1.2.1 Manage Listings

Will show the current listings in the system. It contains some elements that help you browse selectively or in a certain order, search or make operations on the listings. Same system will be found on other pages and we will not repeat these explanations for each of them.

Action buttons

When selected multiple listings, the action that represents the button will apply to all selected listings. Exception makes the Add listing button which will take you to a new listing form. You can select multiple listings by selecting the left side checkbox on the corresponding row.

• Add Listing - Will take you to listing submit form. Please see a description below.

• Delete All Selected - Selected listings will be deleted

• Deactivate All Selected - Selected listings will be deactivated (disabled).

• Activate All Selected - Selected listings will be activated (enabled) if not already active.

Pages navigator - navigate through listings pages if more than one

Selective browsing and ordering form

• Listing type - you can choose a class of listings, for example Active listings - all listings that are active, Expired Listings - expired listings or listings that have an option enabled.

• Order - you can choose to order the listings by: date, listing price field, listing title and the number of hits.

• Order direction - choose ascendant or descendant order direction

Listing ID search - search the listing by the unique id (stock) number. This id number will show on listing details page under Stock No if you have enabled Show Stock No option in Settings / Listings Settings section.

Listings table

For each listing will be shown some base information including an image thumbnail, some status buttons and you will have a set of icons that will perform actions on the corresponding listing.

Status Buttons - show information about the listing status

• Active - the listing is active

• Inctive - the listing is inactive. Inactive listings are only visible for administrator and listing owner, but are not appearing for visitors or other users than the owner.

• Pending - the listing is pending or a pending action exists for the listing.

  When you mouse over the Pending button, a box will appear and show you information to which case Pending button refers to. There are some distinctive cases here:

  Only the listing is pending: the mouse over info box will show you just Pending Listing message. In this case, you can accept (activate) the listing by clickig either on the Pending status button, or on Enable icon

  Other actions refering to the listing are pending - if a user chooses to add an extra option to a listing, which by system settings requires to be manually accepted by administrator, that pending option will appear here as a pending action related to this ad. The name of the action will be added to the information box : Pending Featured, Pending Highlighted, Pending Priority or Pending Video

  When pending actions exist, when clicking on the Pending status button you will be taken to a modal window where you will have to choose (by checking a checkbox next to the action) which action you want to accept or reject.

  By accepting the pending action, the option that the action represents will become active for the listing. So if there is a Pending Featured action, the listing will become featured after accepting the action.

  Note: The pending button will not disappear, even if the listing is active when pending actions exist.

• Featured - appears when the listing has Featured extra option enabled.

• Highlighted - appears when the listing has Highlighted extra option enabled.

• Video - appears when the listing has Video extra option enabled.

• Priority - appears when the listing has Priority extra option enabled.

Action icons

There is a set of icons that appear for each listing to the right side of the table. Here is a list of these icons:

• Send Email - will open a window with an email form. Send email to the listing owner using this form.

• Edit - will take you to Edit Listing page

• Edit Photos - will take you to Edit Photos page

• Delete - delete the listing

• Enable / Disable - enable or disable the listing

• Modify Ad Settings - will open a modal window where you can change some listing settings: category, listing plan, expire date, and you can edit the extra options

• Mark as Sold / Unmark as Sold - mark the listing as sold or remove sold mark

• Mark as Rented / Unmark as Rented - mark the listing as rented or remove rented mark

• Renew - will only show for expired listings. This icon allow you to renew a listing.

Select number of listings to show on page

By default only 10 ads will be shown on a page. Use this select box that is positioned below the listings table to choose a different number.

Submitting a new listing as administrator

Click on Add button on top of listings table of Listings / Manage Listings section. You will be taken to a form with 5 steps. Choose Next button when you completed the current step.

• Choose Ad Settings - You must choose a category for your listing, a plan and a user to post the listing for. These fields are mandatory.

• Enter Ad Details - Fill in the form for the listing. The mandatory fields are marked, usually with a red star.

• Add Photos - Upload photos for your ad.

• Extra Options - You can choose extra options for the ad like Featured, Highlighted, Priority or Video Classifieds if these options are enabled and if they are not already included in the plan features. The options that are included are grayed and you will not be able to select them.

• Finish - Your ad submission is completed. You can review your ad details or options and go back to edit them if you want by clicking on the buttons Edit Listing, Edit Ad Options or Edit Photos.

1.2.2 Listing Plans

This section allows you to set the listing pricing system. Every ad must be attached to a listing plan. Here you will define if you want your ads to be paid or free, if you want your users to choose a listing plan every time they post ads or to post more ads after they attach a plan to their account (this system is called subscription). The listing plan will also define ad characteristics, like number of photos and words allowed, time until the listing expires, wether the ad should start with some extra options (Featured, Highlighted, Priority or Video Classifieds ) or not.

There are 2 types of ad plans that can be added: Ad Based plans and Subscription Based plans.

Ad Based plans - are plans that are either free or paid plans, and when choosing this plan for their ads, the users can only add a single listing for this plan. If this plan is paid, then the result is that the user must pay every time when posting an ad to this plan.

Subscription Based plans - once a user will buy a subscription, they can post multiple ads for that subscription. Use this type of plan for users that have large amounts of listings to post, like dealers.

For both types of plans you can set the ad characteristics: description length, number of pictures, days until the ad expires (set 0 if you don't want the ad to expire). You must also set the amount that the user will be charged with, or 0 if you want to make the plan free (only for ad based plans). You can also choose that the plan includes some extra options, if you have them enabled: Featured, Highlighted, Priorities or Video Classifieds. The ads posted for this plan will have these features enabled by default and are included in the plan price.

