Best Catalogue/Directory Extension?
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- Martin Simpson
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- President Blue-Eyed Panda LLC
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I am a loyal rocketeer - and if Rocket Theme has a product let me know and I will use it ---
But I am looking for a way to create a simple catalog or directory.
Picture at the simplest level -- each listing would be a page for an artist - on that page would be a simple HTML edit entry so I could embed a youtube.com video and text as needed.
But then how that content is categorized and displayed and searched is what I want to do.
Basically what I think I am going to do is use something like VirtueMart but not in BUY mode or whatever --- but not sure that will do it.
What I ideally want is to easily create -- mydomain.com/user_input_url
where user_input_url would be the name of the article/content/directory listing.
I don't want to use Community Builder because it's overkill for my purposes.
Something like Sobi I guess - -but I wasn't overwhelmed with them.
Any suggestions?
Also - would love for the content-item-listing to be able to be put into multiple categories - like "Guitar Player" AND "Vocalist" ---- make sense?
And have a page that displayed my top level categories like Sobi does -- - President of Blue-Eyed Panda Website Design Services
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- Cliff Pfeifer
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Hi, my advice, don't use Virtuemart or Tienda ECT to do this, it's way more complicated than you want. Trust me, I was pretty much looking for the same thing you are a while back, and I tried that and regretted it immediately.
My search then led me to this: dj-extensions.com/dj-catalog2.html
It's free, fairly easy to use and customize. There are good tutorials on their site, I tore the whole thing apart and did a custom backend interface for it in a short amount of time. Not that you need to do that, but just to give you an idea of it's flexibility.
Of course if you need something more powerful, there is no substitute for Zoo. The app package is a bit pricey, but it is powerful and can be configured in an infinite number of ways. You can build complex catalogs in no time once you figure it out. There is a free version, but good luck figuring out how to use it.
Just my advice, hope that helps. - The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer.
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- Martin Simpson
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- President Blue-Eyed Panda LLC
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What a great response, Cliff - THANKS!
A few quick questions -- with the DJ catalog can an item by in more than one category?
I noticed with Zoo's Business Directory that the items/businesses could be in more than one searchable category.
Also -- It would seem that DJ catalog does indeed have search-engine friendly URLs setup as in their demo I landed on a page that had what was ultimately named 1-product-1.html ---
But on ZOO's website their demo didn't have Friendly URLS.
Part of my entire point of this journey is to easily create urls with mydomain.com/artist_name
so that artist would actually PAY me for the right to get the Google JUICE from being listed with our directory -- the main page of the directory is already ranked very very high for the relevant keywords so having a uRL with your name and link-backs to your website on it will be something I can charge a little bit per year for -- y ou know what I mean?
Zoo seems to be amazingly perfect for what I am trying to do - and is pretty reasonable at 99 euros - I am US based so I guess that's like 200 bucks or something right? If it is perfect, that is reasonable to me.
I am looking at a probable subscriber base of 100 at first -- and if I charge 35 dollars a year that's plenty of operating capital to pay for Zoo for sure.
So if I find out definitively that Zoo does Friendly URLS I will probably just buy it. - President of Blue-Eyed Panda Website Design Services
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- Cliff Pfeifer
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Hi, glad to help.
Dj Catalog will not allow you to assign products to multiple catalogs. Not the version I have anyway, it's been awhile since I've used it. Maybe they added that, you would have to check the website to see for sure, I don't think you can though. It's a pretty simple component, doesn't have a ton of advanced features.
On my website I use Zoo for my portfolio, it works fine with the built in Joomla SEF, although it does add a ?cat=1 type thing at the end of items in the catalog. If you really want to customize URL's, you want to use an SEF extension, there are many out there that work with Zoo.
The conversion rate on pounds to dollars will hurt a little bit. But Zoo is ridiculous in terms of what you can do. The custom fields, content creation and features allow you to build pretty much anything you want, front and backend. The app bundle saves a lot of time, there is a bit of a learning curve though. Once you figure it out, theres really nothing that compares. Hope that helps. - The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer.
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- Martin Simpson
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- President Blue-Eyed Panda LLC
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Hey Cliff - I know you are not paid ZOO support - but one more question if you don't mind.
If I am offering a listing directory to my website visitors and want them to register and fill out the information and then be listed in the directory -- is this in essence what Zoo does?
Or is there no support for front-end addition to the catalog/directories?
Also, in a perfect world, I would be able to charge for such a transaction -- or at least have it submitted to me, then I wait for a paypal payment then I click on button to make their listing "Published" if that makes sense? - President of Blue-Eyed Panda Website Design Services
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- Cliff Pfeifer
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Hi, I'm not sure if Zoo has a front end editing option or not, you'd have to find out from their support, I just don't know the answer.
You could always use a form plugin and have a submission form where they send you the info. RSForms, ProForms ECT, have paypal options that you can attach to the form. That might be an option. - The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer.
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- Jason Kopacko
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- I have the paid version of DJ catalog and you can assign to multiple catagories.
- Thank you,
Jason
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- Cliff Pfeifer
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Nice, I like that extension, even the free version is pretty cool, it's well developed and easy to modify.
These days I'm doing a lot of Wordpress stuff. In WP you don't need extensions to do custom fields or content types, it's all built into the core. You can use plugins to make it easier, but it's more flexible than anything I've seen for Joomla, you can do it any way you want. Of course, a little PHP work is required, it's basic, but still PHP. It's the strength of WP, but Joomla has a more fully featured CMS. Pros and cons on both sides. - The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer.
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- Jason Kopacko
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Oh yea?
I have 50+ client sites deep based on Joomla (all but one is 2.5.x). One of my clients wants to a Wordpress blog. So I've been doing a little research...but haven't had much time. - Thank you,
Jason
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