Posted by ckosloff on August 6, 2012 at 3:48am
I dunno where to start, drealty documentation is non-existent, no real support.
On the other hand, open-realty has been in the business for a long time, and have lots of (costly) apps, but who cares if they help with business.
Any input appreciated.
Comments
You're right, the drealty
You're right, the drealty documentation is a bit lacking, i would welcome you to help change that, i am 100% open to you starting to contribute to the documentation. You can get started here:
http://drupal.org/node/1536882
If you need some questions answered, or have other concerns about the drealty module you can always join us on IRC in the #drupal-realestate channel on freenode.
Additionally, when most people need support they typically post in the issue queue, which is very active, however if you need some hand holding, i would be more than happy to provide you with a myriad of paid support options.
I sent a message via your
I sent a message via your contact form at designmidwest, which never was answered, contrary to that Transparent answered my email practically immediately.
I am testing both, trying to make up my mind, open-realty seems more mature and on target, since it is a specialized app.
I followed your video in vimeo, and got stuck half way, joined the IRC channel, nobody was there.
How post to the issue queue? That would be a nice place to start.
Regarding paid options, nothing wrong with that, open-realty offers that too, my problem is that I have to decide which way to go before I put some money on either one.
So far, I gave my realtor board $300 for the RETS feed, and have not been able to do anything with that.
If you could post the second video you promised or work on docs a bit more that might tip the scale your way, because I really need to get that feed going.
The email you sent via
The email you sent via designmidwest contact for was a request for support on drealty. All drealty support is handled on the d.o drealty project page / issue queue for drealty.
I purposely don't answer or reply to support requests via design midwest. If you have support related questions, use the issue queue, drealty is no different than any other module offered up on d.o
As for your original question, which i don't think there really is one, it's a personal preference, use whichever one you prefer...
It sounds as if you're going to be leaning towards Transparent-Tech / Open-Realty because i really don't have time to 'work on the docs' or create and 'post the second video', as i'm busy actively developing drealty and implementing it for my clients, and then sharing that code with the drupal community. My apologies for not making it easy enough for you to understand and work with, the target audience for this module is not a broker or an agent, it's a php / drupal professional
Be thankful that i have decided to share the module with the community, also be thankful that kevinquillen @inclind, TwoD, and the other contributors have taken their time to post patches, and make improvements
so with that, go with whichever solution you want
/my 2 cents
What I posted on
What I posted on designmidwest's contact form was not a request for support.
Actually I was looking for (paid) help on setting it up on a Linode.
What you just now lengthily wrote about the issue queue (after I publicly posted), you could have answered in a few lines, instead of ignoring my request.
I did not know that you selectively targeted php/drupal pros or paying clients, so I think that I will have to move to a more user-friendly environment.
This is all relatively
This is all relatively overblown- point blank the two of us have been super busy on real estate projects, so its hard to just stop everything and answer each email(s).
We do actively monitor the issue queue and IRC.
An answer to your original question...if there was one
ckosloff you said that you do not know where to start.
The best place to start is by installing the module adding a connection and running the test.
If you can connect to the server you then can start the process of debugging your specific MLS connections. One of the biggest propblems I have found is that some MLS providers do not allow offset. Doesn't seem like a very big deal but when you are trying to import of 65K listings it's a huge deal.
You will find that open realty has some challenges as well. If you do not know how to debug the connection, I am afraid drealty is not for you at this time. You would be better suited to find a prebuilt solution like openrealty or even a different backend like WP. There are a lot of options in those other environments. I am not trying to steer you away from drealty. I am trying to be realistic in helping you establish proper expectations of a module that is in beta.
Drealty is being built from a totally different approach and will allow the developer/users to harness some amazingly powerful features when complete. The module needs to be flexible for the user but also to stay in compliance with the MLS rules that vary from county to county or state to state.
Drealty has come a very long way in a short amount of time. One of the biggest hangups has to do more with the real estate industry and the RETS Protocol which most mls systems follow very loosely. I could go on for hours on this one.
Ultimately if you would like answers all you have to do is ask questions with details about the problem and what would be the right solution.
It may take a while to get an answer but eventually you will get one.
Yes, there was a question. I
Yes, there was a question.
I wanted a comparison between drealty and OR, pros and cons, etc.
Thanks for your detailed post, it helped.