For subscription based plans you must also choose:

No Ads - a number of ads for the plan (users will pay once and be able to set this number of ads until the subscription becomes inactive). Set this number to 0 for unlimited ads.

Subscription Time - a number of days until subscription expires (do not mistake it for the other option, Number of Days. Number of days is the time until each ad expires, while Subscription Time is the number of days until the subscription expires). Set this to 0 for unlimited days. The subscription will expire when one of the 2 values reaches the limit: the number of ads reaches 0 (if it was not unlimited in the first place) or the time expires.

If you have set in Settings / Listings Settings the option Send notification to user - Before listing expires with X days, then the user will be notified before the subscription expires, and will also be notified after expiration if the other option Send notification to user - When listing expired is set.

For both ad plan types you have the possibility to add plans for all categories, for only one category or more than one categories. To choose for which categories the plan applies, when editing or adding a plan, next to Use plan for, choose Choose Categories radio button instead of All Categories - the default setting, and choose the categories you want from the list. When a user places an ad, based on the category the user chose for the ad, the list of available plans will be built with the plans that are set for all categories, or the ones that have the current category selected within the categories list. This way you can set different prices for different categories.

You can also build plans special for some groups of users only. To do this, proceed like with the categories and choose from the groups list after choosing Choose User Groups option.

1.2.3 Coupons

Coupons are a way of offering discounts to your customers, and are in fact small codes that once entered in the form when submitting an ad or buying an option from your site, the total to be paid will reduced with the value of the coupon.

Coupons are a way of marketing your site. You can promote your site by offering coupons so people will try your services for free or a reduced price. You can send coupons by mail to a list of emails that belong to possible clients, by posting banners or announcements to other sites containing the coupon code, and so on.

1.3.1 Users List

1.3.2 User Groups

This section allows you to define more than one user group. When the script is installed you will have only one group added to this section. You must have at least one user group in the system.

1.3.3 User Subscriptions

If you have subscription type listing plans in the system and there are users that have subscriptions, you will see them in this section.

You can perform the following actions on the listed subscriptions:

• Delete - Delete the subscription

• Disable / Enable - Disable the subscription if active or enable if not active.

If a subscription is pending, then a Pending button will appear in the table. This means that the subscription is not yet active and can be activated by clicking on this button.

A subscription can be pending from two reasons:

• Plan Pending is enabled for the group the user belongs to.

• The payment is set to be pending (in this case you must check if the payment was completed).

You have the possibility to add a new subscription to an user by clicking on Add button on top of subscriptions table. To add a new subscription you just need to choose the username and the subscription plan.

Users have the possibility of owning more than one subscription, which they can manage from their accountSubscription section. This way, if you define different subscriptions for different listing categories they can have a subscription of each type.

1.3.4 Send Bulk Emails

Use this section to send emails to all or a group of users at once. You have the following options to choose the users to send the email to:

Group - choose a certain user group

Send to - choose between: Active users, Users with active ads, Users with active for sale ads and Users with active for rent ads. The last two options will choose only those users that have ads that are active and not marked sold or rented.

To send a message fill in the Subject and Message fields and click Send button.

1.4.1 Order History

You will see on this section each operation that has been made on your site, each with the following details: the id (this is used as invoice number), processor, amount, username, status, some details and the date when has been registered.

This section will hold paid operations as well as free operations. Free operations will appear with the amount 0.

The Details column will hold informations on what actions are attached to this order. One order can be for multiple actions. For example, when a user places an ad and chooses Featured and Highlighted extra options for his ad, the details will appear like this:

Listing id: #34 [View]

Feature Ad: #34 [View]

Highlighted Ad: #34 [View]

You can click on the [View] link go to ad details page.

The possible actions that can appear in details string are:

• Listing Id - a new listing was added

• Featured Ad - Featured extra option was chosen for the listing

• Highlighted Ad - Highlighted extra option was chosen for the listing

• Video Classifieds - Video Classifieds extra option was chosen for the listing

• Priority_Name Priority - Priority extra option was chosen for the listing

• Subscription No - a new subscription was bought

• Dealer Page - a dealer page extra option was bought for an account

An order can have the status completed or not completed. A completed order means that the payment was finalized successfully. An order appears incompleted when the user starts an operation on your site that requires payment, and at a certain point, before clicking on payment link or after somewhere on the payment site, it stops the process. This way, the payment is not completed, but it still appears on your site as an attempt. If this order is for submitting a listing, the user has the possibility to finish the payment from the listings page, this way it won't have to fill the forms again, the listing is kept as inactive. For other orders types, there is the possibility to finish the payment for a not completed order from user account orders page.

Manual payments will always appear as not completed, you will need to accept them manually. But online payments like Paypal payments will send after the payment is made a notification to your site that the payment has completed successfully or that the payment failed. The script verifies the validity of the notification and performs the needed operations: activates the ad, subscription or extra option, or makes it pending, sends email to administrator and user if needed.

If the payment was not completed or if the type of payment is marked as pending, then the order will show as not active. By activating an order you can accept the actions that were performed with this order. To activate an order you must click on Accept icon. Depending on the number of actions for that order, there are 2 possibilities:

1. There is only one action attached to this order - when you click on the Accept button, the action is accepted. For example, if the action is a new listing submitted, then the listing will be activated, an email will be sent to the user to announce that the listing was activated. In the same time, the payment for this order is marked as Completed.

2. There are multiple actions attached to this order - when you click on the Accept button a modal window will appear. From this window you can choose which of the actions you wish to accept. The actions that were already accepted are grayed. Additional to the actions there is a possibility to mark the payment as completed.

