Update Listing Question

[MrGForce]

I've asked this before, but didn't get the answer I was looking for, so I'm asking again.

I have turned off the clickable "Upgrade" link that appears under the expiration date when you are logged in and you've clicked on "Modify Your Listings". I did this to prevent it from being used till I can work out a solution to my question. I want this link to be used ONLY when someone is RENEWING a current listing. That way when they renew, they can choose, at that time, to also renew their Featured, Highlighted or Bold listing if they had any, or those features go away for the extended renewal period.

That said, here's my idea.

I would like to add an "UPGRADE" link to each listing, when you click on "Modify Your Listings", that would allow folks to basically upgrade their current listing to one of the better packages (fee based) that were available to them when they initially submitted their free listing. For example, when someone placed a free classified ad, they would have gotten say, 1 picture and 1000 discription characters. They may at that time also purchased bold lettering. Then soon after posting, they decide that they should have picked the package that gave them say, 4 pictures and 2000 characters, and they wish to keep the bold lettering that they initialy purchased. It would be nice to be able to do this, rather than having to create a whole new listing, and have to purchase the bold lettering also for that ad. Right now, that's what they'd have to do. Under the "Update" link, they do have the opportunity to purchase Feature, Highlight and Bold, but not any of the other things that they could have purchased up front in a better package.

Has anyone done this, or would anyone know how to do this, or like to get paid for doing this? To me, this would be a nice addition to 68c itself in the future.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[MrGForce]

Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions on this?

[seymourjames]

Difficult and although appearing logical will not really work if you think about it in practice as a general process - a specific and limited customization perhaps.

As discussed in other threads, adverts are tied to categories and packages are tied to categories and extrafields are tied to categories. Sometimes extrafields are mandatory and sometimes not depending upon your set up. Packages could be very different indeed for the same category. Your assumption which is not generally true is that another package only adds stuff but does not take anything away . How would that be policed so to speak in the code - you can use this package but not that one? Basically, it would mean the whole checkout process for that advert would need to be undertaken again in reality (the bits saved which are appropriate and only if they are actually appropriate to the new ad package) and the user would need to go back in an add/edit stuff anyway. I think the number of permutations makes this unrealistic. If you think about it, when you go into the admin panel and upgrade someone manually, lets say you enter more words, what you are really doing is overriding the ad package and creating a new one - albeit not available on the front end and indeed not defined anywhere. You are using a lot of human intelligence to process that task.

I think a more realistic goal would be to keep it very specific. Allow more photos and allow more text without changing the ad package assigned to the advert itself. Rather than seek to to change the ad package to another, why not seek to develop a custom module which inserts additional text into the database, additional photos etc. And even then when the advert expires it is necessary to get rid of those extra photos for example. Even then I am unsure how you would manage the payment part either unless you follow the same process as for feature, bold and highlight upgrades. The point is these upgrades were not set as options on the original ad package like featured, bold, etc.

Well thats my view.

[MrGForce]

Seymourjames;

Believe it or not, you actually hit it right on the head in the second part of your reply when you mentioned giving just more pics, more space. That's exactly what I was trying to say in my post. I know how to do it manually in the database. I've done it already. All I had to do was change the package number in either the listing or the order, I can't remember which. I think that's all I had to change to make it work. Then I went into the listing as the lister, not admin, and the additional text was available just as the additional photos were available. That's the only difference so far in my main category packages, is the # of pics and the amount of text in the description. All I wanted to do was to add in two (2) extra choices to pick from, along with featured, highlighted, bold. Then to have the program add those amounts together, bill them through PayPal, and they're updated. Then when it comes time to renew, the program sees the updated package # in the order/listing and redoes it.

I'll figure this out some how.

Thanks again for your suggestions.