Open Realty Tutorials Español – Spanish

Posted on March 24, 2009
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Español (Spanish) Guides and Tutorials

First I’d like to thank all the people who submitted offers to do the voice overs for these tutorials. I have selected 4 individuals in total to handle different facets of these guides. Since this is a preliminary series which will lead to the free WordPress tutorials (soon to follow) I’m happy to say that the response has been a great deal more positive than I had originally thought it would be. I’ve received offers from two persons willing to do these in Spanish which is an option I hadn’t really thought much about initially. Considering that the my cost will not be as high as a result of an exchange for template work, I think the multi-lingual versions of these tutorials will be a hit. Not just because they are free and unbranded either, well, maybe not. Anyway, April fast approaches so to meet the deadline I’m back to wrapping up client projects and this set of videos.

Open Realty Tutorials – Help Needed!

Posted on March 16, 2009
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100% FREE Un-Branded Open Realty Tutorials Help Wanted

OpenRealty video training with no branding, positive in nature, clear and thorough on subjects necessary for the successful administration of an OpenRealty site, these new tutorials covers all the fundamentals along with the advanced features of OpenRealty. The newest additions to this collection include OpenRealty configuration for use with JRealty, CMSRealty, WPRealty and even how to maximize the RSS feeds. At current, we have 61 Open Realty videos, none of which have any audio at this point and I may reduce the number to below 50 after condensing a few that are similar enough to combine.

Since this entire series is all on my dime and my time I do have some key required features that must be followed for anyone accepting and fulfilling this proposal. What I’m seeking is a person with a clear, articulate and intelligent sounding voice that can work from home to provide the voice overs for the videos. I’ll provide the written script in any format desired along with some sample voice overs performed by Actor / Producer Steven Barnes for review. It would be best to follow the format I have below in order to keep a consistent flow to speed up production. I do have some tips and tricks of the trade I can email you on setting up a nice audio recording environment for next to nothing as for costs. I would hope that the person who is interested in position would have some experience in maybe podcasting or at least some recording experience.

Cost is certainly an issue which is the reason I’ve not hired a commercial firm to complete the audio. I would prefer to pay an hourly as opposed to an individual per video pricing for pay structure. What I’ll deliver is a copy of the video tutorial in either QuickTime or Flash format for you to watch as you perform the voice over from the script. It is very important that once you start recording that you do not stop even if you mess up. What I prefer is that as you record, if you mess up that you simply make a verbal note, backup the video, and simply correct yourself without stopping the audio recording. We can take out the screw ups in post production. The length of these videos makes it nearly impossible for you to read from beginning to end without messing up along the way so in the script outline I’ve provided a way for you to make an audio notation for our sound editor to key on for edits.

Each video is no less than 3 – 5 minutes in length on average with several broken down into blocks that can last as long as 20 minutes. Because of this, I estimate that for every hour of completed video it will take 5 hours in voice over recording based on past projects. I’ll provide the download to a free version of audio recording software we would like you to use. I’ll give you a copy of the notes the studio gave me to assist in producing a nice quality audio from a home studio. BTW a $5 microphone from Walmart will not be sufficient. It would be best to have a condenser mic or at the very least a microphone with a high range of input and possibly a popper stopper. If you feel you can record in a distraction free environment, void of external noise then please contact me ASAP. I’d like to have this first set done by months end. There is a total of 10.7 hours of training videos which I’ll reduce to around 8 hours. At 8 hours times 5 hours per for recording it comes to 40+ hours which is what I’d like you to quote me on. If a person is interested in doing this for all of our tutorials, including those for the Menu Creator and our other FREE plugins then I can ship you a USB Condenser Microphone with a Popper Stopper, Stand, and sound booth lining. Again, cost is important since I’m funding this FREE inventory of videos so please quote me fairly. Please visit Contact to submit your contact information.

Open Realty Featured Listings Flash Slide Show

Posted on March 10, 2009
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Slide Show Pro and JW Image Rotator

Just got an email back from my coder not 3 minutes ago and figured I’d announce a new FREE add-on for OpenRealty which is about to be released. About a year ago we had built a site for an El Paso Texas MLS client that would add in a Flash Slide-Show on the listings details pages for the listings photos which turned out to be quite nice. A few months later we converted the plug-in to randomize the “zero” 0 image from all listings that were marked as featured in the header area of the sites main design. After comparing both of these tools with the custom SlideShowPro version we did for my demo site, Mark and I figured we should make one available that is super easy to use and implement by making it an actual editable add-on.

