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 Cougartint

Is the product advertising API the same as Amazons data feed program? I thought there would be an easier way to get a few products (200 and less) from Amazon and put them in xml file.

An API allows you to request products on demand, it does not give you information on them until you do so meaning that you'd still have to save the data yourself, compile it, then import it.

With 200 products you can however use the existing import script.

Could you also help me with this error: The administrator of this site must disable the vBulletin option "Add Template Name in HTML Comments", a debugging feature, to use this mod. Unless of course they want debugging comments in the reviews.

It's an admin setting that helps sites debug their templates by adding comment tags. However since this mod hides a post it causes a conflict and needs to be turned off... if you didn't know what it was, you aren't using it.

[deverill2010]

Ted is there a way to alter how these look in the forum view? I.e the title, no of reviews and the overal rating?

[deverill2010]

I'm having trouble posting reviews. It says I don't meet the minimum word count, put what I'm trying to post is a lot more than 50 words.

It's not letting me submit a review because of the above...?

[deverill2010]

I am now getting this -

Oh great, you had to go and press THAT button. There goes the whole site. Just kidding... We had an issue posting your review, please try again or contact support and use code 164250-E

When ever I try to write and submit a review!

[deverill2010]

Originally Posted by marccap

Installed - When I add a product the post is created but it states "this is an empty post". Any ideas?

On the new activity stream, it shows the content of the post as "this is an empty post" but if you click on the link in the activity stream it takes you through to the product where there is a description etc.

[deverill2010]

Originally Posted by Ted S

We're preparing to make a feature update mostly to take advantage of some of the new 4.2x functionality but if anyone has an open bug or request please feel free to pass it along.

Already on the possibility list [these wont all get done]:

- Site-defined ranking types [i.e. service, quality, price]
- Image uploads for thumbnails & processing
- Activity feed interactions
- Sidebar widget

Iam loving these suggestions and really look forward to them getting implemented!

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by deverill2010

Ted is there a way to alter how these look in the forum view? I.e the title, no of reviews and the overal rating?

You've made 5 posts back to back. I'd ask that you repost whatever issues you are now having into one so I'm not answering what you already figured out or further broke.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by deverill2010

On the new activity stream, it shows the content of the post as "this is an empty post" but if you click on the link in the activity stream it takes you through to the product where there is a description etc.

The mod makes blank posts, it's only in viewing the thread that other review information is called in. Our hope is to exclude those posts from the feed all together but that's a few weeks away.

[Chadi]

I have a question, how would users submit reviews? Do they submit only reviews but not ability to submit products themselves? In other words, only admin can add new products?

I set my dedicated forum to enable the "Enable Product Review Forum Features?" option. It works, but when submitting a "new thread" in that forum, I see the regular looking editor and nothing related to product reviews. Is this normal?

[Chadi]

I just got a copy of the xml feed from Christian Book Group, 408Mb in size. How can I import this, since its such a large file?

Also, I asked the dev about the proper format and he replied with

Okay, we understand now. The feed we gave you access to is the only version of the complete product feed that we have. It definitely won’t match your format exactly, however this is some of the information that we provide in the feed for each product:

Vendor Code
Title
Author
Price
Availability
Description (in HTML format)
Category
Manufacturer
CBD SKU
URL
Image Path
Retail Price