"Drealty has come a very long
"Drealty has come a very long way in a short amount of time. One of the biggest hangups has to do more with the real estate industry and the RETS Protocol which most mls systems follow very loosely. I could go on for hours on this one."
This is a major plague on any implementor. We like to ask many people in many areas of the country of different vendors to provide feedback because we learn a bit about each when they do.
The biggest flaw with RETS is that while its written down as a standard, its not so well followed by different vendors. This is why we need or like to have issues or IRC chats to discuss problems because it can be different person to person.
This is what makes Views/Searching/Filtering etc something that can't be (or not as of yet) able to be provided out of the box. The tools exist to create connections, create property types (bundles), create fields and map them to RETS fields on your vendor. You can then import them, and do what you choose with the data.
I have tried some WP
I have tried some WP solutions and not convinced at all.
Yes, OR has challenges too.
About drealty I will test it in my local server and tweak memory for it in a Virtual Host.
Nothing is final about any decision for the website, if I find a better solution I will keep it.
Problem is that to get drealty live I need a VPS, I have never managed one, would have to migrate email, etc., and I really don't have time now.
Linode seems a nice solution but I would need help to get started.
Finally, please post a link to the issue queue.
For real? OK here you
For real? OK here you go:
https://drupal.org/project/issues/drealty
For VPS, I use knownhost -
For VPS, I use knownhost - which has affordable managed VPS. Very simple to administer, and I haven't had any downtime in a number of years.
I've created a number of real estate sites - using joomla, wordpress, open-realty and I built a few non-production ones in drupal. Drupal is a longer term investment - as it's upgrade path is a much slower process than Wordpress - especially modules, they tend to be well behind the core version. Additionally, there's not a clear path of upgrade between versions of Drupal - so you have to be in it for the long haul.
That being said, it is robust. If you can think it, you can likely accomplish it with a Drupal site.
However, it is a more technical solution than open-realty or Wordpress. I would say it's not impossible to create a Drupal site without technical knowledge, but the whole way Drupal works and operates from options, settings, etc. is a very technically minded approach (it's less GUI oriented and can sometimes be hard to wrap your mind around).
A good comparison would be where the others are like a Mac or Windows (pros and cons) - Drupal is like linux (takes getting your hands dirty and is a completely different approach than the others)
good luck!
"Drupal is like linux..." I
"Drupal is like linux..."
I am a Linux addict and fan, I use the Debian testing branch in my production system, and plan moving other machines to sid.
So, if Drupal is like Linux I am all for it, and think drush is something that the other systems lack.
Having said that, I think that for the time being I will be going the OR way, I need quick deployment, I am also a broker and have many ongoing projects.
My doubt is that I only have one RETS access, and if I connect it live to OR I will not be able to test drealty and get my hands dirty with it.
So, is it possible to use my credentials both in a live site and a local one?
I will ask this question to my realtor board too, they supply the RETS feed.
Regarding WP, I tried Placester and could not even get a decent working nested menu, and I was on the paid version.
Tech support said that they were working on it, it might have improved after that, but I am already gone.
It is likely that you will be
It is likely that you will be able to use your RETS authentication on multiple platforms, and I've never had any security issues with my MLS, although I suppose yours may be different. How were you able to connect OR to RETS? Using their paid integration, or using the free VieleRETS? I used and tested Viele before Transparent released their paid integration solution, and it was somewhat daunting to set up, with my limited skill at the time.
I think if you are familiar with developing for Drupal, there is no reason for you to continue using OR. If you are not yet very familiar with Drupal, I would suggest learning the basics first. I found the OR community reached a standstill when it abandoned the GPL right around the time that so many powerful web frameworks began cropping up, and never blossomed when it came to furthering the robustness of OR. OR is a standalone real estate solution with very minimal features as a CMS or web development framework, which in turn requires extra work in integrating it into the rest of your project. Think of Drealty like an Excel Macro, a web browser Extension, or a Photoshop plugin; you will understand its full capabilities as soon as you learn your way around Excel, Chrome, Photoshop or Drupal, and as soon as you realize how those extensions/plugins are hooked into a great many features throughout their host application.
Drealty has been around for two years, and the user base has been growing, so I think you can look forward to things improving as popularity grows, and more developers take interest. I think if more people were aware of us, they would join us. Spread the word, plant a seed and watch it grow.