Hock your wares..

Next on the list to tackle was the classifieds. I initially wasn't sure what I'd do with this. I underestimated the importance of this feature of the site. Recently I closed down the old classifieds to new listings in preparation for the move to the new site. I've had several complaints from people that wanted to list something, but we faced with the page stating that I wasn't allowing any more till the new site was up.

I've looked at a couple classifieds modules on snowcovered and wasn't really impressed with what I saw. I put them on the back burner, as I was more concerned with the forums and other items. I still kept an eye out for any modules that would be useful for the classifieds. I've known about Ventrian's property agent for a long time, since I signed up for his site, but just always dismissed it as a real estate listing module. I never really looked at it that hard. As I've been looking into the membership model and setting up Ventrian's subscription tools, I got a glimpse of what people have been doing with the property agent module. From selling cars to making dealer listings, there are a lot of cool things going on with this module. The best part is, due to Ventrian's license, which gives you access to all their modules for one fee, I already own the rights to use it. Needless to say, I quickly decided to use the module for my classifieds. I'm still working though setting it up the way that I want, but the flexibility of this module is just amazing. There are a few eccentricities that I've noticed, but nothing that is insurmountable. I have my categories set up and the basic classified listing page done. I need to expand the listing page to include a few more fields and edit the listing template to show contact info for the member that is selling the item. Overall, I'm very happy.

Vote for your favorite..

So I mentioned the photo contest last time and how I wasn't sure what I was going to do about it. I'd contacted a local guy that does some DNN development and asked him to look into writing the contest for me. We net, I outlined my requirements and he said he'd get back to me. A few days ago, he sent me a note pointing me to digcontest. It's a contest module written by the folks at dignuke.com. This contest module is very close to what I need. Close enough in fact, that I will probably modify the contest to fit the module a little more.

On another note, I've completely given up on converting my old forums over to active forums. I keep running into errors while trying to run the converter. In addition, I've noticed that the converter only moves users over if they have made a post in the forums. I have many paying users that never have made a post, so their accounts wouldn't get migrated. I've decided to just import the users with the DNNmasters user import manager module. This way I can import everyone, add them to certain roles, and I can have a fresh environment.