WordPress Menu Manager Guide

Posted on December 17, 2008
Filed Under General, Open Realty | 3 Comments

Quick Guide to the Menu Manager

In response to some frustrations by end users regarding the configuration of the Menu Manager, I quickly knocked out a short guide to assist them with the use of the WP Menu Creator plugin. This short guide is not the final draft so I’ll have to revisit it and edit it based on feedback I receive.

It is important to note that the next release of the WP Menu Creator will have features that allow users to add the link TARGET and also the link TITLE for better control over how links in your menu is handled. I’ll also be adding in a feature that would allow you to create a menu item that would open a sized popup window in response to feature requests we received in the forums. This feature would allow a WordPress blog site owner to add not only the standard link types but also provide a popup window link for situations were such things are needed.

The demo menu in the guide is a pretty standard suckerfish style menu which you are free to emulate or copy. Simply save the page to your computer and examine the code to get an idea how the WP Menu Creator works. I’ve been up to my neck with tons of RETS and IDX work so I have not had time to get the instructional videos together yet. To visit the short guide please visit this link http://www.jaredritchey.com/tutorials/menucreator/ Also for anyone willing to link to the project on WordPress or to this site, I’ll setup and configure your Menu Manager FREE of charge. Just write a post about its use and or its features and point a link here or to WordPress http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-menu-creator/ and I’ll setup the menu for you.

A quick side note for those following this project. We have a variant of the WP Menu Creator ready for OpenRealty but will likely not release until the features I mention above are included. As it stands, I’ll have version 1.0.4 ready by the end of December and at that time I’ll publish both, the update for WP and the new addon for OpenRealty. The reason behind this is that with OpenRealty’s use in the very competitive Real Estate market, It really does require me to be sure we have options in place for OpenRealty users to manage their links with the best possible options. Link Target and certainly Title are important in SEO efforts. Naturally this Addon will also be free and Open Source.

JRealty WP-Realty Gets Bolder

Posted on December 4, 2008
Filed Under Announcements | 2 Comments

Today we were working with the developers to wrap up a new version of WP Realty specifically geared toward WordPress Multi User in order to extend the listings features to all sub blogs. We got the demo done but its still very much in BETA stage as the listings do not always work with the sub domain style blog setup. The early stages of WP Realty for WPMU is here at ASiteAbove.com

After careful consideration and analysis with all of the team members we all pretty much agree that setting up WordPress MU to use the sub-domain method is likely the only method that will help a website owner or brokerage from running into the issue with duplicate content. Although I had installed WPMU using the /directory/ structure for all addon blogs, this proved dangerous to SEO efforts because each blog is considered a directory or extension of the main domain. Not good when you have Realtors adding listings to their individual blog posts.

What the new variant of WP Realty will be called is quite basically WPMU Realty which will take a slight yet important change in the method used to bring listings into the site. What will happen now is the agent blogs or addon blogs will be required to be sub-domains and that the way for inclusion of properties will actually be handled via a secondary plugin that goes into the MU Plugin inventory each agent would then customize. Much like we do with the WP Menu Creator for WordPress MU, the new WP Realty will require an administrator level access to the templates in order to key in some important code required for proper functionality.

Search Engine Optimization has always been our number one reason for building these tools from the very beginning. OpenRealty really isn’t suited well for handling the volume of pages and posts that a modern website should have so WordPress fits the bill better than nearly any other solution. The idea is to take WordPress and WordPress MU for Realtors and possibly the Automotive or Boating industries and give them the CMS power they need while providing a great, clean, easy to manage way of publishing the products or properties they market.

Content is always the name of the game and with WordPress MU a brokerage could offer each of its agents their own blog in a super easy to update, maintain and manage solution. Now when you combine the ability for Realtors to publish content easily with the ability to add listings directly to their posts, it doesn’t take a genius to see the potential here.

Open Source Releases?

After discussing the recent events with many people in chat sessions at 2AM this morning we all agree that after CMS Realty launches its product as production ready we will remove the encryption and release ours as open source as well. All though I can’t reveal our motive at this time, I can say that if our plan plays out as we would like, real estate site owners will be given a brand new feature that puts our product two steps ahead of the game and you as a site owner at least one step ahead of the industry. This new feature is already in the beta stage and working on one of my demo sites but likely wont make a production release until we convert two or three existing sites with MLS integration in them for full testing. The current version of WP Realty and even JRealty are currently running in websites with production level MLS RETS installs in them with no errors or lag what soever.

Its my professional opinion that this solution of ours is the ONLY real solution currently available where MLS listings are added to a Joomla website for either the RETS or IDX method. I can say without a doubt that our Joomla JRealty solution is the only production level product that gives your IDX / RETS data feeds the cleanest and most professional looking URLs anywhere. I’ll keep you posted as things progress.

EZPro Realty Renamed JRealty

Posted on December 2, 2008
Filed Under General | 6 Comments

Well some pointless attacks and accusations of stolen code has been verified as NOT true by a professional agency and even after we were De-Included or removed from the Joomla Extensions directory as a result of these unwarranted attacks we have struck a compromise with Joomla today.