The actions that appear on the order page can be enabled from other pages, depending on the type of the action:

- Ad related actions like new ad and extra ad options can be also accepted from Listings / Manage Listings section. They will appear in this section as Pending using the Pending button. Listings can also be enabled using the Enable icon in this section. All these are possible ways of enabling this type of actions.

- Subscriptions - can be also enabled from Users / Users Subscriptions section using the Pending button or Enable icon.

1.5.1 Login History

This section shows the data registered when there has been a login attempt and has 2 views:

First and the one it shows when you enter this section is Users Last Login. You will see here every user in the system, and next to the user last login date and IP address he/she logged in from.

When you click on a username you enter the second view, where you see for that particular user the history of logins and login attempts. A successful login will be marked with a Succeeded string in the Status column and a failed one with a Failed string.

1.5.2 Blocked IPs

We will start by defining some notions used in this section.

IP Address - is an unique identification that is assigned to every computer on the Internet. An IP address is formed by 4 numbers between 0 and 255 separated by a dot (.) Ex: 75.23.2.250.

When a guest accesses your site, you can determine the IP address of the computer from which is connected. If you consider that this guest performs malicious operations on your site like spamming ( adding many listings with improper content or sending spam mails to your users ), then you can block that IP address. If you know the IP address from which he is connected, then you can enter it in this section in Add IPS box. If you don't know it and the guest has an account, then the same operation can be performed from Users / Users List section by clicking on Block User icon for that user.

Blocked users will be automatically redirected to an Access restricted page.

1.5.3 Change Password

You can change administrator password in this section.

1.5.4 Forbidden Words

You can set a list of forbidden words in this section. If you enabled badwords usage from Settings / Listing Settings - Check for forbidden words, then every ad description will be checked for this words list.

You can add multiple elements to the list in Add Forbidden Words box separated by comma or each on a separate row.

The existing forbidden words will appear in Forbidden Words List box.

To delete multiple items from a list use CTRL and SHIFT keys on PC and OPTIONS key on MAC.

1.6.1 Custom Pages

With Custom Pages you can add new links and content to your site.

1.6.2 Database

This section allows you to easily backup or restore the database used for the current script installation.

On a script installation, all the configurations that you make to the script, excepting uploaded files and images, are kept in a mysql database. To have a complete backup of your site at a given moment you have to have the files of the script and the database backup. You can usually make backup to your database using the tools from the hosting control panel, but we've added a similar tool to the script to make it easier, and also with our script you can automate the process.

Existing backup files. You can see in the table at the top of the page the existing backups in the backup folder. The backup files are saved in the folder db_backup and can be downloaded to your computer by clicking on the Download link or directly with FTP.

Backup - when you hit the button Backup, a new backup for the database will be saved on the server and will appear in the upper table. You can choose to save the backup in the compressed (gzip) or uncompressed version.

Import - If you want to reverse to a previous version that you have saved before, you can use the Import feature (this will restore the database from the file you upload). Same result can be accomplished by clicking on the Restore icon for an existing backup from the table.

Scheduled backups - If you want the database backup to be made automatically, you can enable Scheduled Backups. Choose one of the options Daily, Weekly or Monthly. If you configure a number in Keep Only box, only that number of backups will be kept, the older ones will be deleted. This is to save space on your server.

1.6.3 Google Sitemap

Sitemaps are XML files that have a certain format, and serve the purpose of giving search engines informations about the URLs on your site that are available for crawling. For each URL you can attach informations like when it was updated, how often the page on the link changes, the importance related to the other pages. These URL maps should help search engines index your site better. Please keep in mind that this does not guarantee that the links will be indexed by the search engine.

To create a sitemap for your site you need to check the Enable checkbox, then make the changes to the settings as you think it is more fit for your site: which links you want present: categories links, listings (details pages links) and custom pages links. You can set for each the importance (priority) and the changes frequency. These informations will be submitted to the search engine in XML format. For the ads you can set a maximum number of ads links to be listed, because when your site will grow and have lots of ads, the dimensions of the sitemap file will grow considerably. You can also set a frequency for auto generating the sitemap file - daily, weekly or monthly.

Once you created a sitemap for your site you should submit it to the search engine ( not only Google accepts the sitemaps of this sort, also Yahoo, Ask.com and Live, but we will only explain the procedure for Google).

To submit the sitemap to Google you must follow the steps:

1. Sign it to Google Webmaster Tools (https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools) with your Google account (create one if you don't have it already)

2. Add your site to the Webmaster Tools account

3. Under Sitemaps section for that site enter the path for the sitemap and hit Submit Sitemap button. You can get the URL for your sitemap from the script, next to Your Google Sitemap Link tag.

1.6.4 RSS

RSS (short term for Really Simple Syndication) is a web format used to publish web content that is updating often, in our case, the latest listings added to your site. RSS feeds can be read with software called RSS reader or feed reader or agregator, which can be desktop based, web based or mobile based. People will be able to subscribe to theese feeds by clicking on the top RSS icon and add it to their favorite RSS reader. When there are new listings on the site, they will be updated.

To configure your site to generate RSS feeds you will need to add new RSS links. Click the Add button and you will be taken to a form. You will be able to configure:

Short Title - The title that will appear on your site, next to the RSS icon

Title - the title of the feed as will appear to subscribers

Description - the description of the feed as will appear to subscribers

FeedBurner Link - Feedburner is a web tool for RSS feeds owners. If you have created an account and added your feed there, configure here the Feedburner link.

