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 downloadsuk

Thanks Ted - that was a glaring oversight on my part. All working now.

[downloadsuk]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Ha, did you see my comment Edit? I'm having issues with the ? sign when uploading an XML file;

"However, when uploading the amount with a ? sign, I get an unusual character in ? ( for example (£69.99)) - the encoding is set to UTF-8 - I tried Googling, but couldn't find a specific reason - any ideas?"

[downloadsuk]

Nevermind - I did a work around using the Templates. However, it might be something that affects other users.

Originally Posted by downloadsuk

Ha, did you see my comment Edit? I'm having issues with the ? sign when uploading an XML file;

"However, when uploading the amount with a ? sign, I get an unusual character in ? ( for example (£69.99)) - the encoding is set to UTF-8 - I tried Googling, but couldn't find a specific reason - any ideas?"

[Phrost]

Hey Ted, we're seriously considering installing this on one of our big boards, which has a ton of reviews in the old GARS system. The only thing holding us back is that we need to be able to rate a product on multiple categories.

Can you confirm that this is something that will be available in a future revision? If so, we'll go ahead and implement it as-is now.

Also, and this is just a "would be nice to have", although I doubt you'll think it's worth your time. A means of porting GARS reviews over into the new system would be amazing.

Thanks so much.

[Ted S]

Phrost,

Additional rating fields will be added in down the road but I can't promise them next week [metaphorically] and that means you may want to wait a bit.

We'll see about an import script. Tends to be difficult as there isn't a shared ID to key from A to B but we'll see.

[stained]

Many thanks for this mod Ted S. Where do products go if you forget to assign them to a forum during product creation? I think I must have done that on three occasions because when I bring up the 'manage products' list it is showing me 25 of 28 products. I need to delete those three and create them correctly. Any ideas?

[Phrost]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Phrost,

Additional rating fields will be added in down the road but I can't promise them next week [metaphorically] and that means you may want to wait a bit.

We'll see about an import script. Tends to be difficult as there isn't a shared ID to key from A to B but we'll see.

Thanks for the quick response. We'll go ahead and install it. We've got a product from VBCover that we were testing, but it uses encrypted scripts which slow down the server.

Heck, have you thought about just taking over GARS? That was such an amazing product, and it's a shame that they've basically abandoned it. I'm sure whoever has the rights to it would be happy to fork them over to someone who'd get it up and running again.

[stained]

Originally Posted by stained

Many thanks for this mod Ted S. Where do products go if you forget to assign them to a forum during product creation? I think I must have done that on three occasions because when I bring up the 'manage products' list it is showing me 25 of 28 products. I need to delete those three and create them correctly. Any ideas?

Got it by working back from the highest product number. Deleted the bad boys. Fixed

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by stained

Many thanks for this mod Ted S. Where do products go if you forget to assign them to a forum during product creation? I think I must have done that on three occasions because when I bring up the 'manage products' list it is showing me 25 of 28 products. I need to delete those three and create them correctly. Any ideas?

It shouldn't let you forget that... interesting. Guess I know what 1.1.1 will fix when I release it on 11/11/11 [kidding]

And yes, delete them and remake it.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Phrost

Heck, have you thought about just taking over GARS? That was such an amazing product, and it's a shame that they've basically abandoned it. I'm sure whoever has the rights to it would be happy to fork them over to someone who'd get it up and running again.

Honestly it's just not our approach. Our mods are designed to solve specific gaps we see in the industry, which we develop privately and on occasion will roll out to the public as was the case here.

While we may end up with something with similar features to fill in requests from members like yourself, being the all inclusive feature or most used program is not the goal. There's no up-sell, monetize it model for us aside from data insights.