The new add-on is configured by editing a single PHP file in the add-on folder where the end user sets the number of featured listings to display, links to listings either YES/NO and the transition type. With the Slide Show Pro version its a bit more involved. SSP requires that certain things like path to the XML file are published within the actual flash file and although they do have a dynamic inclusion method, testing has revealed that its not a guarantee to work in every situation. So with the SSP version of my new FREE add-on you would be required to purchase a copy of Slide Show Pro in order to do the initial setup wherein you point the path to the XML file to the /orssp/slideshow.php for it to work. As with the JW Image Rotator, settings are pretty easy to configure as for quantity, effect and a few other things.

Not to get your hopes up then suffer a delay, the first version for JW Image Rotator will be released no later than this weekend with the Slide Show Pro version to follow sometime close thereafter. Yes they are both FREE and they are both Open Source.

Open Realty Tutorials

Posted on March 10, 2009
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Finally ready to publish, the FREE OR Guides add-on is soon to be released as a full 1.1 version after testing a bit today we feel its pretty much ready to go. Upon final edits to the user interface I’ll be releasing the add-on, BRANDING FREE, for use by any developer or site owner that wishes to distribute tutorials, guides, or even documents in their Open Realty admin panel. The nice thing about this little project is that we got pretty nice reviews from people with the BETA version and have extended some features to include things like; a better presentation method for files, a new file upload feature, the ability to Opt-In to free video tutorials being published on the new domain (actually not new domain just a rework of the old one at WPFeatured.com which will have a new template too) and user permission features (next next release as in 1.2)

My favorite part of the release is that it will come with standard documents for administering an Open Realty site which includes, managing users, managing listings and providing files within the listings for better support. These initial tutorials are assembled to outline some of the most common issues people tend to blog or post in forums about. Did I forget to mention that its BRANDING FREE? Nope I didn’t but I wanted to mention that again because this tool will help designers and developers distribute their own set of tutorials to client sites and provide their own branding which is a new feature. The publisher (developer or designer for example) simply modifies a single file with his/her details and links and even the title of the add-on can be changed to accommodate their requirements. I’m hoping to work in the ability to add a company logo and a slider contact box but I’m super busy with Client work this week. It may push out the release until Sunday but its worth it I think. Released as a 100% FREE add-on, I look forward to feedback, reviews, link backs (please, lots of link backs) and naturally some bashing wouldn’t hurt if its constructive.

Open Realty Menu Management

Posted on March 9, 2009
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Given the lofty success and positive reviews of the WP Menu Creator, we decided to create a copy for OpenRealty and release it under the same GNU / GPL license free of charge. A separate production of the UltimateIDX in their growing inventory of WordPress tools, this new plug-in, titled “OR Menu Creator” will feature nearly identical features to the pending 1.1 version of WP Menu Creator. Tested for OpenRealty 2.5 yesterday, there are a handful of tiny little bugs we are wrapping up in order to make the initial release of this add-on a rewarding one for any OpenRealty site administrator.

Following the same path as the WP Menu Creator we are definitely going to provide code elements that will allow a designer or developer to distribute the OR Menu Creator with their free or commercial templates. It basically works the same way as it does with the WordPress version. A small snippet of code will check to see if the WP Menu Creator is installed and if it is, it will render the menus, if not it will render a standard set of OpenRealty menu tags with some parameters to produce results either way. We do this now with themes for WordPress and eventually our new themes will also have an installer for the WP Menu Creator.

External Menus Joomla, WordPress, OpenRealty or Drupal

How would you like to be able to control your site wide menus from one location? Way back when Joomla was in version 1.0.12 we had published a tool called “External Menus” which was essentially a tiny little menu hack that allowed a person to put Joomla Menus on external pages even static pages. Why would you need to do this might ask? Well, consider a few of these possible scenarios; You have a Joomla site with matching shopping cart theme and you would love to have menus consistent across all applications, or you have WordPress and Joomla on the same site and you want to have the Joomla menus in your blog without using the quirky integration methods available on the plugin directory. Maybe you want to have a Joomla / OpenRealty site and you dont want to use CMSRealty, JRealty or other tools to integrate the applications but you would still love to have a consistent look, feel and certainly menus. Its because of these reasons that myself and Mark (our programmer) had published that menu tool so long ago. But now, we have a new menu management tool that actually publishes menus in SEF, XHTML Compliant unordered lists for ease of customization and styling and they can go external.

