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.

[marccap]

I notice the reviews are in reverse alphabetical order - I cant see any settings to amend that so any clues how to change it?

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by marccap

I notice the reviews are in reverse alphabetical order - I cant see any settings to amend that so any clues how to change it?

The ordering is coded into productforums.php

ORDER BY title ASC

ASC is in order (a-z, 1-9)
DESC is reverse (z-a, 9-1)

[CoZmicShReddeR]

Ug I just updated this and it wiped all my style edits...

Is there anything in the future to make the style match the theme automatically or a least give the choice??

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by CoZmicShReddeR

Ug I just updated this and it wiped all my style edits...

Is there anything in the future to make the style match the theme automatically or a least give the choice??

That stinks.

The templates in this addon work in the same way all vBulletin addon templates work... There is no "skip logical upgrade" option for developers that we checked. No "force override and piss people off" box either.

In theory the system [i.e. vBulletin core] tracks changed done through the template editor and prompts a revision when needed but in practice that tool is far from perfect. It certainly should never change a template that is not updated in our core and few have been in the last year.

[Action-N]

Not sure what Cozmic meant, but I've been working on setting this mod up myself an have an issue I think he meant. This mod has it's own css stylesheet for the productforum.php an doesn't use the default forums layout. For example your tables are squared with a black border, an I see even the forum overall width changes. On mine the search box is bunching up at a fixed 1024px forum so they must not be percentage based with nowrap. I broke the add product button some how so turned off user add products , but on the listing page the links still visible, although it does link to a feature disabled error. So if he had to fix those issues an updated an it reset them I can see what he meant. Basically I'll have to rewrite the templates for that page to use the forums default tables an not your custom ones. I see alot of mods doing that an sucks having to fix them all. I guess you can say the mod authors are reinventing the wheel with their layouts.

A couple more quick updates needed is on your own screenshot of the threaded reviews the forum header still has "Replies/ Views" shown, simple edit I'm sure. An the little green subscribe icon is pushed to the bottom of the table. I ended up deleting that stuff from my template, but you should consider fixing that or option to disable them.

I think your mod has great potential, however it was a pia getting it set up and learning to add products. The having to manually add the thumbnail pictures sucks, I have to open my ftp program an look for the images created last to guess which ones to use, was no id to know which images go to what product. Maybe have it use a product id number to atleast.

[Ted S]

Thanks for the comments Action-N... lengthy reply below (sorry).

Originally Posted by Action-N

I guess you can say the mod authors are reinventing the wheel with their layouts.

Pretty much although it's rarely for the sake of doing so versus just being efficient. It's simply easier to build new than try and figure out what vB element would apply, much less explain to people how to customize it without changing the entire forum when the questions come in.

We make mods to bring functionality to sites and try to apply some best practices to go along with it [like being able to edit our mod's style without breaking your entire forum as we've seen others do]. While we keep to vB's squares and tables the layout their anything but modern nor is there a container to handle product type elements so you're dead on, we broke the box.

Certainly we could have made it all stock elements but we made a conscious decision on where to spend our time. If that results in a deal breaker that's great feedback but not likely to change.

I ended up deleting that stuff from my template, but you should consider fixing that or option to disable them.

Thanks, we'll take a look for sure. Obviously fixing quirks and making logical decisions to the design is high on goal list but really we want to encourage sites to customize beyond the box especially where it's not possible for us to make a change without a code hack (like the column header for a forum).

It doesn't sound like this applies to you but most forums get sucked in to sticking to how things run by default and then wonder why their conversion rate, retention, revenue, or other KPIs are so bad. The web has too many options, too many great sites to be cookie-cutter.

The having to manually add the thumbnail pictures sucks

We added an image uploader and bulk importer almost a year ago. Both autocreate thumbnails as long as have [to your first point] the template calls to get them.

and learning to add products

Not sure what the problem is here but all for feedback?

[Action-N]

I'm not sure we are talking about the same thing, what I was afraid of. I mean the point of style sheets on a website is so user wants to change his category color he edits one variable an it changes all his pages to new color. What addon authors do is make their own style sheets so if I want to change my category color I do it for vbulletin then sort through my addons an change thier css variables. Just would make sense to me if mod makers shared the default vb's css variables. An for your addon you have your css as a file still (productforums.css)? Since I've already had to edit my vbtube mod I have the code saved, looks simpler to me:

<div class="block pfblock">
    <h2 class="blockhead">Heading Text</h2>
    <div class="blockbody">
        <div class="blockrow pftext">
			Block Content
        </div>
    </div>
</div>

the pfblock and pftext would be your mods personal css variables. I understand your set in not using the stock elements, but it's your personal taste your hardcoding in the style. What I said I broke was the add product button doesn't show up anymore.


