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

===========================

Installation is not upload & go... individualized settings are required. Read the install file.

===========================
QUICK TIPS:
===========================

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.

[KeystoneAirsoft]

Hi Ted S,

Thanks for your prompt reply.

Ok cool, will have to see if I can find it. I am currently using VB 4.0.4.

Ok I figured out how to add the Reviews to the specified forum areas. Didn't think that one through enough before posting. Sorry for that .

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by KeystoneAirsoft

Ok cool, will have to see if I can find it. I am currently using VB 4.0.4.

That's fairly old... probably why the error.

[Caseycase]

Hi,

I've been testing the Mod for a few days now and I'd just like to say it is excellent.

To keep up the tradition, there is a but...

firstly can I add a vote to the custom rating fields being controlled on the review by product category, product sub categories sounds good to me as well.

I think a lot more development effort, but my third vote would be for a mechanism to control product field labels by category. e.g. Create 5 additional fields in the product table on the DB and then have a mechanism to apply different labels to the user based on the product category. Obviously these fields could not be used for structured searches as the data wouldn't necessarily be relevant across product categories but it would allow more flexibility for uses where you want users to create data, but at the same time make it more obvious / structured to what they populate where.

The next thing is a funny that has me stumped, but this could be vb related, which I am also new to. When I posted my first review to a product I noticed that the custom rating fields in the review, posted with the html tags visible.

<strong>Quality</strong>: 1 stars<br><strong>Value for Money</strong>: 1 stars<br>

However I carried on testing, creating new products, reviews etc. When I went back to the original review that had the problem it was displayed correctly without the tags. (though there is a possibility that I did edit the post, which I guess may have corrected it)

Now though I have another product that has 2 reviews, with the custom rating fields showing the tags. One review was created by my admin account the other was created by a normal user account. Once I spotted this problem I tried to creating another review, however this was created fine displaying no html tags.

I'm 99% certain that no configuration changes have been made between posting the various reviews, and unfortunately I'm not able to replicate the issue.

I guess it is something unique to my set up, and as it is no longer happening not really a problem, however I thought I'd mention it in case it does happen to someone else, or someone can tell me the error of my ways!

Thanks again for the excellent mod

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Caseycase

firstly can I add a vote to the custom rating fields being controlled on the review by product category, product sub categories sounds good to me as well.

.

Sure... Noted

The next thing is a funny that has me stumped, but this could be vb related, which I am also new to. When I posted my first review to a product I noticed that the custom rating fields in the review, posted with the html tags visible.

We insert the HTML but vBulletin's CSS kills it in many cases depending on your theme although it should happen all the time or none... perhaps the admin had rights to post it while the users did not thus the parser filtered differently... It's on the table to revisit.

[Phrost]

Dumb question: can members add products or does this have to be done by an administrator?

-Someone who should have never upgraded to VB4 because it killed GARS.

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Phrost

Dumb question: can members add products or does this have to be done by an administrator?

-Someone who should have never upgraded to VB4 because it killed GARS.

Members can add products if you enable it on their usergroup.

They cannot upload images but they can provide urls which will import if you want to use the thumbnail options.

[Subieforums]

For some reason, my Create Product Review button is not showing up in the forum section anymore, not sure if I mixed up a setting but it was there before...

http://www.subieforums.com/f24/

Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Subieforums

For some reason, my Create Product Review button is not showing up in the forum section anymore, not sure if I mixed up a setting but it was there before...

http://www.subieforums.com/f24/

Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

The setting is in two places: the overall mod option and per-usergroup. Check both then check that your forumdisplay templates aren't missing any default hooks.

[Subieforums]

Ted,
I checked the forumdisplay.php file, and my edit is still there.

I am also checking the control panel options and nothing...where exactly would that feature be at there? Just want to double check...it's weird because i had it there...

[Subieforums]

Also, inquiring about the following:

Is there a way that when a user adds a url for the product image, it can automatically be downsized to the thumbnail sizes etc, like it does when manually uploaded to server?

And, is there a way that a usergroup pre-defined, can have access to moderate the approval of a submitted review? I made a specific usergroup that can submit reviews, I want to be able to allow them to approve the product reviews, but I dont want them to have access to my admin panel.

Thanks!