Classifieds & Directory?

Hi i would like to operate part of my 68 site as classifieds and part as a directory any idea how i can acheive this?

[michael]

It's a natural and recurring question. I'm of the opinion that a classifieds site and a business directory should be run separately and that most businesses would be far more willing to pay for inclusion on a directory that was dedicated for the purpose.

To that end I am developing MKclassifieds.com as the classifieds site for Milton Keynes and once I am ready I will develop MK118.com as the corresponding business directory. (If you live in the UK you will understand the significance of the number 118.)

Just my opinion . .

[Maffo]

68 classifieds can be ran as either a classifieds site or a directory site. If you know your stuff you can operate the two together. I have several sites which operate like this.

[michael]

I have several sites which operate like this.
Care to share and inspire Maffo?

[Maffo]

Not in this area Michael, sorry. I see your using the v4, is v4 actually live and recommended for live sites now?

Thanks for the replys any one able to tutor or point me in the direction of some instructions please?

[midi510]

I'm not sure what you're thinking of specifically, but all you have to do is set up categories and subcategories and design your site around your vision. Where the real work comes in is setting up custom viewlisting templates. Just take viewlisting(2).tpl.php and save it with new names, then customize those templates. Viewlisting.php is the script that propagates the templates. Below is the code for determining which template is used for which category on my site.

PHP Code:

if($lDisplay==2)
{
    switch ($section)
    {
         case 17:
    case 18:
             $class_tpl->assign('body','vehicle.tpl.php');
          break;
          case 60:
             $class_tpl->assign('body','business.tpl.php');
          break;
          case 63:
             $class_tpl->assign('body','priceless.tpl.php');
          break;
          case 73:
 case 76:
             $class_tpl->assign('body','residentrental.tpl.php');
          break;
          case 79:
             $class_tpl->assign('body','equipmentrental.tpl.php');
          break;
          case 101:
             $class_tpl->assign('body','furniture.tpl.php');
          break;
          case 102:
             $class_tpl->assign('body','rides.tpl.php');
          break;
          case 104:
             $class_tpl->assign('body','messages.tpl.php');
          break;
          case 105:
             $class_tpl->assign('body','events.tpl.php');
          break;
          case 107:
             $class_tpl->assign('body','churches.tpl.php');
          break;
         case 115:
             $class_tpl->assign('body','helpwanted.tpl.php');
         break;
         case 133:
             $class_tpl->assign('body','fortrade.tpl.php');
         break;
         case 138:
 case 139:
             $class_tpl->assign('body','realestate.tpl.php');
         break;
          default:
             $class_tpl->assign('body','viewlisting2.tpl.php');
         break;
 }
}
else
{
 $class_tpl->assign('body','viewlisting.tpl.php');
} 


I'm going kinda krazy with custom templates. The case number is the category ID. If you search the forums for all posts by Mike-N-Tosh you should be able to get everything you need. He was a great help (among others) in getting me going with custom templates.

You set up your extra fields in admin and determine which categories use which fields. The extra fields are generated as arrays that you can layout however you want. Search the forums.

If you're not good with logic, you might want to stay away from this. If you're a coder, you shouldn't have any problems. Just make sure you have a clean copy of the site to pull files off of if you screw things up.

Have fun,

Many thanks, for your helpful post kirk. I can see how this can be acheived and your site is a great example of custom templates. i just need to get my head arround what needs to go where.

I cant find vewlistings2tpl.php on my site any idea as of location i have located veiwlisting.php where i would expect to find it

[Mike-N-Tosh]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I cant find vewlistings2tpl.php on my site any idea as of location i have located veiwlisting.php where i would expect to find it

It is in your template folder. (yoursite.com/templates/yourtemplatefolder/viewlistings2.tpl.php)

If you are using a template folder other than the ones provided then you may not have that file. In cases that do not have a xxxx.tpl.php files in them, the script will automagically go to the xxxx.tpl.php files that are in the template/default folder. (yoursite.com/templates/default/...)

Hope that helps.

-Mike