Sneek Peek at ClassiPress 3.0
Yes, the rumors are true. ClassiPress version 3.0 is late, behind, belated, blown, delayed, held up, hung up, in a bind, in the lurch, jammed, lagging, missed the boat, overdue, postponed, put off, slow, tardy, and any other synonym I failed to list. Why do you ask?
Well, as you might have read from my forum response, there are several reasons but that won’t stop us from working hard on getting it completed and released as soon as we possibly can.
If you haven’t already purchased ClassiPress and are holding out until 3.0, I recommend you get in now while the prices are still low. They will increase once 3.0 comes out so even if you don’t want to install 2.9.3, you can lock in your price and just wait for the free 3.0 update. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. 😉
In the meantime, I wanted to treat you to a sneek peek at what the new ClassiPress will look like. This is a first hand look of never before seen screen shots. There will be 5 different color variations so don’t be upset if you don’t like this shade of blue.
The inner pages are still being finalized but i will post them as soon as they are finished and approved. When will ClassiPress 3.0 be available? Read the forum post link included above to find out the details. 🙂
Any feedback of this design is of course welcome but it’s already pretty much locked and loaded at this point.
Comments (137)
Hi David,
I can’t wait to use the 3.0 version! Actually I was on the edge of setting up a classified solution for my community and I was about to buy CP. Then I started reading the documentation and latest news and I learned about the v3.0 .. I am still wondering whether installing the current version now or wait a little more for the new and -I’m sure- fantastic version. What do you reckon ? It’s better to wait a little bit, right ?
If there’s no rush and you can wait until mid-end of March, then wait and install a clean 3.0 vs having to go through the setup, etc all over again.
Thanks for your reply. I guess I can actually wait till mid-end of March of course. Till then, I’ll follow your advice and sign-up now for the current version. Hope your testing phase is going on well.
Cecile
Hi David,
Tell me, If I buy the 2.9.3 and downloaded it, can I take the 3.0 version for free or do I have to pay again?
Tks,
Dan
All updates are free. The only thing that is going to change is the price so you might want to lock in the lower rate now even if you don’t want to install 2.9.3.
Hi David,
I won’t ask you when 3.0 will be available and I won’t ask if upgrades are free. They have been asked to the point of this readers exhaustion.
I will ask this. Is there any way to get a full screen look at your “sneak peek” images of 3.0. I have some time this week and I would like to start visually designing in photoshop so that I am off and running when it is available.
Hi Randy – I will be posting some final screen shots later this week once I get some time.
Is there any possibilities to get hold of the language files? I want to translate this to Norwegian. I`m buying the developer pack and hoping for an release soon. Even i have time to wait 😉
I wish I could but creating the translation file is the last step before releasing the theme because the text is not final until the theme is. I will make it available as soon as I can.
is that possible to install Classipress theme with wordpress mu, where register user can get a blog & access to post classified ads?
Anticipating its arrival, is subregion pivot on the roadmap? We’re big craigslist users and its quite nice to click Brooklyn for example, and all categories & results are just for Brooklyn. Every major city has subregions/nabes that could be assigned.
@newyorkherald – I could be wrong but I don’t think that’s how it will work because David is using custom fields to store regional values – not a good idea, as I’ve pointed out several times in various comments here.
You’re probably better off looking at a proper classified directory like Oxy or such like.
no, you can’t get rid of me that easily! I purchased WPC a while back and I’m excited to see what its become – subregion pivot is just such a great feature of craigslist, and I believe David mentioned it was possible – just further down the road, just wondering if that’s changed or indeed it’s not ever going to happen with this set up.
@newyorkherald – well I don’t think it should be ‘further down the road’ as a) there’s no reason for it to be as it should be happening now, and b) it’s fundamental to ANY classified listing directory.
I’ve purchased WCP too, but I’m not tying myself to it if it’s not up to the job. The fact the new default design looks like a blog is not instilling me with much confidence.
We’ll see how it pans out.
yes we’ll see, and I guess if you’re not city-specific in your classifieds business, subregions is less of an issue – if you are however, besides NYC, even a smaller metro area like Minneapolis, has subregion pivots on craigslist. I don’t know enough about databases, hopefully its not too complicated to pull off. Its the only feature I’m really missing, so knowing its doable and down the road is enough to keep me happy.
From what I’ve read on this blog, it isn’t doable in its current form. It would require a whole rewrite because using custom fields to store geographical values is the WRONG choice because custom fields cannot make a relationship. Ideally, categories should be used for storing geo values.
I know of a private plugin which uses categories to this effect, even as far as being able to automatically plot values on a Google map 😉
Carlos – you can most definitely filter results based on custom fields and it is much better than using tags, in my opinion. Of course there are always more than one way to skin a cat.
I had craigslist-style pivot tables based on states and regions all built and ready to go in 3.0 until I discovered a bug in WordPress using the query_posts function to filter on meta keys. You could use get_posts instead but then setting up pagination is not straight forward. In the interest of time and getting 3.0 wrapped up, I decided to move on for now.
Once WP has this fixed, it will be added to CP since I totally agree it’s a much needed feature to have. Hopefully 3.1.
