Classifieds

[nordwulf]

I installed and am currently testing a new Classifieds add-in. There is a new button in the toolbar. Feel free to test it out and report any problems you may experiencing. It's not perfect but it sure is much better than using the regular system of forum threads.

Only registered members can post new ads but any visitor/guest can view all ads.

One problem I noticed is uploading more than 3 images at a time. It will show an Internal Server Error but the actual ad is uploaded fine with just 3 images.

There are actually a lot of features so it will take some time to test everything out. Feel free to place new ads but use at your own risk! Please post any suggestions and feedback.

[Burnsside42]

Great! I posted my 2 cars which are for sale currently. Thanks for a nice classified section.

Note: I opted to load all 3 images on the initial post - but only 2 were listed. I had to go back in and re-add the 3rd image. Just a heads up. (It did this on both ads)

[nordwulf]

Thanks for testing. Did you format your text at all with line breaks and such? I edited one of my ads with Firefox and it removed the formatting in the description area. Safari was fine.

[Burnsside42]

Thanks for testing. Did you format your text at all with line breaks and such? I edited one of my ads with Firefox and it removed the formatting in the description area. Safari was fine.

I did have it all nice - posted using IE here at work. Then it listed it as you see it with no breaks or anything. Not sure why. I deemed it good enough for now, but does look hard to read.

[Shazam]

Question, the rating by the username, is that the rating for classifieds? Does that replace the former rating system we had?

[nordwulf]

No, it's a separate rating system integrated with the classifieds software.

The main issue right now is it was developed by a single developer. And updates and fixes haven't been very frequent. I guess you can't really complain when something is free, right? It is good software with a lot of nice features from what I can tell. It just seems 95% done so it is close to being good. But just not good enough.

I do think one of these classifieds systems integrated with the site is very important. The only other software is from Photopost so I may spend the money and get a good system that is going to work for years to come.
PhotoPost Classifieds Features - Classified Ads Software for Community Websites

[Shazam]

so I may spend the money and get a good system that is going to work for years to come.

We could add a little "Donate" button, could do that with PayPal (or similar, maybe Google Checkout if it can do something similar). Then just show money coming, and money going out, to show where donations go, so people can see that the site is actively improved by the users and for the users.

But you're right with the classifieds software. It seems about 95% finished, and just rough around the edges (kept getting some errors when trying to update my profile on that... could have been Google Chrome though).

[nordwulf]

I'd rather have something good first and perhaps asking for a small donation after you sell something in our classifieds. If your car doesn't sell on here, no need to donate anything. It'll be pretty much an honor system to start.

The more I look at it, PhotoPost seems the best way to move forward.

[Shazam]

I was messing around on the ViperAlley.com (PhotoPost's sample for the software) and it looks like good stuff. You can even have it sort by your distance and such. Looks like it is loaded with a lot of goodies.

[Burnsside42]

So i fixed my text formatting in the two ads - but it seems if I go back in, it's going to delete all the formating and go back to 1 sentence again. Any idea why it does this? Also It seems to only upload 1 picture if you select 2 or it will upload 2 if you select 3. All in all - like you said, for a free classified it's still pretty nice. How's the visbility from say google?

I typed "2001 Saab 9-5" into google search and saabnet classifieds comes up as #6 result - page 1, 2, and 3 results - SC shows up on page 4. No Saabworld coverage yet.