Recent Blog Posts http://www.open-realty.org/rss_blogposts http://www.open-realty.org/blog/open-realty-30.html MS0xMjc2NTQyMTIw Mon, 14 Jun 2010 15:02:00 -0400  On behalf of Transparent Technologies, Inc., I would like to announce the immediate release and availability of Open-Realty® v3.0.

With this release we have added many new and exciting features and optimizations, and re-written a considerable amount of the core, making this our finest and most powerful version of Open-Realty® to date. We have greatly improved our blogging system, added the ability to automatically post listings and blog posts to Twitter, enhanced our listing editor, rewritten our listing field editor to be much easier to use adding drag and drop support, and we squashed a big pile of bugs that were reported by the community. More than 100 user requested items/improvements were addressed alone. Of no small consequence, we have also changed the Open-Realty® license. Open-Realty® from this point forward will be licensed as a commercial product, backed with available commercial support. I will address our new license changes first, then I will discuss a few of the new features we have added.

]]> http://www.open-realty.org/blog/open-realty®-30-search-engine-optimization.html My0xMjc2NjI0OTE0 Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:01:54 -0400 Open-Realty® 3.0 has introduced a number of new features that improve search engine optimization.  First off, for anyone who does not know what search engine optimization is, wikipedia.org provides a decent description which follows: 

"Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site or a web page (such as a blog) from search engines via "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results as opposed to other forms of search engine marketing ("SEM") which may deal with paid inclusion. The theory is that the earlier (or higher) a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine." 

]]> http://www.open-realty.org/blog/open-realty-302-released.html NS0xMjc2OTA0NjUz Fri, 18 Jun 2010 19:44:13 -0400 We have released Open-Realty 3.0.2 This is the second set of bug fixes, which address all the issues found to date with the Open-Realty 3.0 release. Below is the complete change log. I would like to thank Eduardo (ebmarques) and the other language translators for their continued work on the language file translations. 

Change Log v3.0.2

  • Fixed: invalid javascript on Blog Category Setup that causes a js error in IE8. 
  • Removed orphaned <div> tag in Agent signup that can break custom template designs.
  • Fixed: Clicking on the calendar in Lead manager would show a test email account and not the members real email.
  • Code refactoring.

Change Log v3.0.1

  • Feature: Allow Blog Editors to see posts on front end that are draft/review. Must use the direct link to the blog page from the blog editor,  as draft blogs do not show up on the Blog Index in the site front-end until published.
  • Feature: Allow Blog Editors to bypass comment moderation.
  • Fixed: Notice errors from the User Tracking that would occur on servers with certain PHP configurations.
  • Fixed: The Next/Prev Bar on the Listing Detail Page was broken.
  • Fixed: The Blog Editor would not let Authors save post in DEMO mode.
  • Fixed: Site Config would not allow you to save the search page sort by options.
  • Fixed: Upgrade script was not working from older versions of Open-Realty such as v2.4
  • Fixed: RSS feeds were not displaying.
  • Fixed: Java Listing Templates were not correctly displaying the Main Image on page load, and were using the thumbnails for the main image.
  • Fixed: Prevent a user from assigning a blog category as it's own parent.
  • Fixed: Deleting a Blog Post was leaving behind some orphan information in the db.
  • Fixed: Updated .htaccess file to include Follow Symlinks directive to fix servers where mod rewrite was enabled but this option is off which results in 500 errors.
  • Fixed: We have added support to our licensing system for some broken/poor PHP configurations, namely some servers running PHP in an old CGI method.
  • Fixed: Addon Manager was not working if URL FOPEN was off, this is fixed and it works without FOPEN now.
  • CSS: Adjusted CSS for the slideshow, it was too wide for the template.
  • Template: listing_detail_tabbed.html. It was using the old tab system and was missing the new slideshow tags.
  • Template: search_result_box.html. Change the was we were loading the listing thumbnail so it was correctly linked to the listing.
  • Admin Template: blog_settings_categories.html We have adjusted the column width on this to improve display.
  • Language: Language Files are all back now in this release.
]]> http://www.open-realty.org/blog/upgrading-open-realty-2x-templates-for-open-realty-3x.html Ni0xMjc3MzEzMTY3 Wed, 23 Jun 2010 13:12:47 -0400
 
We have been getting some questions on how to upgrade templates that were built for Open-Realty® 2.x to be compatible with 3.x. I thought I would provide a quick guide on how to upgrade your templates. This quick guide only keeps the overall site design changes made to the main.html template. Any sub templates, like listing_detail_default.html  that were modified will need to be modified again after you complete this quick guide.
 
You should start by making a copy of your custom v2.x template. In the steps below  you will modify this template copy and not your original  template files. This way you have the original files left to compare any other custom changes you may have made to sub templates..  Now that you have your new template copy, follow the steps below.
 
1. Copy all of the .html files from the lazuli template with the exception of main.html into your new template folder. This will ensure that all your sub template are updated to work with 3.x.
 
2. Open up the style_main.css file in lazuli template and copy all of the css starting with line 121 "/* Login and other Stadanrd Button CSS */ " to the end of the file. Paste this into your template's css file below any of your template specific CSS. You should replace any of the Open-Realty® 2.x CSS in the file that does not pertain to your specific template. 
 
3 .Edit your templates main.html file, and ensure it contains the following lines inside of the <head> tags.
 