I applaud your patience but I want jam today, not tomorrow. Remember, WCP isn’t free.
David, I don’t doubt you can filter results according to custom fields, that wasn’t my point though. From what I can see, you cannot build hierarchical relationships between custom fields – categories are the best option for this without any shadow of a doubt.
I agree that using custom fields for certain values is better than using tags. I don’t like tagging much, we’re removing them from all of our websites and replacing them with custom taxonomies.
Custom post types are another ball of wax and we have some clear ideas of how to utilise them on some of our sites.
For CP, using custom post types would give you a lot more flexibility as you could set up specific custom post types to handle categories of listings, i.e. cameras, cars, real estate etc.
It would allow you to create custom write screens for each different category.
Despite being able to create custom post types in WordPress 2.9, there’s no GUI way to do it and it’s not fully supported quite yet. I definitely see the potential but will wait until WP 3.0+ before adding it to ClassiPress. Horse before the cart.
David, thank you and I understand what you say, the UI is crucial.
For the time being, would it be possible for us to take the bulk of information from listers and then we, from the admin, categorise and tag the listings using custom taxonomies prior to publishing?
We do plan on custom SEO per listing, which will be listed on an annual basis, so manually categorising and tagging ads is something I could live with until future versions of both CP and WP.
Hope there’s some flexibility on region pivot, instead of state and region, for example, we’d use it for region>neighborhood. Being too global or even national is perhaps counterproductive, as no one wants to start clicking USA > NYC before even seeing their classifieds page. Different cities/metro areas can always set up as subdomains as CL does.
NYC classifieds
brooklyn manhattan
>williamsburg
Region pivot won’t be available until WordPress fixes a bug which I mentioned above. With CP 3.0, you don’t have to require or even have the country field as an option when submitting a new classified ad. That gives you the choice to have either a global or small regional classified ads site.
Portuguese:
Quero comprar a versão desenvolvedor, hoje, mas instalar somente a versão 3.0.
Pode ser?
Qual Valor?
Qual o procedimento?
Aguardo
Josué
The classifieds themes area is getting hot.
On the look and feel. Have your ported a free drupal 6 site for your theme? That’s what it looks like. 2006 style.
What’s with the charcoal header and footer? Yak. You may love charcoal, but I hate it and its creeping in websites everywhere. Its a downer if you are trying to sell something.
5 color choices?
You don’t show five color choices at all. You show one color choice [charcoal] with 5 different navigation/ highlight colors!
I like the old themes better! Can you still use the old theme colors with CP 3.0?
Your color choices should include header and footer choices, including white, and you should have at least two blues to choose from as this is the biggest color most sales sites choose. Your blue isn’t a true blue to me. Its greeny-blue. If it were a car I won’t but it. I don’t like people laughing at me.
Finally, the home page. Why have you only one choose? If people want a blog look homepage, give them that choice.
If they want a category layout, with sub categories, let them choose that.
If they want a CMS full page layout, let them choose that. How hard can it be?
You seem to be listening to “like to have’s” in your forums, and them making “must have” decisions for all your users. What about the silent majority? Do they get a vote?
Your theme functionality is great, the best classified by far, but making everyone have one look and one layout and one color will please no one. Except maybe your web designer whose favorite color and layout is the only choice you offer.
Rick Adlam
Hi again Rick, I’m sorry you don’t like the new color schemes. There will be a layout that does not include a black main header for each color as well.
You can always hire a designer to change it for you too. Like you mentioned, 3.0 is full of features which to most people, is more important than 20 different color schemes.
It’s hard to please everyone as you can imagine.
OK, now I seen the actual screenshots, I don’t really mind the charcoal. Or the colours. I happen to have blue as my favourite colour [like most blokes] and blue does cover a lot of territory. That’s why having two blues I feel is a good idea. Besides being a personal choice it is said to build trust and therefore is a good theme colour, and have read that a blue gradient background produces better sales results. [Again the market, product or service and or personal choice may have influenced the testing and results.]
And I do feel that the “blog” style layout is a better use of the screen real estate, as it allows to feature other ads and offers and navigation.
So I have bought the template [CP 2.93] and am waiting for the 3.0 release before I mend the site that has a classifieds ad theme from another WP theme provider.
Happy to wait till the theme is good to go.
Rick
Hi! I just bought the Developer License, but will not download or use the current version of CP. Do i automaticly get an e-mail when i can download CP 3.0?
Yes, all customers will be notified when 3.0 is released.
Is it happening today?! 😀
Tomorrow’s the big day. Couldn’t do it on April Fool’s. 😉
The server is ready, a new installation of wp is in place… now I`M ready to download… 😀
I forgot the USA is 6-10 hours behind Norway ;p But still ready!! 😉
David
Question: I plan to upgrade to 3.0 but I haven’t been getting the email updates and I had a computer crash a few months ago which lost everything in my inbox including the ejunkie purchase receipt. What should I do?
thanks in advance
rtibbs4
Love it…!! Hope to have the Norwegian translation done tomorrow! 😉
Discussion is closed.