Yeah the sticky icon was easier to delete the code than figure out why it was on the bottom of the table. An I figured it being a special review only forum I didn't need the clutter.

Yes about cookie cutter websites, that's why the more variable you give them to turn on or off the better chance for them to be different. I don't want to spend hours customizing templates, checkboxs are much faster.

What I'm referring to is with adding product images I think from the forum I added one image link, then did the sync external images an that is where it makes them but didn't add the new images to the products for me. Haven't tried uploading from my computer yet. If it does yay, but fyi sync didn't.

I spent a few hours this morning trying to learn the addon an get products added an setup correctly. The product title can't handle quotes so it kept cutting my title short. So anyone wanting to review something described with inches has to spell out "inch".

Not trying to bust on your addon, like I said this is nice one to have, just trying to give feedback good and bad. Can I assume you being active on here that you are still working on the mod? Thanks for the effort with this, I wanted to make something an I couldn't even figure out how to start an addon.

One more thing, what's the deal with having to disable template comments? I want to edit the templates in this mod an need them to know what 's what?

[Ted S]

Originally Posted by Action-N

I'm not sure we are talking about the same thing, what I was afraid of. I mean the point of style sheets on a website is so user wants to change his category color he edits one variable an it changes all his pages to new color.

We're talking about the same thing.

Yes about cookie cutter websites, that's why the more variable you give them to turn on or off the better chance for them to be different. I don't want to spend hours customizing templates, checkboxs are much faster.

Fair enough although a checkbox is not the customization level I was implying... Ideally I think sites should really reach in beyond the options others determine they should have. Options are always limited by the ideas of their creator and more of them just adds to the load on the server.

Haven't tried uploading from my computer yet. If it does yay, but fyi sync didn't.

Sync and upload work in the exact same way through the same process which first resizes a photo and then posts it to the product. If it's not sticking odds are the product didn't get a match and a new one, with the photo, was created.

The product title can't handle quotes so it kept cutting my title short. So anyone wanting to review something described with inches has to spell out "inch".

Easy enough. Is it removing quotes or stopping the title entirely when they're entered?

Can I assume you being active on here that you are still working on the mod? Thanks for the effort with this, I wanted to make something an I couldn't even figure out how to start an addon.

Of course. Our primary interest right now is monitoring and responding to any problems that may arise, including things like the icon you mentioned.

As for new features it's entirely demand driven. We combine community feedback with our own sense of what will help move the needle to push forward if there is interest for more. This mod has been pretty slow for the past few months so no plans for anything major yet.

One more thing, what's the deal with having to disable template comments? I want to edit the templates in this mod an need them to know what 's what?

It's a quirk [or a bug depending on how you see it] in how vBulletin makes posts. When we fake a thread for a review it runs through the default vB post manager which brings in everything in the post template. For some reason this does not filter out comments and they will appear if the feature is not disabled.

Since it's a load constraint most sites we've worked with already have it off except during debugging.

[flash84]

Awesome mod! I just have one little issue, same as the user I quoted below. When you click to read a review it is using showthread.php which takes you to the top of the product thread. Is there anyway you can get it to use showpost.php to take you to the actual review post?

I have the "Create New Thread on Review" option turned off, so the reviews are posts all in one single thread.

Thanks so much if you can help me!

Originally Posted by deverill2010

I noticed when you click through to reviews from productforums.php it doesn't actually take you to the specific review but instead the start of the thread.

Having the reviews pinned to the front would be handy to save users having to trawl through posts in between reviews.

[sadiq6210]

Q: What will happen to the threads if I uninstall it?

+

I try to uninstall the mod but I got this error

Database error in vBulletin 4.1.12:

Invalid SQL:
DELETE FROM activitystreamtype WHERE section = 'product' AND type = 'review';

MySQL Error : Table 'dbname_testforum2.activitystreamtype' doesn't exist
Error Number : 1146
Request Date : Tuesday, March 12th 2013 @ 02:25:48 PM
Error Date : Tuesday, March 12th 2013 @ 02:25:48 PM
Script : http://www.domain.com/vbtest/admincp...do=productkill
Referrer : http://www.domain.com/vbtest/admincp...duct_forums&s=
IP Address :
Username : sadiq6210
Classname : vB_Database
MySQL Version : 5.1.68-cll

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In 4.1.12 there is no activity stream

I will use it soon but I want to test it first and have all information about it.
Thank you for the great mod