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.

[Morrus]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Playing around as promised and I'm still not sure what's causing this for you...

Using a completely clean install, there's no issues preserving line breaks as you can see at http://vbulletin.moderninsider.com/ (no min posting to review, no limit on reviews / product).

This opens up the question as to your specific settings. Since we've got the basics, let's talk details... editor options? html allowed? bb code allowed? moderation?

And of course the most basic... you are using 4.2.2 for sure, right (this is the #1 cause of compatibility issues so sorry for asking twice).

I've tried every combination possible that I can find - Bbcode on/off, HTML on/off, both for vbulletin and for the mod specifically. Advanced editor is as shown in the above screenshots, both on and off. Like I say, it's fine everywhere else on the site.

For now I have HTML on so at least I can post some test reviews. But that can't be a long term solution, for obvious reasons.

(yup, 4.2.2!)

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Morrus

I've tried every combination possible that I can find - Bbcode on/off, HTML on/off, both for vbulletin and for the mod specifically. Advanced editor is as shown in the above screenshots, both on and off. Like I say, it's fine everywhere else on the site.

For now I have HTML on so at least I can post some test reviews. But that can't be a long term solution, for obvious reasons.

(yup, 4.2.2!)

Alright, that makes it way more painful to fix, sorry!

How are you with database queries? Good you say, fantastic!

Let's see how one of your review with line breaks looks in mySQL:

SELECT comments FROM pf_reviews WHERE postid = XXX (pick the post, will show all the reviews on it).

We're looking to see if we either get line breaks in the raw data or break tags added (which are getting removed).

[Morrus]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Alright, that makes it way more painful to fix, sorry!

How are you with database queries? Good you say, fantastic!

Let's see how one of your review with line breaks looks in mySQL:

SELECT comments FROM pf_reviews WHERE postid = XXX (pick the post, will show all the reviews on it).

We're looking to see if we either get line breaks in the raw data or break tags added (which are getting removed).

We're slipping outside my comfort zone here - I'm not too sure what I'm doing.

So I went to PHYMYADMIN and entered that query. There's no table pf_reviews, but there is pf_review. I'm hoping that's just a typo and not an actual missing table.

Looking at pf_review I can't see anywhere there where the review is actually stored. It just has reviewid productid threadid postid userid rating comments headline fullname location ipaddress createddate approved.

I'm going to make a guess that postid is what I want in the post table? In that case, looking at the post, there's the wall of text, but no line breaks. The custom fields, at the bottom, though, are formatted with bold titles and line breaks, so that little bit works. The main body of the text is just the wall though.

Phew. That was a long way to say -- if I understand you right, no, there is no formatting in the actual database entry.

I'm pretty sure this has to be the same thing missing WYSIWYG toolbar. If we fix the toolbar, I'm willing to bet the formatting issue will fix itself too.

Also, as a data point - posting in HTML (when it's switched on) works just fine, and the formatting gets saved correctly.

[Ted S]

Sorry, sounds like I gave you both a typo and bad details.

Since I can't duplicate the lack of the editor toolbar either, I have to ask you to keep playing along here, painful and slow as the process may be.

Give this version of the addon a spin and let me know if anything changes.

[Morrus]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Sorry, sounds like I gave you both a typo and bad details.

pf_review is the correct place to be looking.

comments is the field that holds the actual review.

I realize you may not see any breaks in phpMyAdmin but try copying & pasting the text out. If there's still no breaks (and no HTML tags), that's a good indication that there's an issue on the front-end entering data. If they're there, it's something else.

Curiouser and curiouser. The comments field is entirely empty!

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Morrus

Curiouser and curiouser. The comments field is entirely empty!

Try clicking edit (if it's truly blank, there wouldn't be a review message, just a title).

[Ted S]

Also, see my previous post which is edited to include a test version of the addon,

[Morrus]

Nada. Empty.

Clicking the review title takes me to the forum thread, which shows the review text.

[Morrus]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Also, see my previous post which is edited to include a test version of the addon,

I haven't tried that yet - issue being that with all the work I've done customizing it, I'm worried about now breaking what I've done!

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Morrus

Nada. Empty.

Clicking the review title takes me to the forum thread, which shows the review text.

So how do you know there's no line breaks? There shouldn't be any review at all...