 
<title>{site_title}</title>
{load_meta_description}
{load_meta_keywords}
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset={charset}" />
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7" />
<meta name="robots" content="{meta_index},{meta_follow}" />
{meta_canonical_block}<link rel="canonical" href="{canonical_link}" />{/meta_canonical_block}
<meta name="Generator" content="Open-Realty" />
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="{template_url}/images/favicon.ico" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="{company_name} - Last Modified Listings RSS Feed" href="{rss_lastmodified}" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="{company_name} - Featured Listings RSS Feed" href="{rss_featured}" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="{company_name} - Recent Blog Posts" href="{rss_blog_posts}" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="{company_name} - Recent Blog Comments" href="{rss_blog_comments}" />
{ load_js }
 
 
4. Last, ensure that right before the </body> tag in your main.html file you have this tag
 
{ load_js_last }
 
That should upgrade your template to 3.x, you may now make any css adjustments, or sub template modification that you wish to make. I suggest if you modify your CSS, to make upgrading easier that you clearly mark the start and end of your custom CSS with comments, this way as update happen and there are css changes that you can quickly copy and paste your custom css into new files..
 
In the code above { load_js } and { load_js_last } have spaces before the opening and closing curly brackets, remove those in your file they are there to prevent the template engine from trying to parse the tags in our blog post.
 

Ryan Bonham is the CEO and Lead developer of Transparent Technologies, Inc.

This page was created entirely with the Open-Realty® real estate Blog Publisher

]]> http://www.open-realty.org/blog/open-realty®-v303-released.html Ny0xMjc3NzY1NjI0 Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:53:44 -0400 We have released Open-Realty 3.0.3 This is the third set of bug fixes, which address all the issues found to date with the Open-Realty 3.0 release. Below is the complete change log. This 3.0 release should be very stable at this point, so if you were waiting to try it out I would say now is a good time.

Change Log v3.0.3

  • Fixed: Installer errors on servers running MySQL in SQL mode - "STRICT_TRANS_TABLES,NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER,NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION"
  • Fixed:  URL Parsing for shortened Blog & Listing URLs  used for twittering.
  • Fixed: If you make the contact agent link a popup it will not retain the popup=yes template switch on submission
  • Fixed: Fix UTF8 Handling on Site Config Pages.
  • Fixed: Blog, Improve UTF-8 Support with Category/Tag Display
  • Fixed: template_url and base_url are always saved as the correct tags in the database now, instead of being converted to the URL. 
  • Fixed: template_url on blog and page editor now correctly points to the user template url and not the admin template url.
  • Template: contact_agent.html - Removed <table> tags that were not needed and were breaking the layout in IE if opened in a popup.
  • Template: Listing_detail_default.html - Fix float issue with default listing detail template in FF & Chrome.
  • Admin Template: Force IE8 into IE-8 mode even if compatiblity mode is on.
  • Language: Updated BR, EN, FR,  PT 3_0_0.inc.php language file.  (Thanks Eduardo)
]]> http://www.open-realty.org/blog/open-realty®-304.html OC0xMjgxMjkzODIw Sun, 08 Aug 2010 14:57:00 -0400 We have released Open-Realty® 3.0.4.  This release contains a number of bug fixes, as well as some very exciting new features.

One Click Upgrade 

Your Open-Realty® administrator can install future updates for Open-Realty® by clicking a link from your Open-Realty® admin page. This single click will download any new files as well as update your database to the latest version. This feature should make keeping your site on the latest release of Open-Realty much easier. 

Open-Realty® API

For add-on developers and anyone wishing to do integrations with third party software, we have introduced something very exciting. Developers can now interact with Open-Realty® data using the Open-Realty® API, to do things like insert listing images, create listings, and create property classes. We will be working to introduce new API commands with each release. Open-Realty® will itself be using these API commands, as will all of our own add-ons. The Open-Realty® API allows for connections not only locally, but from authorized remote sites as well. 

RETS , IDX and Google Maps for Open-Realty® 3.x

We are also releasing new versions of TransparentRETS, IDXManager,   and TransparentMaps addons for Open-Realty 3.0. 

]]> http://www.open-realty.org/blog/open-realty-305.html OS0xMjgyMzQxOTI0 Fri, 20 Aug 2010 18:05:24 -0400 We have released Open-Realty® v3.0.5.  This release contains a security fix. All Open-Realty users are strongly encouraged to update to this latest release.  Along with the security fix, we have introduced the following new features.

New search page template tag

The Open-Realty search page now includes a template tag , which the site visitor to search for lising added in the last X number of days.

New Open-Realty API Command

twitter__post  - For posting messages to twitter via the Open-Realty API.

New Sitemap XML Generation

Open-Realty will generate a sitemap of all listings, pages, and blogs on your site. Trigger manually or via CRON using: 

admin/index.php?action=generate_sitemap

 

]]> http://www.open-realty.org/blog/open-realty-306-released.html MTAtMTI4Mjg0MTEzOQ== Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:45:39 -0400
Open-Realty® v3.0.6 has been released. This release is contains bug fixes to correct a couple of issues with the v3.0.5 release. It is important to note that this Open-Realty® release now includes a robots.txt file, if your site already has a robots.txt file please make sure to backup that file before you upgrade.

 

]]>