We submitted a FULL OPEN SOURCE copy after they agreed in writing they would not disclose the code for their examination and after all their worries were put to rest they asked us one thing and that is to change our name to something other than EZPro Realty. This is a fair request by Steve at Joomla, whom of which was exceptionally helpful and very professional. It has been known for sometime that EZPro Realty was being confused with EZRealty even though we registered the domain name nearly a year prior to EZRealty being launched. The confusion is such that it is a just request from Joomla that we change the name so we have, its now called JRealty!

After $140 to hire a third party to examine the code and compare it to CMS Realty and hours of wasted time dealing with the false accusations that we jacked CMS Realty code we can finally put this thing to rest. Here is a screen shot I submitted to Joomla for comparison of the two projects I use to demonstrate file size differences and the amazing file NUMBER differences. CMS Realty has 39 files and 8 folders compared to the 9 files in EZPro Realty now titled JRealty. BTW the J in JRealty doesn’t stand for Jared, it stands for Joomla. So its a more fitting name actually, we now have WP Realty, JRealty, and WP Featured with DRealty already in the works for our pals over at Drupal.

Oh and it was pointed out to me that my screen shot below shows files like controlpanel.inc-2.5.5.zip and sh404-plugin-unencrypted.zip and in actuality these files are NOT ultimately encrypted as the controlpanel file is simply the standard ole OpenRealty file with the one line hack already added in. That line makes it so user and admin powers can be accessed via the Joomla admin panel. We use CURL as our method so its a bit different than an iFrame like we use with WP Realty.

JRealty

EZPro Realty Joomla Component 1.0.4

Posted on December 1, 2008
Filed Under General | 1 Comment

Well the updated version finally works as it should. We build in support for users who have the SH404SEF component in their site by building a second plugin specifically for such an event.

As of today the newest version of the EZPro Realty Joomla component comes with 4 separate options to make it as flexible as it can possibly be. We have added in a new feature that allows you to “Patch” for lack of a better term the Joomla .htaccess file from within the admin panel and you can alternatively enable 4 different types of URL structure. We added in a new OpenRealty patch file that allows for easier management of the OpenRealty admin features within your Joomla site and we have added in a new feature that allows you to specify the actual PSEUDO directory of your listings. For instance you could now have http://www.yourdomain.com/mlslistings/listing-property-name-1.html quite easily.

We furthered the development to REMOVE /ezprorealty/ from the URL structure if you so desire giving Joomla Real Estate site owners a more complete inventory of features to better control the URL for search engine optimization. Naturally we didn’t leave WP Realty out of the mix by adding a similar feature so you are not required to have /wprealty/ in your URL structure.

Both of these fine components are 100% FREE but remain encrypted only because of the financial resources we have put in to each but may not remain so in the near future.

We were smart enough to provide people a way out and still offer an fully UN-BRANDED and partially Un-Encrypted version depending on your needs for each of these two products. $19 for a single site, $50 for a server, $150 for developers and with that we remove all branding so there are no courtesy links back to us.

Where is the documentation for EZPro Realty Joomla Component?

People rightfully beat the hell out of us for several weeks because our products had almost no documentation and although it was against my better judgment to release these early on prior to final testing we are actually now glad we did. Having had the component in the hands of about 1100 users we have taken a serious barrage of assaults over the poor documentation to such a degree that we know how better to provide it when its complete.

Today, the writers at Pro IDX Solutions are at this very moment assembling the documentation which should be published today on the EZPro Realty website. For those interested, you can see a quick demo I put up HERE(http://joomlarealestate.livedemosite.com/) late last night so you can examine the URL Features.

Paul Bouchard Claims Code Stolen

Posted on December 1, 2008
Filed Under Announcements | 10 Comments

Paul Bouchard’s Accusation: Why is the code encrypted?

Its been discussed and even proposed by Paul Bourchard that the EZPro Realty (now called JRealty) and WP Realty projects have been encrypted to disguise the use of his inherited CMS Realtys code and we would like to say that nothing could be further from the truth.  You are free to examine the only true nature of the URL structure on my demo located at http://joomlarealestate.livedemosite.com

No stranger to reckless claims against others, developers state that he really does behave much like a tattle tale according to his competitors.  Al Smith and Judson Cooper of JNT Computers  allege that Paul went as far as contacting persons known to have contractual relationships with Smith and Cooper apparently not realizing the potential TORT violations he could bring down on his head.

I don’t think Paul is an evil guy or even one that is crazy, maybe it was a little frustration, anger and jumping the gun that prompted the claims. If so, we forgive him.

However, I am happy to say that after Steve at the Joomla.org website asked to examine the code I quickly submitted a copy, documentation and an in depth email detailing the history of the application and the name and phone number of the developers.  Happy with what he examined they re-activated our plugin for download in the components library.  Wow, all that just to respond to a reckless allegation.

Anyway, I’m glad to see that a full day blown to defending ourselves yet again has been victorious.  Its becoming a habit defending ourselves from some of these OR types so all responses in the future regarding his claims are now canned responses. I will simply cite his claim and point you to this very post where you can listen to our response.

Keep in mind that after we consider all he writes, all he says, and all he does, we happily put forth our spokes person in the same age group as the assailant who states the following regarding his efforts.

 

Clear yet?


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