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.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Kirk Fitzgerald

In Product Listing page I see this in page source:

<img src="\productphotos\50014e732fa54_full.jpg">

You'll need to add a new product or edit the photo on an existing one.

This version of admincp/productforums.php will let you edit images even if there was already an upload.

[Kirk Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Ted S

You'll need to add a new product or edit the photo on an existing one.

This version of admincp/productforums.php will let you edit images even if there was already an upload.

Adding a new product works perfectly, editing an existing product image is also working.

So I will need to edit the images of all existing products to make the images work properly, bit of a pain but I can live with that, thank you for some seriously excellent and first rate support Ted, you're a heck of a fine chap. :up:

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Kirk Fitzgerald

Adding a new product works perfectly, editing an existing product image is also working.

So I will need to edit the images of all existing products to make the images work properly, bit of a pain but I can live with that, thank you for some seriously excellent and first rate support Ted, you're a heck of a fine chap. :up:

We can fix this with a simple query...

update pf_product set mainphoto = replace(mainphoto, '\\productphotos\\', 'productphotos/');
update pf_product set mainphoto_thumb = replace(mainphoto_thumb, '\\productphotos\\', 'productphotos/');
update pf_product set mainphoto_small = replace(mainphoto_small, '\\productphotos\\', 'productphotos/');

Or something along those lines depending on your current image paths.

[Note: to replace \ you must escape it with another \ thus \\]

[Kirk Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Ted S

We can fix this with a simple query...

update pf_product set mainphoto = replace(mainphoto, '\\productphotos\\', 'productphotos/');
update pf_product set mainphoto_thumb = replace(mainphoto_thumb, '\\productphotos\\', 'productphotos/');
update pf_product set mainphoto_small = replace(mainphoto_small, '\\productphotos\\', 'productphotos/');

Or something along those lines depending on your current image paths.

[Note: to replace \ you must escape it with another \ thus \\]

What a star, I used this:

update pf_product set mainphoto = replace(mainphoto, '\\productphotos\\', 'productphotos/');
update pf_product set mainphoto_thumb = replace(mainphoto_thumb, '\\productphotos\\', 'productphotos/');
update pf_product set mainphoto_small = replace(mainphoto_small, '\\productphotos\\', 'productphotos/');

and everything is fine, just had to re-upload an image for the one I changed earlier and it's working properly now.

Thank you Ted.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Kirk Fitzgerald

What a star, I used this:

update pf_product set mainphoto = replace(mainphoto, '\\productphotos\\', 'productphotos/');
update pf_product set mainphoto_thumb = replace(mainphoto_thumb, '\\productphotos\\', 'productphotos/');
update pf_product set mainphoto_small = replace(mainphoto_small, '\\productphotos\\', 'productphotos/');

and everything is fine, just had to re-upload an image for the one I changed earlier and it's working properly now.

Thank you Ted.

Images aside, how's the rest of the addon working for you?

[Kirk Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Images aside, how's the rest of the addon working for you?

Images aside, the addon works without flaw or error, the improvements in 1.3 are absolutely breath-taking, very very excited about the coming stable release.

[Ted S]

With the release of 1.3.1 stable we wanted to provide a quick recap on how to upgrade. While the process is straight forward and quick, the new image uploading and other features do make it important to go through a few extra steps so please read on and ask if you have any questions:

1. Start with a backup of your forum for this or any other mod you install.

2. Download the latest version of PRF and upload the contents of the upload folder to your forum directory

3. From your AdminCP update the Product Forums plugin package to the included file

4. Review the main addon settings paying special attention to the new upload and image paths if you wish to use the image uploading features

5. Run the image sync script to convert existing images from external links to local images [requires cURL and GD]

6. Post your comments / suggestions whether they're good, bad or indifferent back here for us, and everyone else in the community

This is a major update and as such you'll see changes throughout the templates and phrases. As always we encourage you to make the mod your starting place and customize beyond it with the options and your own adjustments.

For those who wish to use the image uploader & sync script you will need to have cURL and GD installed on your server and be able to create a writeable folder for images to be saved in. Images can be processed either one at a time by editing an existing product or in bulk by using the sync images link which will fetch all external images and resize, localize and update them [credit too Simon Jarvis].


The complete install & customization guide can be found @ http://www.giftery.me/productforums/howto/

[Ted S]

Wondering what's new? Here's the main changes [yes, there's a lot of them]

• Customizable rating options... yes/no, 5-star and text freeform
• Product images. You upload, we resize [gd required]
• Bulk image importing from external links [curl & gd required]
• Thumbnails all over... the product index, even forum display
• Activity Stream updates when a review is posted
• Support for user-selected thread prefixes
• Automatic add product links for the user
• Improvements to product management for speedier changes
• Cleaned up product adding interfaces for admin use
• Lots of small tweaks, bug fixes and other changes

See the full change log @ http://www.giftery.me/productforums/changelog

[RPSmedia]

Hi Ted, great product and you saved me lots of money with this. I've got the beta working good but the only thing is I can't find where users can upload the pictures.

Thanks.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by RPSmedia

Hi Ted, great product and you saved me lots of money with this. I've got the beta working good but the only thing is I can't find where users can upload the pictures.

Thanks.

They don't. For a variety of reasons we opted not to build this into 1.3, or at least not uploads. Of course end users can specify a link for an image which, if you run the sync script, will get converted in.