Different ways to create classified ads

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sodani's picture

There are currently a couple of different ways to create classified ads in Drupal. Here they are:

CCK and Views

On the classified section for my site, I'm using CCK, Views and Contemplate (Content Template). CCK allows me to create a node type (classifieds in this case) and determine what fields I want in it. Content Template allows me to display how I want the ad itself to look, and Views allows me to create a list, and have users filter it and find only the listings they want.

Here is what my classifieds page looks like

Here is what an individual ad looks like. Notice that a bunch of the fields are in a table. That is the work of Contemplate.

Flexinode and Views

Here's a how-to guide on doing it this way. Although I've never used Flexinode, it apparently allows you to create content types, although perhaps it's not as robust as CCK. If you also follow the example that's given, you'll notice that the individual ads aren't styled, so I'm not sure if styling is possible with this method.

Module?

There seems to be discussion of creating a module here, here and here. However, I'm not sure what the progress is.

Comments

classified.module

mcurry's picture

I've got the basics of a simple classified ads module up and running on goatseeker.com and a few other sites. It's text-only, but you can use upload_image.module to create a simple photo ads system (as I'm doing on goatseeker.com).

Why not use CCK/Flexinode etc? Well, when I'm setting up a site, I just want to get in and drive, not build a car, so wanted to have a plug-and-play module I could drop in to any of my sites w/o too much config/admin hassle. (Plus, I don't have experience with CCK/Flexinode, and this was an excellent introduction to building a drupal module.)

As it's not quite ready for prime-time (needs more work to get it to the point where it's drupal.org-quality, I'm looking for a "reverse bounty" to get it to the point where it's ready for release to the community (I hope I can get it hosted on drupal.org). More info here.

-Mike

What I'm seeing there looks

sodani's picture

What I'm seeing there looks pretty similar to what you'd get by using CCK/Views, except I guess you're doing it with one module. Any information on differences would be great.

Also, what other modules are you using on those classified ads? I think I see the location module.

Yes, location

Anonymous's picture

Yes, I'm using location.module and upload_image (and gmap module, too).

Regarding similarity to CCK, I imagine you can implement the basic stuff using CCK, but then, there's all that glue and 'wiring' that you need - email notifications & reminders for expiring ads, ad blocks, per-user lists of classified ads, administrative lists of classifieds, etc. - again, may be doable using CCK and one or more other add-in modules, but as I said, I would rather spend that time developing a module, and then be able to drop it in to ten sites with little effort. I'm after low TCO, not necessarily quickest path to first implementation.

If I was only managing a single site, I think that I'd probably use CCK and glue modules together to get what I wanted.

When I start experimenting with CCK (soon, I think) I'll try to provide feedback on similarities/differences.

-Mike

mcurry's picture

Sorry for the delay. Finally got around to committing it to Drupal CVS and creating a project page:

http://drupal.org/project/ed_classified
http://exodusdev.com/drupal/modules/ed_classified.module

Michael Curry
Exodus Development | Drupal and other developer info

Drupal 6 port

milesgillham's picture

The D6 branch is moving ahead with an alpha release out.

Cheers,

Miles Gillham

www.rideastride.com

Miles Gillham

Now for Drupal 7 too

fgm's picture

Versions 6.3 and 7.3 are in beta: feel free to review.

Error page

simeonabiola's picture

I am get this error with ads classified ads module
EntityFieldQueryException: Unknown field: classified_category in EntityFieldQuery->addFieldCondition() (line 767 of /home/talkoauc/public_html/includes/entity.inc).
Is the any round it.
my the link is www.talkoau.com/classified

GDO is not for issue tracking

fgm's picture

@simeonabiola: please open an issue on the Classified issue tracker at http://drupal.org/node/add/project-issue/ed_classified , explaning how to reproduce the problem, so we can identify and fix it. It looks like you deleted the category field which the module installs.

GDO is not the place for this.

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