A new project for me - could be useful for here, feedback welcome

[Guest Close Quarterbore]

As most should know, we have a heavily customized classified script on the site. What may not be known is that this was originally programed by a very skilled youth who I helped design and program the script. We also paid a decent sum of money to influence some of the design elements to allow the script to do some of the things we can do.

The developer who I was working with launched the script as a product that was available for other websites. He sold quite a few licenses but the script had some major limitations that required extensive work to address. The developer, who just turned 15, got really frustrated and simply shut down his website and stopped supporting the product.

Well, because I spent most of my free time for almost 4-months getting our classifieds running through modifying the classified code and fixing the bugs I knew the script quite well. Perhaps not quite as well as the developer but well enough that I was able to help other webmasters fix their problems. When the developer turned off his site I got a lot of requests to create a new script or take over the script that I had assisted to build.

Well, a week ago I finally managed to get agreement from the developer to sell me the rights to the script. He had stopped supporting the script for several months and I think he realized that his reputation was getting trashed by his move to shut things down and was looking for a way out.

Now, why am I telling this story? Well, I have been working on fixing the bugs and design limitations and I plan to move my new version of the classified script over to this site when it is bug free. So, this is a chance for all of you as users of the classifieds on this site to get access to the new developer (that would be me) to help make suggestions for things that should be included.

Some of the new features that will be included are things like:

More Ad Types:
- Buy
- Sell
- Free
- Trade
- Auction
- Reverse Auction (Say Looking for lowest offer to sell me one of your TS4MS mugs!)
- Personnels (not on this site)

There will be two levels of categories available to make it easier for people to find what they are looking for. The image upload code, which I hate as it is on our site, will be redone and the general look of the ads will be improved.

At the moment I am busy recoding the auction code as the code the way it was written did not work and it is the reason I never used it here!

Well, I could ramble on and on about this project but let me share what it looks like so far. You will note it looks a lot like our site. That is because I programed our look and I created a layout I liked so I am reusing the design elements for my initial release of my new product:

http://www.vbclassified.com/vbclassified.php

If anybody wants to help test, you will need to register on that site and with registration you will get 30-credits so you can test things out. The auction code still does not work like an Ebay style auction (currently it is an open-bid type auction) but I am recoding that at this time.

Thanks for any feedback as this script will be what will be running on this website at some point in the future!

[Carol C Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Carol C]

I guess you'll have a "Rent" category and that was just an accident leaving it out. But how about something like "Split Week" or "Share a Week"?

[Guest Close Quarterbore]

I guess you'll have a "Rent" category and that was just an accident leaving it out. But how about something like "Split Week" or "Share a Week"?

That would be specific to here, but YES the way I am writing the script will allow a unique Ad type to be created...

In your example, I could set "Share a Week" as a type of listing but as an admin I would need to define if I would want that type to be a fixed price, auction, or ???

In an example like that, it might be best to handle an ad for:

"For Rent" Looking to share 4-bedroom Lock-Out unit (2BRs per lockout)

The new Adtypes would allow a webmaster to create a AdType like:

Programer For Hire - Fixed Price

When used, the listing would allow the programer to define what their hourly costs are (or they can use description)

or

Programing Bid - Closed Bid

Ad might say: Looking for bids to build a timeshare website including forums, resorts database, reviews area, links directory, classifieds, photoserver, chat server, trouble ticket system, etc. Bidders will be contacted after the bid period has ended for referals and samples of work completed. Experienced coders ONLY should bid. Contract will be decided on price and previous work completed.

The problem is creating an open ended code that can be expanded as necessary to handle any type of listing PLUS create the script in a way that the code can support multiple languages which is critical for me to sell this worldwide.