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]

Additional question - how on earth do you persuade vBulletin to display the created date on the product details/reviews page?

[Ted S]

To make the location into a link, you'll just need to update the prodforums_matches_bit template again:
<a href="{vb:raw review.location}">click me</a>

You may also want to add some validation to the location string to insure it's a valid formatted URL. This can be done by adding to the hook location productforums_writereview_top (which will insure it stays intact if you upgrade the plugin down the road).

You can use one of many common regex strings (just google php regex for urls) for the check function depending on what you want to allow.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Morrus

Additional question - how on earth do you persuade vBulletin to display the created date on the product details/reviews page?

Use the variable createddate which vBulletin's template engine can format.

https://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/...mplates_syntax

[Morrus]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Use the variable createddate which vBulletin's template engine can format.

https://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/...mplates_syntax

I tried both {vb:raw createddate} and {vb:var createddate} but neither of them work.

(vb:date createddate} just gives me Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00.

I tried them all with posteddate too. This isthe full list of things I've tried so far:

{vb:raw posteddate}
{vb:var posteddate}
{vb:raw createddate}
{vb:var createddate}
{vb:date createddate}
{vb:date posteddate}
{vb:var product.creatteddate}
{vb:var product.posteddate}
{vb:raw product.creatteddate}
{vb:raw product.posteddate}

I need to figure this out, partly because I want to add further product fields (pagecount, format, etc.) I'm learning stuff as I go, and getting this little bit wrking will hopefully mean I then know how to do it with other things.

[Morrus]

Originally Posted by Ted S

To make the location into a link, you'll just need to update the prodforums_matches_bit template again:
<a href="{vb:raw review.location}">click me</a>

You may also want to add some validation to the location string to insure it's a valid formatted URL. This can be done by adding to the hook location productforums_writereview_top (which will insure it stays intact if you upgrade the plugin down the road).

You can use one of many common regex strings (just google php regex for urls) for the check function depending on what you want to allow.

prodforums_matches_bit isn't the right one - I meant where the actual review is. I guess it's a postbit template?

I've attached an image which hopefully explains it!

[Morrus]

Another question. Sorry!

I see this code in productforums.php:

$history = $db->query_first_slave("SELECT reviewid FROM " . TABLE_PREFIX . "pf_review WHERE productid = '". $db->escape_string($vbulletin->GPC['productid']) ."' AND userid = ". $vbulletin->userinfo['userid']);

Now, can I copy that over to the product listing part of the file? And, if so, is there then a way I can use that $history thing (variable?) in the template to determine whether or not to display a link to review a product or a note that the user already has reviewed it?

[Shinkaze]

Very cool (and needed) mod. I just installed it and am setting everything up. However the image uploader does not appear to work well with my version of vB (4.2.2). I have set the CHMOD for the upload directory a directed to 777, but am still getting a failed to open stream error on upload of images?

[Morrus]

It's not the vBulletin version. I'm on 4.2.2 also, and it works fine. You issue is not related to your version of vBulletin.

[Shinkaze]

Originally Posted by Morrus

It's not the vBulletin version. I'm on 4.2.2 also, and it works fine. You issue is not related to your version of vBulletin.

In that case here is some of my PHP info?

PHP Code:

PHP Version 5.5.17
System     Linux  x86_64
Build Date     Sep 19 2014 09:49:15 
GD Support     enabled
GD Version     bundled (2.1.0 compatible) 


[Morrus]

Originally Posted by Shinkaze

In that case here is some of my PHP info?

PHP Code:

PHP Version 5.5.17
System     Linux  x86_64
Build Date     Sep 19 2014 09:49:15 
GD Support     enabled
GD Version     bundled (2.1.0 compatible) 


Sadly, you're mistaking me for something more than somebody else who happened to install it on the same version.