Non-Technical (Ethical) Help

  • Resolved GWMO

    (@gwmo)


    3 years, 2 months ago

    As an Internet marketing consultant, I understand the need to make money from a Pro version of your plugin. However, as a log time user of Tablepress who has invested considerable pro-bono time into many tables and recommended Tablepress to others, I have to ask if removing features, such as mobile responsiveness, from the free version is the most ethical way to monitize?

    Most recently, I used Tablepress to create several helpful food related tables for our local food pantry to help relieve hunger caused by both the economy in Toledo, Ohio (USA) and the recent pandemic:

    https://foodpantrytoledo.org/food-pantry-references

    Unfortunately, those tables are no longer responsive and I may have to spend a great deal of unnecessary time and effort volunteering to migrate the tables to a different plugin.

    Since you’re in Germany, we wouldn’t be able to offer a U.S. tax deduction. However, we could offer attribution for helping our charitable cause by donating a responsive version of Tablepress.

    Thank you Tobias for your time and past effort.

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

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  • Plugin Author Tobias Bäthge

    (@tobiasbg)

    3 years, 1 month ago

    Hi @gwmo,

    thanks a lot for using TablePress and for providing such valuable feedback! I really appreciate it!

    I totally understand that such a change in the TablePress business model (i.e. the addition of premium versions at the end of last year) is maybe irritating. I would however like to state very clearly: I have not and will not remove any functionality from the free version of TablePress that is in the WordPress plugin directory to then put it into the premium versions!

    Indeed though, I have retired several plugins that work “on top of TablePress” — I call them “Extensions” as they will not have any functionality at all without TablePress being installed. These were only available on the TablePress website, but were not a direct part of TablePress. Instead, those have now been integrated into the premium versions, as I can maintain them in a much better way then, and as I could then directly integrate them into the TablePress user interface. This, for example, allows directly configuring features in that user interface, instead of having to deal with error-prone Shortcode parameters.

    Now, you mention that your tables are no longer responsive. Is it possible that you have been using the (now retired) TablePress Responsive Tables Extension (one of the Extensions mentioned above) for this? This, if already installed, will continue to work.
    Or: What behavior did your tables shown when they were still responsive, i.e. how where they shown on small screens?

    Also note, that even the free version has had (and still has) the option to enable “Horizontal Scrolling” for tables (on the “Edit” screen). This is a very common way to make tables responsive. This could work well with your tables — except for issues that might arise from the tables being shown inside collapsible sections (for technical reasons).

    But let’s focus on the mentioned TablePress Responsive Tables Extension here. I might have an idea here, that we should discuss directly. Can you therefore please also get in touch by email (the address is in the lower part of https://tablepress.org/pricing/ ). Thanks!

    Best wishes,
    Tobias

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)

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