Link - the link to your site

Language - 2 letters language code for your language

Parameters - you can choose only some listings to appear to a feed, for example only the ones from Auto category, or ony the ones that a dealer has added. This way you can add multiple feeds to your site and make them different.

Number of Listings - The number of last listings shown on the feed. Remember that you don't have to add them all, only the latest ads, otherwise the file will become too big to read.

You can add multiple RSS feeds that you will make them differ with the Parameters field. All RSS links will appear in the top of frontend interface, with the title you chosen for it (Short title).

1.6.5 Import/Export

This section allows exporting and importing data from your site (listings and users data only) in CSV and XML formats.

Some possible applications for this are:

• exporting your listings in a specific format and upload it to other classifieds site.

• import listing in these 2 formats from other sites to your site

• if you administer multiple classifieds sites that allow this feature, you don't want to add the listings on each site, you can instead import the listings on each site

• allow your users to upload bulk ads - useful when you have as users dealers that have to upload their ads to multiple sites (similar to previous point)

• if you want to save the data on your computer for your reference and you want to be able to view it in a spreadsheet viewer. Both these formats can be read by spreadsheet programs.

A short description of each format:

CSV (Comma Separated Values) - is a simple format where the values are separated by a specified sign. This can be comma, as the name suggests, but not necessarily, you can use other character like ;. Sometimes, when your values can contain comma, it is better to use a character to surround your fields values, usually the double quotes are used. You can configure this in Import/Export / Settings / CSV Settings section.

An example of a listing exported as CSV (considering only the following fields: id,category_id,date_added,title,description,price,currency ):

"1","4","2009-05-24","This is the title of the ad","This is the description of the ad","10000","$"

XML (eXtensible Markup Language) - is a specification for formatting and storing data. XML allows the user to define its own markup elements (tags) that will store the data ( an example of XML format is HTML). Each data element will be contained between a start tag and an end tag:

<title>Title of the ad</title>

Each element (listing or user) will be contained also between start and end tags:

<listing></listing> for listings

<user></users> for users

An example of a exported listing in XML format, including the start tags of the document:

<?xml version='1.0' ?>
                  <listings>
                    <listing>
                      <id>1</id>
                      <category_id>4</category_id>
                      <date_added>2009-05-24</date_added>
                      <title>This is the title of the ad</title>
                      <description>This is the description of thet ad</description>
                      <price>10000</price>
                      <currency>$</currency>
                    </listing>
                  </listings>
                

Defining templates. Templates are useful in the following cases:

• you want to export data but you don't need all the fields - then you will create a template with only the database fields that you need

• you want to import data but you don't have / don't want to upload all fields.

When you import data, when using CSV format, you need to have a template defined. The reason is that CSV format is not self explanatory like XML format (does not have tags that explain for each element to which fields it belongs to), it is just a series of data separated by a character and the script needs to know the exact order how to assemble them back. So, the order in a CSV import file is very important and must exactly match the template. For the xml template, the order is not important

You can view the format for CSV and XML for a template by clicking on the View Templates icon. Use this templates as a model how you should create your import files.

There is a similar feature available to users, to allow them to import data, if you allow Bulk uploads for the group they sign up for. Using this feature they will be able to add bulk ads to your site in one of the 2 formats. You can configure which format your site accepts for Bulk Uploads (CSV or XML) in Import/Export / Settings / Ads Bulk Uploads section. You can also configure there the template for the importing ads files, and to which plan will the ads be automatically assigned.

1.6.6 Image Tools

This section offers you the possibility to perform some operations on all your images on your site:

1.7.1 Manage Banners

This section will show the existing banners in your system.

1.7.2 Banners Settings

You can view in this section banners positions and perform some settings on them.

Changing number of banners shown - can be done using the Increase Banners Number and Decrease Banners Number in Display Banners column. This number is the number of banners shown simultaneous for this position. For example, if you want to show to the right side 3 banners at once, then you will use the Increase Banners Number arrow to increase the number to 3. After this, if you have at least 3 banners added to that right banners category, then 3 banners will show one below another. For top and bottom banners, if multiple banners added, they will show on the same line on the horizontal.

Total Banners - represents the number of banners that currently exist in the system for this category.

Enable / Disable - you can disable or enable a category of banners. If a category is disabled, even if you have banners added to a category the banners will not show.

View Banners Chart - will show you the graphic position for the banner in the current frontend template.

1.8.1 Settings

1.8.2 Manage Categories

1.8.3 Fieldsets

Fieldsets are a way to link categories with custom fields. If on your site you have categories that need different fields each of them, then you can group those fields on fieldsets Ex: you will have a fieldset for Auto and one for Real Estate. Both categories and fields must be assigned to a fieldset (for fields you can choose to assign them for all fieldsets if you want to, then they will appear for every category).

Fieldsets are supposed to ease the work when adding fields and categories. For example, when you add a new category you will only need to choose the right fieldset for it, not to edit the fields to make them show for that category. Please see an example for setting up fieldsets, categories and custom fields in Section 3.3.

1.8.4 Listing Custom Fields

With Listing Custom Fields you can customize ad submitting forms. This is very important for your classifieds site, so you should read the following carefully.

The fields you see in the table on this section will appear on the submit form, in the same order, not necessarily all of them because you can set some fields to appear only to some categories, as we will explain below.

1.8.5 User Custom Fields

In the same manner as you can customize submit ad form from Settings / Listing Custom Fields, you can customize the registration form in this section. These custom fields will form the user profile, and are very similar to listing custom fields. This is why we will only point out the differences between these two sections.

