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.

[angeljs]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Did you pick a forum to save the product too?

Does it have the rights to be posted in?

All yes. I also had to uninstall the product as every post I viewed with it installed gave me a database error.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by angeljs

All yes. I also had to uninstall the product as every post I viewed with it installed gave me a database error.

If you'd like help I'll need to know what the error was

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Ramsesx

Some more suggestions, it would be nice to have the reviews listed in the user profiles in a new tab. And an overview of all reviews on productforums.php, and some informations like most viewed reviews, latest reviews etc. like you can see it here. A lot of work, I know but maybe you could think about offering later a paid pro version.

Overviews won't be a problem... Since this is for vB4 it can be both a page and a sidebar plugin.

There's also already the right information to edit the profiles, it's just a matter of finding a useful place to put it. So that's on the list/

And while I know the Pro idea works for many, it's not how I offer mods. Everything for free or nor at all.

[Ramsesx]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Overviews won't be a problem... Since this is for vB4 it can be both a page and a sidebar plugin.

There's also already the right information to edit the profiles, it's just a matter of finding a useful place to put it. So that's on the list/

And while I know the Pro idea works for many, it's not how I offer mods. Everything for free or nor at all.

Thank you Ted, this looks very promising.

[KeystoneAirsoft]

Hi Ted S,

THis mod looks very promising and am very much interested in using it. I did install the latest release on VB 4.0.8 and adding products was easy enough however when I went to post a test review I got this error message:

Fatal error: Call to undefined method vB_WysiwygHtmlParser:arse_wysiwyg_html_to_bbcode () in /home/mydomain/public_html/productforums.php on line 134

Also another great feature would be to allow vendors to post their own products via the Forums through this. With sites running as a service site (such as mine) and having vendors and allowing them to post their own products would be less time consuming for the Owners/Admins of the Sites.

Right now I don't have vendors as I am just getting underway with a site, but if I get 5 vendors and they want to post 6 new products a month that would mean I would have to have the vendors send me the info for each product and then I would have to post the 30 products in a timely fashion. Whereas the vendors can log in go to their specific Forum and post the info themselves and be done with it.

Again overall this is a fantastic addition to vBulletin and will use it for time being once I get the above mentioned error figured out.

Thanks for your time spent on this mod

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by KeystoneAirsoft

Hi Ted S,

THis mod looks very promising and am very much interested in using it. I did install the latest release on VB 4.0.8 and adding products was easy enough however when I went to post a test review I got this error message:

Fatal error: Call to undefined method vB_WysiwygHtmlParser:arse_wysiwyg_html_to_bbcode () in /home/mydomain/public_html/productforums.php on line 134

Hum. This may be a result of running less than vB 4.1 but I'm not sure. Will have to dig in...

Also another great feature would be to allow vendors to post their own products via the Forums through this. With sites running as a service site (such as mine) and having vendors and allowing them to post their own products would be less time consuming for the Owners/Admins of the Sites.

Right now I don't have vendors as I am just getting underway with a site, but if I get 5 vendors and they want to post 6 new products a month that would mean I would have to have the vendors send me the info for each product and then I would have to post the 30 products in a timely fashion. Whereas the vendors can log in go to their specific Forum and post the info themselves and be done with it.

That's a great point...

Along with usergroup controls, I will also allow guests to post [as many vendors don't wish to sign up for a site] but require them to provide an email / name for contact info. This will of course be an option.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by KeystoneAirsoft

Hi Ted S,

THis mod looks very promising and am very much interested in using it. I did install the latest release on VB 4.0.8 and adding products was easy enough however when I went to post a test review I got this error message:

Fatal error: Call to undefined method vB_WysiwygHtmlParser:arse_wysiwyg_html_to_bbcode () in /home/mydomain/public_html/productforums.php on line 134

Confirmed that this requires vB 4.1 or higher. I have updated the mod to prevent future confusion.

[victorvu]

If this mod can be linked to Mary's Classifieds, it is awesome.

I like this mode alot, but havenot installed it at my site and will be installed soon.
:up:
Victor

[KeystoneAirsoft]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Confirmed that this requires vB 4.1 or higher. I have updated the mod to prevent future confusion.

Man thats horrible . I would like to upgrade to the current release but alot of the mods I am currently running doesn't support the newest vers of vBulletin yet and until they do I don't want to upgrade. Ohhh well and thanks for your prompt reply .

And thanks for taking my suggestion into consideration as well.

Will keep this mod tagged

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by KeystoneAirsoft

Man thats horrible . I would like to upgrade to the current release but alot of the mods I am currently running doesn't support the newest vers of vBulletin yet and until they do I don't want to upgrade. Ohhh well and thanks for your prompt reply .

And thanks for taking my suggestion into consideration as well.

Will keep this mod tagged

It should be fairly simple to get around this... I just need to dig into the code and write a check for the version that determines which parser to use.