With both the OpenRealty OR Menu Creator and the WordPress WP Menu Creator, it is now possible with a few new snippets to control your side wide menus across nearly any application providing it can parse a simple PHP include path to the files. This new method helps site administrators both novice and professional, easily manage site navigation across numerous applications.

An actual case in point is on the UltimateIDX.com where we have a license of AWBS shopping cart, a ticket system, and a new theme generator; once we converted the site from Joomla to WordPress, we use the WP Menu Creator and this new snippet file in version 1.1 of WP Menu Creator to control the menus site wide without the pesky and often difficult need to bridge or integrate any of the applications. We simply clone the design and port it for AWBS and the Ticket system and add in a simple PHP Include and menus are dynamically updated or added when they are added in WordPress. As stated on the forums, this feature will be available in OR Menu Creator as well. You can control all menus from within the OpenRealty admin panel. All plug-ins and add-ons are 100% free and unencrypted.

WordPress OpenCube Menu

Posted on March 9, 2009
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OpenCube Cascading Menus in WordPress

The WordPress Menu Creator published by UltimateIDX is now fully compatible with the new OpenCube “Quick Menu 7.0″ menu system after testing just a day ago on the new GoAllPro blog site. Although the OpenCube menu system generats code that isn’t consistent with the markup of the WordPress Menu Creator, the code can be easily altered to work with the WP Menu Creator. Once the code is modified to work with the Menu Creator, blog owners can have the amazing, high quality and fully validated menus from OpenCube in their blogs.

The primary differences between the OpenCube menu and standard unordered list type menus like suckerfish and others, is that OpenCube names its tags, classes and ID’s for styling with their own naming prelims. Naturally this isn’t a problem or even a bad thing, its just that in order to make the fancy OpenCube menus work in conjunction with the WP Menu Creator, a person has only to do a global find and replace for various tags once the menu is generated. With their new, and quite honestly cleanest possible solution, OpenCube’s Quick Menu 7.0 is an entirely subscription based web interface application. Easy to navigate, easy to modify and easy to implement, the OpenCube menu works beautifully in every single project I’ve built in the past year (referring to 6.0).

Menu development software like many other developer tools is very expensive in the total scheme of things for web development. Pick any menu system available then take time to query the unlimited development or use license and then query the costs associated for use in prefab templates for distribution and what you usually get back is a price tag that can easily exceed $2,000 for a single seat license. Because of this, the number one motivating factor for UIDX in purchasing the initial commercial single seat license from OpenCube was the license permits us to build unlimited menu systems including those we distribute with templates and themes. The price, $400, the benefit, priceless. But OpenCube just made this much more affordable for developers and end users in the new release. In version 7.0 the price is a full 50% of what we paid. For developers and designers, the new OpenCube license features an annual subscription that breaks down to about $16 per month ($192 per annual) or just about 50% of the cost of previous licenses.

It is my professional opinion that the OpenCube Quick Menu system is the only tool you will ever need for generating high quality, fully validated, easy to implement menus of its type. For WordPress bloggers and site owners its the only tool I use where clean custom navigation is required. After this post I’m going to assemble a quick tutorial on how to convert your Quick Menu generated code to work with the WP Menu Creator and how best to incorporate that into your WordPress blog. But first a quick note on Menu Creator regarding cascading menus like suckerfish.

WordPress Suckerfish Cascading Menus

A quick note about the WP Menu Creator and the dozens upon dozens of emails we get regarding “What type of menus can I use” is to take these three key characteristics into consideration so you fully understand why the WP Menu Creator was built to begin with.

First: WP Menu Creator was both SEO and XHTML Standard Compliant motivated in its development

Although there are dozens upon dozens of menu hacks and modifications and snippets available for WordPress navigation, almost none of them are practical for end users to manage and or edit without some knowledge of PHP and a basic understanding of the WordPress Template Codex. This combined with the lofty demands for compliant search engine friendly requirements of modern bloggers; UIDX decided to have the tool built that would address this need.

