Major Additions - Product Review Forums ? Research, Review & Compare Items

Version 1.4.0 has been released to remove the giftery / list it integration of the addon now that service has been discontinued. No upgrade is needed though there have been a few other bug changes since 1.3.5.

Finding Feedback Can be Like a Needle in a Haystack

The more your forum grows, the more of a challenge it becomes to sort through the history and get the full story.

Product Review Forums Brings Structure to the Chaos

As a full-featured product management addon, PRF sits on top of your forum allowing you to create defined products which, unlike individual posts, stay relevant over time. Each comment, review and even product updates filter back into this one spot allowing for a quick and comprehensive overview while the individual discussions rage on as always.

Here's just a few of the many features you'll find in PRF:

• Bring structure to products with established pages & reviews
• Reduce the number of repetitive posts from members looking up the same info
• Increase your traffic with content-rich, seo friendly, product listings
• Drive revenue by adding your own affiliate links to product listings
• Increase the activity stream's value with review integration
  
• Engage visitors with integrated wishlists from Giftery.me

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Installation is not upload & go... individualized settings are required. Read the install file.

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QUICK TIPS:
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Enabling Product Forums: To show product details and ratings, each product-forum must be enabled in the forum manager.

Adding Products: You may upload products one at a time through the admin [includes an image uploader using GD] or you can bulk import through XML. You can also enable users to add moderated products through a global and usergroup option.

Product Review Index: To access your forum's product overview go to www.yoursite.com/productforums.php - You may want to add a link to this to your navbar or as a tab.

Customization: This addon is made to be customized. To change the color schema see clientscript/vbulletin_css or dive right on in to the templates and phrases.

Powered by Giftery.me: This mod is maintained includes two integrations you should know about. Both can be controlled through the mod options.

[nukinfuts29]

OK I got it. The value for the forum ID was set in the CP, but didn't translate to the backend. Adjusted it manually and it is working.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by nukinfuts29

OK I got it. The value for the forum ID was set in the CP, but didn't translate to the backend. Adjusted it manually and it is working.

Great! Anything we should look at in the mod / docs to help with this for others?

Everything else working ok?

[nukinfuts29]

New issue. Went to click on stars to rate something, got this

Unknown column 'pf.mainphoto_thumb' in 'field list'

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by nukinfuts29

New issue. Went to click on stars to rate something, got this

Unknown column 'pf.mainphoto_thumb' in 'field list'

Nice find... Looks like we had a double call to the field, one on the wrong table.

This version of /forums/productforums.php fixes it...

[nukinfuts29]

You're on top of it!

No more error, just redirects to a new screen and the rating doesn't change. Here is a screenshot

[Kirk Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Just run the bulk script. It will try to load the remote image, reprocess it into the 3 image sizes and update the database if successful.

The nice thing is that you can use this moving forward so rather than uploading files individually you just include the url, hit sync and it grabs them for you.

Do you mean the Sync External Images?

If so I get this error when running that!

Fatal error: Call to undefined function curl_init() in C:\xampp\htdocs\vb4dev\admincp\productforums.php on line 671

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by nukinfuts29

You're on top of it!

No more error, just redirects to a new screen and the rating doesn't change. Here is a screenshot

You caught us at a good time

The error you were getting was in the search function... Clicking the stars won't rate anything if that's what you intended [for that you have to click "Write a Review" and fill out the form].

Unless I'm misunderstanding you?

Of course we will add an error for when no reviews are found.

[nukinfuts29]

ooooh i thought you could click the stars to rate it. Like ebay and a lot of websites. My guess is this will be a common mistake

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Kirk Fitzgerald

Do you mean the Sync External Images?

If so I get this error when running that!

Fatal error: Call to undefined function curl_init() in C:\xampp\htdocs\vb4dev\admincp\productforums.php on line 671

Your server needs curl to run this function [curl lets us fetch the images from their remote source quickly and without worrying about limited php settings].

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by nukinfuts29

ooooh i thought you could click the stars to rate it. Like ebay and a lot of websites. My guess is this will be a common mistake

It's a good point... No one has brought it up to date but that doesn't mean users get it...

You can of course remove the link by editing the template. Since reviews generally need detail a click alone doesn't seam to be enough but we're open to thoughts.