Is the assistant that gives the features that the SB Calendar should have to begin with available for Safari?
Unfortunately Safari uses a completely different type of plugin than Chrome and Firefox. Because of this, the extension is not available for Safari. This is the reason I use Chrome on my Macs when using Scoutbook.
Thanks for your quick response even though I am not happy with the actual answer at all. So why doesn’t someone just fix SB to provide the basic features needed instead of everyone having to use all these add-ons, patches, work-arounds, etc.? I am beyond irritated that National dumped just enough money, time and effort into SB to create something that requires all the extra add-ons, etc. instead of creating a useable platform to begin with. Does the term Volunteer mean anything to anyone? So now the choice is to use the junk calendar that requires a unique entry for every event on the browser I use or go out of my way to have to use a separate browser and download a bunch of add-ons to do what I need to do - and spend a bunch of time time searching FAQs, forums, blogs and what not to get answers. Ridiculous.
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Actually, Scoutbook (like the add-ons) was originally developed by a volunteer Scouter, not by the BSA. The BSA later purchased it and has been adding to it/improving it in many ways since the purchase. I’m far from the biggest cheerleader for Scoutbook, but I think it’s unfair to assume that it has to be all things to all people before it can be released to the public. Software simply doesn’t work that way. It wasn’t architected to do everything that the BSA or the user base wants it to be able to do (e.g. permissions structures), so it’s out in the wild with a need for major renovations of some parts of the architecture. That means a lot of resources are needed over time to make many of the changes.
I agree that there is fundamental functionality missing. My understanding is that a lot of it is in the pipeline. Resources are limited of course, even for as large an organization as the BSA. In the interim, another volunteer had developed an add-on that works in Chrome and Firefox. It doesn’t add everything I’d like Scoutbook to do, either, but it’s an improvement.
Keep in mind that the SUAC folks like @edavignon who answer questions and route things to the BSA developers are, like the rest of us, volunteers. I suspect that, given the amount of time they spend answering questions and testing out fixes promulgated by the developers, they’re pretty aware of the value of volunteer time.
Yes, I know the history of SB and totally disagree with the statement “that’s not how software works.” I have been working with programmers sine the early 80s and know full well that a lack of planning and research on the front end to get the proper architecture in place is what leads to this kind of issue. Yes, you can’t wait forever to have every conceivable item included but for heaven’s sake, calendar programs have been around for a long time and given that units meet on a repeating schedule the very basic notion of repeating events or cloning events or whatever not being included is ridiculous. Yes I know y’all are all volunteers too but in many ways we volunteers being willing to do all this stuff to correct bad management causes these problems to continue and escalate…being able to put out fires is never as good as preventing them in the first place and I do think National takes advantage of volunteers, all volunteers, to put out fires created by a lack of well-thought out planning by BSA management. Again, thanks for your help and for allowing me to vent. At some point though there has to be some accountability for purchasing something that required this much additional work to begin with…not a good choice.
I guess my experience has been that no software I’ve ever used satisfied the criteria that it met all of my functionality goals before it was released, even all of the basic ones. I’ve had more experience with using software that might fall under the heading “It compiles! Ship it!” than I have with software that was provided every reasonable functionality in any given release, or even correctly did everything that was advertised. And we pay far more per seat annually for even the cheapest commercial engineering software than our troop has paid in aggregate for Scoutbook since we first started using it years ago.
I hear you that bad design on the front end → lots of rework on the back end. We deal with the same thing in physical systems all the time. Drives me bonkers. “Make haste slowly” seems to be lost advice at times.
ETA: Typos! My other arch nemesis… (with apologies to Matt Groening)
Agreed…there are as many different
requirements and ways to accomplish them as there are
humans…I just get frustrated that we as a society seem to be
satisfied with “throw it out there and see what happens” and
users being the guinea pigs to flesh out problems and offer
fixes…if car manufacturers did that with cars, half of us
would be dead and the other half in the hospital:) Oh wait,
that’s coming with self-driving cars making life and death
decisions for us via the same programmers…yikes!
