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

I see, Allow Size BB Code needs to be enabled for the forums

Or you can edit the review template to remove the font sizes.

[bigtree]

Adding content.

With vbulletin 4, Forums or CMS, I can simply copy and paste manufacturers content perfectly without having to code it. Even easier, I can simply highlight it and drag it to the message box (drag and drop) and it writes it perfect. Press save and its there. I understand tables are a problem but how about just text so we don't have to do all the line breaks, bolding etc. It would make this very robust.

To my testing, we can't do that here. If we could do this with the Product Review , that would be awesome.

[bigtree]

More suggestions for you:

If the images could be a set thumbnail, clicking onto them enlarges.

[bigtree]

Originally Posted by Ted S

Not sure what you mean... They are normal threads with review content. See part II about titles.



Totally up to the forum and their optimization tactics. You can append every thread with a word if you like but for best optimization I suggest using just one thread per product with reviews as follow-up posts. This gives engines a single block to spider as a frequently updated product entry rather than many different, and often dated, reviews to try and pick from.

Possibly an tiny icon or prefix that distinguishes the review threads created.

[1320Nation]

Please tell me this is not some bad news!
Btw, I searched rather quickly through the pages on this mod a saw something similar to what I posted around thread #60(something?). Anyway, to get this error message I was trying to leave a review on a the one and only product I have added so far. I tried reducing the amount of text I had in the Product Comments section, with no luck. I tried changing the name in Review Headline, and switching from 5 stars to a 3 star selection, again all with no luck. The error message below kept appearing after each attempt.
I'm running a 4.1.7 version board and Products Review Forums v1.1.2beta file.

vBulletin Message
Oh great, you had to go and press THAT button. There goes the whole site. Just kidding... We had an issue posting your review, please try again or contact support and use code 164250-B

[downloadsuk]

Hi Ted,

We've spent a week or so now playing around with this mod - customising it etc. It really is great - however, since we are looking to potentially add thousands of products, our concern is bulk management - for example, products get updated, specs / prices change.

What is the potential for being able to 'update' products with a bulk XML file - for example, the first column we include the unique product ID, and then the subsequent columns of information will update that specific product.

Obviously in order to do this, we would need to be able to export the current list of products as well...

Thanks,

[jshallo]

Things are working good. I could use it but, I'm looking to add custom fields now.

[Akangage]

I try it on vB 4.1.7 follow your step etc etc, the result is...

This is empty post

Whats wrong?

[Alfa1]

Originally Posted by downloadsuk

since we are looking to potentially add thousands of products, our concern is bulk management

Please keep in mind that vbulletin has a maximum number of forums that you can have, after which you will encounter performance issues. Forums are not fit to be used as a large number of review categories.

[downloadsuk]

Originally Posted by Akangage

I try it on vB 4.1.7 follow your step etc etc, the result is...



Whats wrong?

You need to enable the forum to allow for product reviews - edit the settings of the forum - it's the last option.