Here also read only fields exist, but here are different ones: Username, Email, Contact Name and Password.

On user custom fields there is an extra type of field: Terms and conditions. This field added to the registration form will require that the user checks a checkbox (by which he agrees to your site terms and conditions). When you choose this type of field, a box named Terms and Conditions will appear. Place there your site terms. You should also place an error message that will appear if the user did not checked the checkbox, and an info message that should express that the field must be checked in order to register.

There are 2 more settings that appear for a field in Add or Edit area:

Public - if the field is public or not. A public field will appear in the user profile on details page or on Dealer Page or the similar More listing for this user page. In other words, the field will be public for other users or guests. If the field is not Public, then it is only visible for administrator and owner.

Use Field For - if you use more than one user groups, choose here the group you want this field to appear for. You can customize like this the user groups to ask different information. For example, if you run two different groups, one for private users and one for companies, the registration form for companies could contain extra fields, like company name, address, location on map, company logo, and so on.

1.8.6 Languages

This script can be used as a multilanguage site. You can define multiple languages and users can switch between languages from site frontend.

1.9.1 Area Search

This module allows you to add area search to your search forms. Area search means searching ads that have the location within a given area in miles or Km from a zip/postcode geographical location.

When this module is enabled, on Quick Search and Refine Search forms, instead of the field Zip that is added with any installation will appear two fields:

• Zip/postcode - enter a zip/postcode code to which comparations will be made

• Distance - choose the distance from that zip/postcode you entered you want to look for ads in your search. You can choose a distance in miles/Km, you can choose Exact Location, and searches will be made only for that specific zip/postcode, or you can leave the default option that is All Locations.

In order to work, this module needs a database with your country zip/postcodes that contains geographical coordinates (longitude and latitude). By default the module contains databases for USA and UK. If you want to use this module and your classifieds is for another country you will need to search for one yourself. Keep in mind that you need to search for one that contains longitude and latitude coordinates. You will find lower in this section some information related to some places where you can find them.

When entering this module Settings section you will find a series of subsections:

• Settings - here you can make some appearance settings: Unit Measure - choose between Km and miles, and you can enter the list of predefined values for search form distance drop down menu.

• Import - use this subsection to import new zipcodes. We will describe this section below.

• Add - add a single zipcode/postcode.

• Delete - delete zipcodes/postcodes for one country or all of them.

• Records - browse zipcodes/postcodes database. You can here delete them one by one.

Importing new data

For importing zip data csv format is used. This is a widely used format, and if you purchase or download zip data, usually you will find it in this format. The format assumes data for each zip/postcode on a separate row, with data columns separated by a sign, usually comma. You can specify a different sign if your database uses a different one in Column Separator setting. Also, these columns can be enclosed in quotes or other sign, to make the delimitation even better. This sign can be set as Field Separator.

Data fields that are needed for each zip are: zipcode/postcode, latitude and longitude. Since databases come in different formats, with additional fields like city, district, state and so on, you will need to specify the column number for each of the needed fields in Columns Ordering. The order is usually found in the first row of the database, with a # sign in front. Please write down the order for the fields you need, and then remove this first line.

After you filled in the upper information, browse the file that contains your database. This file should have one of the following extensions: .csv or .txt. If it does not have this extension, but you know it is csv format, you can simply change it to one of these.

Information about zipcode databases

The databases included in our script are for the following countries:

UK - free database thanks to freethepostcode.org team. You can see a coverage map here: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Free_The_Postcode_UK_Coverage. You can always download an updated list from the following link: http://freethepostcode.org/currentlist.

USA - free database thanks to boutell.com.

Other unincluded free data:

Canada - you can download a free database for Canada from http://www.populardata.com/postalcode_database.html

Lots of countries databases: http://www.geonames.org

If our script does not have zip/postcodes data for your country, of you consider it incomplete or not up to date, you can purchase a commercial database from one of the following sites:

• http://www.geopostcodes.com - databases for 88 countries, good prices.

• http://www.zipcodeworld.com - databases for USA, Canada and Mexico.

1.9.2 Comments

This module will add comment capabilities to each details page.

When entering this module settings page you can see two areas: first, Comments, where you can view and manage existing comments, and second, Settings, where you can make settings for this module.

Comments - you can view information about each comment: post date, user (if was posted when logged in) , email address, and you can also perform some actions on them: Edit, Delete, Enable/Disable and Block Ip it was posted from.

Settings - The possible settings are the following:

Require Login - If this is enabled, you must login first to be able to post a comment.

Admin verification - Choose if you want to verify each comment before allowing it to show. You can choose between: Always, Never or When not logged in. If you choose the last option, only comments that are posted by guests (not logged in users) will wait for your approval.

Use image verification - Choose if you want to use image verification for posting comments. You can choose between: Always, Never or When not logged in.

Email field - Choose if you want the email field added to comment submit form. You can choose between: Required, Do not use or Optional.

Website field - Choose if you want the website field added to comment submit form. You can choose between: Required, Do not use or Optional.

Use HTML editor - Check if you want the comments text box to appear as a HTML editor.

Check for forbidden words - Check if you want the content of the comments to be checked for forbidden words. The list set in Tools / Forbidden Words will be considered.

Allowed HTML tags - Choose here which HTML tags to allow in your comments text.

Use as logo - If you have any image custom fields defined in your Settings / User Custom Fields section, for example a logo image for each user, you might want to use it to show next to each comment posted by that user. Use this setting to choose that field.

Comments terms - Add here a Terms and Conditions text that you would want shown next to the comments box.

