Good day everyone! First off, I hope this groups is active. I have alot to learn about classifieds and this seemed to be the likely place to learn it.
Approximately 3 months ago I decided to create a classified ad site for a larger niche area (the Midwestern United States) and ended up creating a big headache for myself. -Now that its almost complete I cant complain too much as I learned alot during the whole experience. It seems that there are many, many ways one can do this with drupal, but also it seemed to me that making it user friendly AND admin friendly was not an easy task. All in all, my 3-4 months building this site is relatively short compared to what went into my first drupal site, and having "pre-knowledge" of drupal and its contributed modules can greatly increase the chance that one would stay on a project like this. I must tip my hat/head to those who have created and maintained these select modules that have made it possible: (forgive me if I do not state their names)
Dries of course for Drupal itself,... views, panels, ctools, cck, ubercart (and ALL it extras), imagecache (and extras), location, the awesome administration menu module (cant live without it!), context, taxonomy manager, the ever frustrating but necessary taxonomy menu, quick tabs, and the wonderful CCK blocks module (a must for a classifieds site!! Imho)
These few modules are what makes my classifieds site tick. Of course there are several other modules that I have not listed that are integral as well.
I have a few odds and ends to clean up and a few pages to create and still yet I need additional input on how to make this site great. Hopefully I can get some clear advice and suggestions here. I have had it online now for about three weeks and have a few ads. Many more in the future I hope! -Please take a look and see what you think.
http://www.midwestbargainhunter.com/
Comments
common interest
nurrad,
I am about to embark on a similar journey. Kudos to you for sticking with it. I started a project about six months ago, and had to put it down until a got better input.
Is yours complete and functional?
I'm in the process of building a demo for a Classifieds site to be able to prove I can (that Drupal can) do so. So far I have no problem with getting ads onto the site, it's setting it up so that a user can contact the ad creator that is a problem.
I'm assuming that you need to become a member to post an ad?
I'm trying to follow the CL/Kijiji model by allowing people to post without being registered. That is probably possible, though it's probably easier to get working if you require registration as I've hit a wall when it comes to anonymous responding ala CL.
If I get mine functional, the first thing I'll probably do is write a book on how to setup a classifieds site to challenge Craig's List ;)
Although I do want anonymous posting/responding, I have a few ideas to encourage people to register. Anonymous postings might get delayed, or registered member ads get featured.
The "classifiQ" vaporware module seemed to be a perfect solution if any work was actually done on it. Would be nice to have development of that again, but alas I'm still learning the basics of theming. I have a good handle on html. css and php on the other hand threaten to give me headaches when I actually try to sit down to understand them.
Note: getting this error when I go to the site.
warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home2/mostat5/public_html/midwestbargainhunter.com/includes/menu.inc on line 743.