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.

[Snipuh21]

Originally Posted by Ted S

When you create a product, you have to pick the forum for it to go in. Reviews will follow up on that product's thread and optionally to a review forum (but just one review forum regardless of category).

Ted S.,

I think that PRF is a really nice piece of work and would like to use it in a site I am working on but do not have the skill to install and modify it properly myself. That being the case, I was wondering whether if I could hire you to do so? Sorry to go public but I wanted to make sure I reach you and the private message I sent has not been read yet. Thank you for your consideration.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Snipuh21

Ted S.,

I think that PRF is a really nice piece of work and would like to use it in a site I am working on but do not have the skill to install and modify it properly myself. That being the case, I was wondering whether if I could hire you to do so? Sorry to go public but I wanted to make sure I reach you and the private message I sent has not been read yet. Thank you for your consideration.

Well, you sent it yesterday... a little patience goes a lot longer than sending 3 messages.

That said, I do not not offer paid services of any sort -- everyone gets the same level of response for my mods. You can find many talented individuals in the vB.org market forums to hire out.

[Snipuh21]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Well, you sent it yesterday... a little patience goes a lot longer than sending 3 messages.

That said, I do not not offer paid services of any sort -- everyone gets the same level of response for my mods. You can find many talented individuals in the vB.org market forums to hire out.

Sorry to bother you.

[tyreco]

Don't laugh.
Everything is running fine. 10.000 products imported. Best mod ever ... but i have a "small" problem with xml import

<description>ddddddddddddd</description>

change to:



so every "d" changes to "dj" doesn't matter what i try. XML file is UTF8.
Any idea?

[Ted S]

Hrm.

Does it happen on other strings with usual words (i.e. not just a sequence of letters) as well?

Mind posting a few bits of the XML file up for me to try out?

And I never laugh (unless it's at myself, lol).

[tyreco]

I changed encoding="UTF-8" to encoding="ISO-8859-1" ... but no changes. Convert the XML file with notepad++ to all variants ... no chance.

If i enter <description>DDDDDDDD</description> in big caracters it works.


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="yes"?>
<productData xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<product>
<forumid>78</forumid>
<title>BRIDGESTONE RD 623</title>
<categoryid>1</categoryid>
<short_desc>RD 623 von BRIDGESTONE</short_desc>
<description>dddddddddd</description>
<price>></price>
<mfrg>BRIDGESTONE</mfrg>
<upc>1000145563</upc>
<url>http://www.cartomak.de/OttAttrSearch...BRIDGESTONE+RD 623</url>
<mainphoto>http://www.cartomak.de/pictures/bridgestone/rd_623.jpg</mainphoto>
<mainphoto_thumb>http://www.cartomak.de/pictures/bridgestone/rd_623.jpg</mainphoto_thumb>
<mainphoto_small>http://www.cartomak.de/pictures/bridgestone/rd_623.jpg</mainphoto_small>
</product>
</productData>

[Ted S]

The XML importer uses some basic vBulletin libraries to clean up content and insure there's nothing bad in your file. Nothing else happens to the data so that's the only possible problem I can think of at a glance.

You can try disabling this by commenting out or removing line 1651 of admincp/productforums.php

If this solves things, I'll write a custom cleaner for the mod. If not I'll PM you to get the full XML file and debug it.

// $product->description = normalize_str($product->description);

[tyreco]

I did. Now it works fine

PHP Code:

// $product->description = normalize_str($product->description); 


[Ted S]

Cool.

I'll get a patch out to do some filtering over the weekend so there's nothing malicious imported by accident.

[Snipuh21]

I had this mod installed but it turned out not to work in the way I needed without beaucoup extra work that was not in my budget. That said I had it uninstalled and now the default thread rating system is not working. Anyone else have this problem? Any suggestions as to how to attack it? Thank you very much.