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 bigtree

As you can see, I'm pretty excited about this.

Can the Admin copy past HTML. Being able to add tables would be pretty sweet.

Products can use HTML. As long as it's well formated and you avoid form tags which will break the editor it should work.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by bigtree

Okay sorry, I'm tossing a pile on you and thinking you will take this all as stuff to consider over time. Just brain storming with you.

Ideas are never a problem nor are reports... pile them on.

I was referring to your reposting of the issue with the commenting... Having one post per user per issue helps speed things up dramatically when you're trying to dig through dozens of posts. Beyond that all is good in the world

Thanks

[Ted S]

1.1.2 has been posted.

This is a minor bug fix which addresses issues with some versions of 4.0.x not being able to post reviews, fixes line breaks in reviews and insures that the template debugging option in vBulletin is disabled as well as minor typo fixes.

Upgrading [upload all .php files and the plugin .xml file] is suggested but not required.

In addition the pending-change log in post #4 has been updated with new suggestions.

Bug and core adjustments will continue for another week at which point we hope to officially move the mod to a stable state.

[bigtree]

That fixed it for me. Thank you! All works very nice.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by bigtree

That fixed it for me. Thank you! All works very nice.

Fantastic!

I'll be on the road for a few days and while I don't think there's any true importer I can build, I'm sure we can add a little script that helps you "guide" threads in... basically lets you fill in the right details and makes them into reviews for you.

[Ramsesx]

Originally Posted by Ted S

I'll have to find away around that tip...

The issue with making posts rather than using a table is that you lose the structure. Rather than having a price field you can edit, you have a price line in a string. Parsing all this apart is not ideal and updating it [either for new reviews or changes to products] becomes a poor experience.

Ted, on archive view the "This is an empty post" issue is existing too.
I'm not a coder but wouldn't it be an idea to have a dual output when creating a new product? Means, the product description goes to pf_product_description and post_pagetext?
Some other things I observed:
- if trying to + Add New Product on productforums.php it gives me the VBulletin message "This feature is currently not in use", have I missed to enable anything?
- if quick reply is enabled this may lead some users to using this instead pressing the "Write your own" text
- I still don't understand why there is the "View all reviews on *" link in each review because it leads to the same site again I am right now
Suggestions:
- having the overall rating of the product shown in the forumdisplay view right beside the thread title
- Ratings using Rich Snippets see here

Enjoy your trip.

[Domiav]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Try uploading the attached version of upload/productforums.php and let me know what that does for you.

If not, let me know if the review is saved... And if the url is correct [i.e. it's loading a valid file on your site].

work! thank you!

Very fair question actually.

If you load up productforums.php it will let people search & browse your reviews and also adds the "post new product" link. You can add this page to your navigation or just add the post product link somewhere. I'd suggest your navbar but every site is different.

ok, so i've another problem
on productforums.php page i don't have any "add a product" link(you can see it into the attachment).
i'm browsing like administrator and of course the "admin usergroup" have the right on "yes" for add a new product.

At last, and this is a feature request, is there a way to add also on the review form the price that a user spent to bought the products?

[Ramsesx]

Originally Posted by Domiav

ok, so i've another problem
on productforums.php page i don't have any "add a product" link(you can see it into the attachment).
i'm browsing like administrator and of course the "admin usergroup" have the right on "yes" for add a new product.

Have you set Product Review Forum Settings --> Allow Members to Post Products to yes?

[Domiav]

Originally Posted by Ramsesx

Have you set Product Review Forum Settings --> Allow Members to Post Products to yes?

yes sure, the permissions was all on yes.
However i've solved with the last release, i've seen that Ted have changed like 0,02kbs on the code from the attachment file that gived to me and the last release; i've tried to upload the last one and here we go, i've the add product link
He problably changed the right 0,02Kbs part of code

Looking for the feature request; thank you again for the support!

[Domiav]

ok, another little problem; on the "buy this product" link when i click on it the system put the forum url before the shop url; for example if i put www.newegg.com when i click on buy this product i will redirect to:
www.mywebsite.com/forum/www.newegg.com that of course give a 404 error.

can also someone show me how to translate the mod? is everywhere into the productforums.php? i just need to revert the text link part into my language?
If yes, i'll release for free the translated version if may help.