How to display 'featured listings' and 'banner adverts' like this:

[exxxciteproductions1 +]

Hello,

I found a few similar questions in the forums but nothing specific to our needs. We currently use the Developer Version 4.1.6 and the default 3 col template. Our site opens like this:

Choose a Region >> City>> Category. When you choose a category the classified listings for that city comes up with the 'Featured Listings' at the top of the page and highlighted in pink. The featured listings are just highlighted classifieds, and we want them to display as thumbnail photos (along with adverts) above the classified ads like this:



Can someone please forward a code and tell us what file it belongs in? For example…

Featured Listing: code, open files, paste
Banner ads: code, files, paste

We would also like to know a code to have the featured ads switch between photos.

Thank you, hope that's not too much info... we are really enjoying this software!

[Lhotch +]

There is a plugin you can use to display featured ads.

Template Plugins - 68 Classifieds

[exxxciteproductions1 +]

Thank you but we need to know specifically what folder to put this code in as our listings are not on the homepage:-) Our developer is quite unfamiliar with the software... I wish there was some one we could hire to do that quickly for us, but it's as simple as pasting a code.

Thanks!

[seymourjames +]

No its not as simple as pasting the code if you want the featured ads to be relevant to that specific category. There are several posts about this subject and how to do it. For example, with the templatecodes system we do it like this

Enhancing browse pages with listings

The same principles will apply in general for any template although the function calls will be a little different.

[mjonesgt]

Appreciate the responses, but I'm not sure if you all understand exactly what is being asked. I'll try to make it more specific.

In the demo versions of the website, it shows the featured listings with a thumbnail image. On our site, our developer currently has the code set-up so that within each category's listings, the featured listings appear at the top, highlighted in another color than the regular listings are highlighted in if the customer chooses the highlight option. Below the the featured listings in each category are the regular listings, listed plainly as just a description.

We'd like a thumbnail image to appear next to the description for the featured listings alone. We do not put the featured listings on a page by themselves, they are on the same page with the regular listings, just at the top. We have 55 cities with 6 categories each to post in, so it doesn't make sense to have a page with featured listings from all over the place, or to display the featured listings on the home page, as they appear in the demo.

All we're asking is what do we need to do to have a thumbnail image appear with the listing description for the featured listings within each category?

Please let us know if you have any further information/ideas on this.

Thanks so much!

[Lhotch +]

Originally Posted by mjonesgt

Appreciate the responses, but I'm not sure if you all understand exactly what is being asked. I'll try to make it more specific.

When you view a category right now you see a list of the ads for that category correct? These ads have thumbnails if the user group is set to see thumbnails. This is default behavior.

You set the display order for the list of ads in admin, this is default behavior.

If you want the featured ads for that category to display ABOVE AND SEPARATE from the default way listings are displayed now AS WELL AS in the regular list of ads then you would use the plugin as already stated.

[seymourjames +]

Still a bit confused. I think what she is trying to say Larry is that she wants the regular showlistings template but the thumbnails only show in it for featured listings. The rest are just a list of ad titles without photos. Not sure completely.

<< here is my take

If you only want images to appear with featured listings then you can define packages which allow the listing to be featured and have photos. The normal ads do not allow photos. The downside of this approach is the when you click on the actual ad (viewlisting), the normal listings will not have photos either because that was not part of their ad package.

The other approach is to do a test in the showlistings.tpl file. If the ad is featured then display the thumbnail and if not, don't display it. This will not affect what you get on the viewlisting pages. You edit the showlisting.tpl file to put a test around where it displays the thumbnail.

If you are talking about using a set of horizontal ads (specific for that category) at the top of the browse.tpl or showlistings.tpl templates then it is given at the end of the post I gave but is specific to templateccodes. I am not sure but I don't think the standard plugin will do this per category (you would need to look at the documentation)

P.S. It is not wise if you have a very large number of locations and you have made them into categories. I remember writing a few emails or PMs about this. Categories are categories and locations are locations. It has some serious disadvantages in terms of the functionality and eventual complexity of a site. Several key areas get complicated like search and the possibility of filtering by location. Better to have 5 categories and let locations be locations.

[exxxciteproductions1 +]

Yes seymourjames,

We want the 'Featured Listings' to show with thumbnail pic & description like this:

68 Classifieds

And the 'Regular Listings' to only show the description but underneath the ' Feature Listing'...

and we are wondering what code is needed and where it needs to be placed.

I think this is the correct approach "The other approach is to do a test in the showlistings.tpl file. If the ad is featured then display the thumbnail and if not, don't display it. This will not affect what you get on the viewlisting pages. You edit the showlisting.tpl file to put a test around where it displays the thumbnail".

Thanks for taking time to respond.

[seymourjames +]

About line 89 in showlistings.tpl in your template folder

{if $sDisPhoto == "Y"}
<td{if $entry.class<>""} class="{$entry.class}"{/if}><a href="{$entry.link}" title="{$entry.title}">{if $entry.image != ""}<img src="thumbs/small_{$entry.image|escape:"url"}" border="0" alt="{$entry.title}" />{else}<img src="templates/{$smarty.const.MAIN_TEMPLATE}/images/nophotosmall.gif" border="0" alt="{$entry.title}" />{/if}</a></td>
{/if}


You simply need to make the test a little different

{if $sDisPhoto == "Y" && $entry.featured == "Y"}


You know that this is the variable to test because you can check to see its availability with the {debug} functionality that smarty provides. Do look into the use of {debug} on the forum on how you can place it in any template file to see what parameters and variables are available to you for display or testing. It will help you a lot.

[exxxciteproductions1 +]

Thanks SeymourJames:

I just added: && $entry.featured == "Y" in the coding and it didn't change anything:-( I'm sorry it's just our developer is acting like he can't do anything and so now we're on our own.