Again, I do appreciate all the help, I just
get frustrated when doing simple tasks for the troop end up
sucking the life out of an entire day. I’d rather be able to
spend the same amount of time in front of a campfire having
philosophical discussions about stars, our place in the
universe, and cobbler with the Scouts in the troop but alas,
today’s parents can’t even get the kids to the campfire without
an app that tells them when, where, how much$ and what to wear
so I guess I will just keep plugging away until my head
explodes! 
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Me again…I have installed Firefox and the Feature Assistant Add-on for Scoutbook (for Firefox) and it is not working. I read some of the documentation and I should see a note at the bottom of the page that it is active as well as the features that it adds in the SB windows but I am not seeing any of that. I have tried refreshing, closing & reopening, enabling popups, etc. Any other suggestions? I am using a mac and have Mojave as my operating system. I really want to be able to have all the calendar
features that the assistant supposedly adds…please help if you have any ideas.
Thanks for the quick response…I have
looked in the “Add Event” window and don’t see the additional
features. I am not seeing the help section in the add-on itself
but I will check again. I have tried the forums but don’t seem
to find anyone else with the issue except one feed where it is
suggested to open SB again in a new tab after installation to
activate the add-on which I have tried. How do I reach the
author to ask for help? I have not seen a way to do that.
As for the "hostility," wow! I do not know
how you get hostility out of comments and questions but I guess
that is the problem with only the written word and the total
move toward no personal interaction where voice inflection and
facial expressions can convey true emotion. I am not hostile.
The use of capitalization, quotations, etc. are meant in the
true literary sense of emphasis and quotation. Sorry if you are
inferring hostility, non was implied. I have stated several
times how much I appreciate the help. I guess frustration has
been misinterpreted as hostility…too bad. I am just busy and
trying to get answers quickly.
Thanks again!
@KarenYoung2 - you may want to look here:
chrome://extensions/?options=paemmmaolgojladlndlbpgjpmflfcjoa
Gary monitors this category. I’m sure he will respond when he can.
OK, thanks for the help!
Steve,
I am not able to use this as a link or web address…I tried pasting into my browser but get and error message…what am I doing wrong? Also, I am trying to use the Add-on for Firefox as the documentation I read in the blog or forum indicates Google is no longer supporting the Chrome extension. If there is info about the Firefox add-on at the link, I would be interested though…
Google still supports Chrome extensions. The Chrome extension is the primary version. Firefox came along because it is easy for the developer to support it as well.
@KarenYoung2 - perhaps the main doc may get you to the help files:
OK, guess I misread this statement from the documentation…I see now that it only applies to mobile devices.
As I have a mac I am working to isolate this issue with the developer now - but I do use Chrome more for the extension myself
Thanks! The link works now, but it takes me to the original documentation that I have already accessed and which does not seem to have a solution. As I noted above, I have tried the fixes mentioned here (open in new tab) and others and can’t seem to get it working. I was looking for someone with familiarity with troubleshooting this with Firefox…anyone out there?
Karen - I am working with @DonovanMcNeil and verified it isn’t showing up properly on the mac with Firefox. And I just discovered it is not working on Firefox on Chrome desktops either.
It is nothing you are doing - it is some interoperability issue between the addon and Firefox. I am investigating.
It is working as expected using Chrome.
Sorry for the difficulties.
OK, Donovan, that’s great…thanks! It could just be operator error on my part but I can’t think of anything else to try…appreciate the help!
BTW - the reason I am trying to make it work with Firefox is because I use Safari as my main browser & I often will have 2 browsers open and work back & forth between them. I have found Firefox and Safari to play together better without instability issues when both are open as opposed to Chrome and Safari. If there is no ultimate Firefox solution, I will try Chrome but I’d rather exhaust all options to make Firefox work first.