1.9.3 Loan Calculator

This module will display a loan calculator box on each details page which will calculate monthly payment for a certain amount and considering other factors: Down Payment, Trade in Value, Loan Amount, Sales Tax, Interest Rate and Loan Term.

You can make the following settings for this module:

Module Title - the title shown above the loan calculator box.

Use "Trade In" field - choose to show a Trade In field in loan calculator box if this applies.

Default Down Payment - default value for Down Payment.

Default Interest Rate - default value for Interest Rate.

Default Loan Term - default value for Loan Term in months.

Default Sales Tax - default value for Sales Tax.

Currency - the currency used.

Text - add some explanatory text to the module box.

1.9.4 Tag Cloud

A tag, according to Wikipedia, is "a (relevant) keyword or term associated with or assigned to a piece of information (e.g. a picture, article, or video clip), thus describing the item and enabling keyword-based classification of information." This module will display in the first page a box with tags from your site. The tags are chosen from keywords used for search (in the search keyword field).

This tool is useful for:

• Creates visibility for search terms. Search terms will show in this box and your visitors can just click on them to initiate a new search for that term.

• Are useful for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) because they contain links on specific keywords. So you have a way to add text links towards inner pages of your site with good keywords.

You can make the following settings for this module:

Module Title - the title shown above the tag cloud box.

Number of tags to show - number of tags to show at a time in this box.

Keep searches for - We explained that the tags are taken from individual search terms made by your visitors. These terms are kept in the database and every time the tags will show, the list is processed to determine the strength of each term (which will reflect in font size), and the most relevant terms will show in a random order. The relevance is determined by the number of searches on this term. But these search terms should be deleted periodically because otherwize the database will become too big and hard to process, and this will add a delay in showing the tags. Also, this ensures that the tags are the ones that people are looking for in this period of time, and not in the past.

Use only words with at least - you can choose not to consider words with less number of characters than this number.

Exclude words - enter here words that you don't want to show, even if searches are made by this term.

1.9.5 Browse by Location

This module will show on first page of the site a box with locations listed and linked towards a search page for that location.

You can make the following settings for this module:

Title - is the title that will be shown on top of the box, if you choose Single type for this module (see below more explanations).

Number of columns - number of columns shown in the first page box.

Mode - this module can work in two modes: Single and Double. In Single mode, you will choose the Location Field to be a menu type custom field, and the values contained as this field elements will show in the location box in the first page. In Double mode , you will choose the Location Field to be a depending type custom field (for example Country & Region field). As a result, the first field values (Country values) will show on top of the box as tabs, and second field values (Regions) will show in the box as locations. When clicking on the top tabs, you can choose a different set of locations, in our example regions for another country.

Location Fields - you must choose here one of the custom listing fields that you defined in Settings / Listing Custom Fields section. In in single mode, the fields that you can choose from are Menu fields, if in Double mode: Depending fields.

Example1: you have a menu field defined for regions named Region. Choose Single mode and this field as Location Field and the values you entered as field elements will be listed in this module box.

Example2: you have a depending field defined for countries and regions named Countries & Regions. Choose this field as Location Field and the values you entered for first field of this depending field ( Countries ) will be listed in top of module box as tabs, for example you will have one tab USA, one tab for UK, one for Canada. The values you enter in the second field of depending field (Region) will appear in the module box. When clicking on one country tab, locations list will change to regions belonging to that country.

1.9.6 Browse by Car Make

This module was meant to show on first page of the site a box with car makes linked towards a search page for each make. But it can be used to display other information instead of car makes if your site is not a car based classifieds and you need this module functionality.

You can make the following settings for this module:

Title - is the title that will be shown on top of the box, if the chosen field for this module is not assigned to multiple fieldsets (see below more explanations).

Number of columns - number of columns shown in the first page box.

Make field - you must choose here one of the custom listing fields that you defined in Settings / Listing Custom Fields section. The fields that you can choose from are Menu or Depending fields.

Example1: you have a menu field defined for makes list named Make. Choose this field as Make field and the values you entered as field elements will be listed in this module box.

Example2: you have a depending field defined for makes list named Makes & Models. Choose this field as Make field and the values you entered for first field of this depending field ( Makes ) will be listed in this module box. If this depending field has different values for different fieldsets, then instead of the module title will appear tabs with the fieldset names, and when changing fieldset tabs you will see the values for that fieldset. For example, if your field is assigned to both fieldsets Cars and Motorcycles, two tabs will show on top of Browse by Car Make called Cars and Motorcycles. When clicking on Cars tab, cars makes will show, when clicking on Motorcycles tab, motorcycles makes will show.

1.10.1 Templates Editor

Our script uses templates for the HTML part. This means that HTML code is completely separated from the php code. For this reason it is easy to change its design.

First of all, to view a template file that you want to modify, you need to choose the proper template from Select Template menu (if there is more than one template). Then choose from Select File menu the file you want to see and hit View. A box will appear with the content of this file.

Some details regarding template syntax.

The template system that we are using for the script is Smarty (http://www.smarty.net/). If you want to read extended syntax documentation, please view this page: http://www.smarty.net/manual/en/

Basically, what you should know is that every template file uses HTML code and some specific elements that will be replaced by the script with the proper value. Those elements should remain intact, you should not replace them with normal text or other HTML elements unless you know what you're doing. Here are the types of syntax you will find:

Variables

Variables are defined by strings in the form:

{$variable_name}

This string will be replaced with the correspondent variable defined in the script.

Example: in the following sentence:

{$lng.useraccount.welcome} {$username}

The string {$lng.useraccount.welcome} will be replaced with the language variable for welcome, and {$username} with the currently logged in username.

