How to ask for help

How to ask for help

allanallan Posts: 63,498Questions: 1Answers: 10,471 Site admin
edited May 2012 in Announcements
We are here to help! However, please help us to help you. There are a few rules about using the forum and asking for help that will help ensure that the forums are useful for everyone.

tl;dr
- Post a link to your page or a test case - http://live.datatables.net
- Use the debugger - http://debug.datatables.net
- Consider purchasing support, particularly if its urgent for you: http://datatables.net/support

As the forums get busier, I do not have the ability to read and reply to every single comment. As such, some threads are unfortunately left without a reply. To help ensure that myself and others on the forums can offer assistance with an issue that you are having, please follow the suggestions below.

- Research the problem:
Someone else might have encountered the problem you are having. Use the FAQs ( http://datatables.net/faqs ) to see the answers to the most common questions, and use the search bar at the top of every page. The documentation for DataTables on this site is also quite extensive and the search covers that documentation as well as this forum.

- Be specific:
When asking for help, please don't simply say "it doesn't work". DataTables alone has over 100 configuration options, many of which significantly change how the code operates. We need to know how you are using DataTables in order to be able to offer assistance. For this the DataTables debugger exists ( http://debug.datatables.net ) and provides a summary of your table's state. Please use this!

- Provide a test case:
If you do happen to have a problem with DataTables that you can't solve, please provide us with a test case - a link to your web-page with the problem is fine, or use http://live.datatables.net which is provided for exactly the case where you can't host your own example web-page. Providing an example makes it much more likely that we will be able to help quickly, and ensure that you get a response.

- Paid support:
The forums are free to use and we are all very happy to help, but with the volume of traffic, and the commitment to continue developing DataTables (rather than answering forum questions all day) means that some topics are prioritised over others. Purchasing support allows me to ensure that your questions get top priority ( http://datables.net/support ). Purchasing support helps to ensure that development on the whole DataTables project continually progresses, as well as ensuring you get the answers you want!

Welcome to DataTables and the DataTables forums!
Allan

(p.s. Please post support requests in a new thread, not this one...)

Replies

  • jp_noronhajp_noronha Posts: 59Questions: 0Answers: 0
    Hi Allan,

    If I may be so bold i would make a sugestion: implement some kind of rank advisors, someone who really is into datatable and can help us to navigate

    thanks for an excellent piece of software
    Joao
  • allanallan Posts: 63,498Questions: 1Answers: 10,471 Site admin
    Hi Joao,

    Thanks very the suggestion - what do you mean by a rank advisor? There are already a number of people who are active in this forum and are really great at being able to provide advise on how DataTables can be used.

    Allan
  • jp_noronhajp_noronha Posts: 59Questions: 0Answers: 0
    it is true that already there are a great number off people that help. I just say to recognize them as that, helping the other lost souls to know to whom to turn to also and relivieng you off some pressure to answer :)
This discussion has been closed.