time.

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Documentation Feedback

Here in the description tab there is no mention of documentation:

In the FAQ tab there’s things that look like they might be documentation, but that’s a very unexpected place to put that. FAQs are for frequently asked questions, not to explain configuration.

In that same FAQ tab it says, “Find the developer documentation inside the plugins’ docs folder.” That’s making a rather large assumption that the person installing this plugin even knows where that is. It’s also a rather large assumption that the person either has FTP access or access to the Plugin File Editor. When I do eventually make my way into /wp-content/plugins/gatherpress/docs/ I just see folders for developer and media. The developer folder is empty. The media folder contains a video quickly demonstrating how to use the plugin. I don’t know what the other 4 photos are for.

Because I happen to have been following this briefly, I do know that documentation exists here: https://gatherpress.org/documentation/. But if I didn’t know that & I was installing a plugin as usual, I would not have found that page.

That page has a link that says “Documentation for developers”. I was under the assumption that that might have information about extending the plugin via hooks, or more advanced GatherPress topics. I was surprised to find that it was about developing the plugin. So it should probably say something like “Documentation for developing GatherPress” or something so it’s more clear.

https://gatherpress.org/documentation/documentation-for-users/ Step 1 needs adjusting because people are able to install it normally now & don’t have to do so through GitHub.

Step 3 is Create an Event and Step 4 is Venues. If I haven’t created any venues and I attempt to create an event first, the only option I see is “Online event”. I’d consider maybe reversing those steps.

Plugin Feedback

Positives

I love that it uses the block editor in both the venue and events custom post types. Of the 8 other event management plugins I’ve tried, most do not. I also really like that for the map there seems to be no need for a Google Maps API key, as it’s just an embed. Most other event management plugins I’ve tried require an API key.

I really like that when an event is published, a notice comes up that allows the event publisher to send an email to different groups of folks right away.

Map iFrame

The map iFrame isn’t lazy loaded and I don’t see any options for setting that. It’s probably a sensible default though.

Time Zone

The date and time are nice and easy to adjust but when I click on the time zone dropdown all I see is Africa. Also the phrase “time zone” is cut off & it’s all caps, whereas “Start” and “End” are not.

Venue Selection

I created a venue called Microsoft Teams Video Call. It just has a title, it doesn’t have anything else. When I select that venue while creating an event, on the left it still says “No venue selected.” I understand that I could select “Online event” but given that our group has very recently switched from Zoom to Microsoft Teams I do want to be more specific.

Map Settings

Map settings don’t come over from the venue. Venue page:

Event page:

Online event link

Putting a link in “Online event link” doesn’t seem to do anything on the front end when I do not have “Online event” selected in “Venue Selector”.

Attendance Limit

In the settings page there is a default Maximum Attendance Limit. But when creating a new event, that number is not reflected. If someone creates an event without looking at the settings page and they expect to be able to have as many attendees as they want, that’s going to be a problem.

Settings page.

I didn’t set this setting myself, it’s just 50 by default.

Event:

Registration

On the event page when I click the RSVP button all I see is this:

I don’t know how to add fields to this. For groups that are part of the official Chapter program, I would imagine the organizers would at least want to know the attendee’s name. It’s my understanding that all a WordPress user needs to be a user is their username and email address, not their name. Now for the website I’m testing the plugin on, I do have my name as part of my user information. So the plugin may very well already have checks for that in place & I’m just not seeing it.

Our group here is not part of the official Chapter program. The group has been around since before that existed. For in-person events we charge a $5 admission fee because prior to doing that the group had issues with folks RSVPing and then just not showing up. We put that admission fee back into the group, usually by ordering appetizers because our in-person venues are pubs. It also covers our website’s hosting. So we’d need to be able to integrate a payment gateway.

Emails

When clicking the Attend button, I did not receive an email. I’m testing on Local (by Flywheel) but all other event management plugins I’ve tested sent the email just fine on Local. If no email is sent to a user, there’s a good chance they’ll forget about the event. I composed a message in “Send an event update” and did not receive that either.

This is just a textarea. There’s no options at all for formatting. It’s not clear if I’d be able to put HTML in there or not. There doesn’t seem to be any options for email scheduling, only to send the message now. Also, it says “Optional Message”. I don’t know what would be sent if I did not include a message.

Conclusion

All this being said, I’m happy the Community team is creating this plugin. I’ll be excited to see where it goes. Keep up the good work!