Conditional Sentences

                       {if $var_name="value"}
                        ...
                        {/if}
                

Conditional sentences are used for parts in the template that will appear if the condition is met. For example in the following part:

                       {if $listing.user.store>0}
                        {* show store button *}
                        {/if}
                

The part {* show store button *} will appear only if the user has dealer account enabled.

Comments

Comments are part of the template that are not interpreted by the template engine in any way, in fact those parts will not show in the generated html code. These parts are only added for reference. You can recognize a comment by having {* *} signs around. Please view in the earlier example, the string {* show store button *} is a comment.

Loops

There are two types of loops used: for loops and sections. Loops execute the code inside as long as the condition is met, usually for all values in an array. Please see examples below:

                       {foreach from=$categories item=v name=cat}
                        {* ..... *}
                        {/foreach}
                

                       {section name=loop start=0 loop=$no_latest step=1}
                        {* ..... *}
                        {/section}
                

Adding javascript code or CSS code to a template

Since javascript code and CSS code can contain characters that can be mistaken as belonging to templates syntax (like the curly brackets or braces: { }), when you add code like that to your templates you should place the code between {literal} {/literal} strings.

Ex: You want to add Google Analytics code to the footer of your pages. The code will look similar to the following:

                               <script type="text/javascript">
                                        var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
                                        document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
                                        </script>
                                        <script type="text/javascript">
                                        try{
                                        var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-xxxxxx-x");
                                        pageTracker._trackPageview();
                                        } catch(err) {}</script>
                

Here is how you should enter it in the templates:

                               {literal}
                                <script type="text/javascript">
                                var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
                                document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
                                </script>
                                <script type="text/javascript">
                                try{
                                var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-xxxxxx-x");
                                pageTracker._trackPageview();
                                } catch(err) {}</script>
                                {/literal}
                

Including files

You can include another template file to your code with the following syntax:

{include file="header.html"}

This example will include the file that contains the header (top) of the template.

1.10.2 CSS Editor

CSS (Cascading style sheets) are used to describe the formatting of a HTML document. You can control by editing this document things like colors, backgrounds, font sizes, elements spacing. Use this section in addition to the previous section if you want to make changes to your site look.

To make changes to this page, basic knowledge of CSS principles are required.

1.10.3 Language Editor

All site texts that appear on site interface, except for the ones that are kept in database (all values that you can edit in administrator panel) are kept in a language file. If you need the script for other language that the script does not have translated, or if you simply need to change some of the texts on the interface, you can edit the language file.

In the section Language Editor you have a drop down list where you can choose the language from, and a box, where the content of the language file is shown. The languages shown in the drop down list are the languages from Settings / Languages section.

There is another way to edit a language file, use the method you find easier to you. This second method is to edit the language file on your computer. You will need to copy it using a FTP program on your computer. Then you can edit it using any text editor (PHP files are in fact text files) like Notepad for example. After you finish making changes to the language file, upload the file back and overwrite the old version.

The language file is actually a .php file. So it needs to follow a set of rules to be valid. If there is an error in the language file, the HTTP server will show you an error like the following:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_VARIABLE in /usr/home/yourdomain.com/lang/eng.php on line X

If you do get this error, then you should check at the line specified what is the error. You must follow these rules for not generating errors:

• You must have on top of the file a <?php string and at the end a ?> string

• A line will look like this:

  $lng['navbar']['home'] = 'Home';

  What you must translate in this line is the string in second part of the sentence: Home

• Each line will end with a semicolon (;)

• The translation text is surrownded with single quotes (')

• If you have a text that contains a single quote, you must place a backslash (\) character in front of it.

  Ex: $lng['users']['errors']['passwords_dont_match'] = 'Passwords don\'t match!';

If you follow these rules then you will be able to make a translation without a problem.

1.10.4 Mail Templates

In this section you can edit the mails that are sent from your site in different cases. Please take the time and edit these templates before lanunching your site.

Examples of mails sent are: mails sent when an ad is posted - to user and admin, notifications when listing expired or before expires, recommend ad mails, password recovery mails, and so on.

The page shows two areas, a left select box and a right part where you can see the mail template. You can choose in the left side the mail template you want to edit and it will reflect in the right side. You can see a description for the current email template in red, on top of the right side. After you made the changes hit Save.

Mail Templates use the same template system as HTML templates regarding elements that will be replaced in the background by the system.

A mail template will look like the following:

                       Subject: {$sender_name} recommended you this ad!
                        Mail content: Hello {$name}
                        {$sender_name} thought you would be interested in the following resource:
                        {$ad_link}
                        {$message}
                        Best Regards,
                        {$administrator}
                

All strings in the form {$variable_name} are variable names and will be replaced with a value. Please see a wider description here for templates syntax.

So when the email is sent, it could look like this:

                       Subject: Matt recommended you this ad!
                        Mail Content: Hello John
                        Matt thought you would be interested in the following resource:
                        http://www.yourdomain.com/details.php?id=12
                        
                        You really should check out this ad!
                        
                        Best Regards,
                        Yoursite Administrator
                

1.10.5 Info Templates

When your site users perform certain actions there are certain messages that will be shown to them. For example, after placing an ad, when buying a subscription, when upgrading an ad and so on.

This section is similar to the previous section, Mail Templates. What we should point out here is that the formatting here should be HTML since these informations will appear directly in the HTML pages. So for example, to add a new line you should enter the newline HTML character <br/>.