Second: WP Menu Creator has no “practical design limitations” as far as we are concerned.

Early on in the planning stage, we had toyed with the idea of having the Menu Creator actually generate menu code, specifically menu CSS so end users could easily implement into their themes. The problem we encountered was that after having people review the menu creator, we often heard things like “its limited” to some degree. Why? Well the perception was that since we could easily include 5, 10, 15 different menu examples, the end user would perceive that it was capable of satisfying only 5, 10, 15 menu styles and be quickly discarded as a nice, but limited menu solution for WordPress. So WP Menu Creator was published without any CSS menu examples.

WP Menu Creator is actually capable of thousands of design possibilities since its only design function aside from SEO and Standardization characteristics is that it produces plain old un-ordered lists for menus. Since the vast majority of menu solutions, examples, snippets and even tools like OpenCube employ the unordered list method for menu structure, it was pretty obvious that the Menu Creator has no real limitations to the designers or developers creative efforts in building a custom menu fully manageable from within the WordPress admin panel.

Third: WP Menu Creator Distribution License

It was planned from the very beginning that we would provide code for developers to easily implement WordPress menu creator into their distributed themes either free or commercialized. In version 1.1 it is already built into this amazing navigational plug-in to have more than a half dozen new features in answer to the requests from many hundreds of end users along with code elements for menu creation. What we have done is added a set of tabs to the Menu Manager page in the WordPress admin panel that provides the end user with the three key elements of implementation of this tool into their site.

  1. Tab 1) Quick Tags for adding the menu to your theme
  2. Tab 2) Quick code snippets for adding actions and variables to your themes
  3. Tab 3) An open-source CSS Library of example menus we assembled from other open-source examples on the web. Basically its everything we could find that we were authorized to publish from other developers, modified for use in the Menu Creator. The inventory is displayed in the third tab by using a simple little RSS feed to that will always display the latest available running inventory of examples we will maintain on the UltimateIDX website.

Version 1.1 is not scheduled for release until mid March as we will also simultaneously release version 1.0 for OpenRealty 2.5+ as well.

Open Realty Tutorials and Guides

Posted on March 3, 2009
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FREE Addon ORGuides for Documents and Tutorials

Some time ago I had completed an addon for a real estate firm that wanted to distribute documents within their OpenRealty admin panel for agents and what we came up with was the prelude to what we now call ORGuides. ORGuides is an addon built to provide documents and or documentation directly into the OpenRealty admin panel by site owners and developers. Many times when completing an OpenRealty website for someone the number one issue that seems to surface is the lack of effective documentation that guides a person through a step by step process in using the listings manager. Although this release is considered BETA it does give a person the general idea on how they can include the addon FREE OF CHARGE in their projects and or client websites wherein they can add documents, guides and tutorials at their discretion.

Granted, Open Realty administrators, moderators and other support members do a fine job in providing some basic outlines to the operation and administration of the listings manager, but much of the documentation available is general information. When clients of yours require more detailed documentation or even video tutorials to the effect of actually training, it would be nice to have a convenient and UN-BRANDED method to distribute those items to your clients. Because of this, we madee sure that ORGuides would super simple to modify in order to add your own links and branding as well as add your own branded documentation and tutorials as you so desire. You are 100% FREE to modify links and overall features of the addon to distribute your own documentation without further requirements or permissions from us. I ask that you leave my copyright notice in the source code if nothing else.

The full release of ORGuides will have an option that a person simply selects a check box that would then activate a feature in ORGuides that would include remotely hosted instructional video tutorials for the administration, tips and tricks in managing an Open Realty site. These tutorials are provided by a media company we have contracted with which has been generous in providing the voice over for each tutorial. Naturally these will all be free of charge. How it works is quite simple; when we release ORGuides 1.0, you select a check box for “Include Professional Tutorials” and that’s it, the tutorials will show up in your admin panel for which are available freely. This saves end users and developers from having to download the rather large video files and uploading them to each and every Open Realty project site. You can read more by visiting this link http://www.jaredritchey.com/wordpress-openrealty-tutorial/

Download the OpenRealty Tutorials addon – ORGuides Here

This version is BETA so all the sample documents are just that, samples, you should replace them with your own files until the full release is available.

Here is a screenshot from the Beta version

ORGuides OpenRealty Tutorials


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