3.1.1 Meta information

Meta tags are HTML elements placed in the header of the HTML document and are used to provide information about the HTML page. The title tag will appear as a title in the browser window, as long as the other 2, meta keywords and meta description are not visible to the end user. Those tags can be seen when choosing View / Page Source (or similar) from the browser menu.

Here is an example of how meta tags look like:

       
                                <title>Site name - New cars, used cars for sale</title>
                                <meta name="description" content="Find new and used cars, buy or sell your car in auto classifieds" />
                                <meta name="keywords" content="new cars,new car,automotive,used cars,used car,new car prices,used car prices,new car price,used car price" />
                        

The importance of these tags is that they are used by search engines to get information about your site. These are not the only elements used by search engines to categorize a site, but they have an important part. Also, title tag is used by some search engines, like Google, as the title for that specific page on the search results list.

It is important that your site does not have the same meta information on all pages. This way, more of your pages will be indexed by the search engines and will be found for different keywords searches.

This is why our script offers you the possibility to change meta information for almost all your pages.

1. Default meta information - can be set from Settings / SEO Settings. This information will be shown by default on pages where the following in the list don't apply

2. Categories meta information - you can change meta information that will appear when you browse a specific category. You can do this when editing or adding a category from Settings / Manage Categories section, using the fields Title, Meta description and Meta keywords

3. Custom pages meta information - meta information that appear on each custom page. You can change them when editing or adding a custom page in Tools / Custom Pages section, using the fields Title, Meta description and Meta keywords

4. Listings details page meta information.

The title for the description page is always the title of the listing. The meta keywords and description can be: the values that the user enters with their ads in Meta Keywords and Meta Description boxes if the Add Meta info with listings value from Settings / Listings Settings is On. If this value is off, then the meta keywords and description will be generated from the following elements of the ad: title, description, category name and city, if they are available.

Some tips to guide you for each of these 3 elements:

Title

• use 60 characters or less for the title

• keywords are also important in this field, and remember that this value will be shown as the title on search engine results, so make it as attractive as you can for the people to click on it.

Meta Description:

• use a description that relates to your page content and use keywords that you want your site to be promoted for

• most of the search engines recommend to have a length shorter than 200 characters for the description.

• sometimes, but not always this description is shown as a description on the search results

Meta Keywords:

• use online meta tags generators tools to generate the keywords. If you search the Internet you will find many free tools like this. One of them that you can use is Google keywords generator tool:

  https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

• use 150 characters or less for this field

It is always useful to make some research on the competitors sites that are placed on top of search engines results and get ideas for meta keywords and description from them.

3.1.2 Search engine friendly URLs - URL Rewriting

URL Rewriting is a practice that has been adopted for some time to make a site dynamic links to look like static links to be easier to index by the search engines.

Dynamic links are links that are used for pages that generate their content on the fly, after searching a database, based on the parameters set in the URL. Here is an example of such a link:

http://www.carscripts.com/index.php?cat=2&page=3

This means in this case that we are sending the parameters to get the third page for the category that has the id 2

This URL written as a static link could look like this:

http://www.carscripts.com/2-Sport-Cars/3/index.html

Notice that the parameters names are missing and there is also the name for the category added to the URL.

This practice will help in the following ways:

• make your links more readable for search engines (there are multiple opinions on this on the Internet recently, some studies show that in fact static and dynamic links are positioned equaly by search engines. )

• the keywords added in the URLs also may help in positioning your page

• make your links more readable for people - SEO friendly URLs will help users understand what the page is about when they see a link.

• some search engines, like google bold keywords searched for in URLs in its results, so people are more likely to click on your link if they see the keywords on the link.

• this is also a security measure because it hides the url parameters and the script extension

To enable search engine friendly URLs on the script, your server needs to support mod rewrite. You will need to check the box Enable search engine friendly URLs in Settings / Seo Settings section and to rename the file htaccess.txt that you will find within the script files to .htaccess (note that the dot in the name is important, do not miss it!). If you already have a .htaccess file, just copy the content of htaccess.txt at the end of .htaccess existing file.

Please note that you might need to make some changes in the configuration of .htaccess file:

The line below is by default uncommented. This will enable mod_rewrite on your server. If mod_rewrite is already enabled and the server does not allow this setting in .htaccess file you might need to comment it.

RewriteEngine On

The line below is by default commented. If your server does not have the option FollowSymLinks enabled, then you might have to enable it (remove the comment sign # in front of the line)

#Options +FollowSymLinks

You should uncomment and change the line below if your script is installed in a subfolder of your domain. If so, change it to the path to the script install folder.

#RewriteBase /

Example:

RewriteBase /classifieds/

3.2.1 Pending approval for listings

You can set that some or all of your classifieds listings to wait for administrator pending approval. There are 2 factors that determine whether a listing will be pending or not:

• the payment type

• the group the user belongs to

If the listing meets at least one of the 2 conditions, then it will be marked as pending and wait for admin approval.

To set a certain type of payment as pending you will need to go to Settings / Payment Settings and click the button for pending to become active. Please note that Free is considered a type of payment for the ease of configuration. Manual payments are advised to be set as pending.

To set a user group to have always pending listings, no matter the payment type, check the checkbox Listing Pending when adding or editing the user group in Users / User Groups.

3.2.2 Pending approval for plans (subscriptions)

You can set the pending approval for subscriptions in the same way as for listings, with a small difference for the group setting: you will check the box Plan Pending from user group settings.

3.2.3 Pending approval for accounts

You can set an account to wait for administrator approval by checking the box Admin Verification in user group settings.

If you enable posting ads without an account from Settings "Enable post without user account", then you can choose if these ads should be pending from the same section, Listings pending option.