Version 4.0 Feature Requests and Discussion

[nickmattern]

Any functionality you want in version 4 should be discussed here! We'll shoot for a 4.0 release between Thanksgiving and Christmas 09

[doug102938]

My Suggestion from Earlier this year I think is still a good one. Thought id bring it back up

How about the ability to write a sentence like this
The {fat|stupid|pretty} {fox|deer|mother} {rode on|ate|made love to} a duck.

You get the idea.. ala Jet Spinner if you will. Also be able to import the database variables.. being able to import the databases is great but it leaves a pattern. If you can custom spin the content in a controlled manner... as well and import the CSV fields you are opened up to a whole new ball game of unique content minus the footprints... I would love to see this in a 2.x release

People sometimes refer this as madlibs and they also refer to the database variable import (what the plugin does now) as madlibs.. Yes you could just add a column of nouns and verbs or whatever you needed to your content database but that becomes cumbersome and overkill very fast and not as easy to randomize. You can get really creative with this and double bracket statements and have multiple sentence choices with multiple entries inside of it as well.

[larrybn]

Lets take a look at two of the features of WFreview for a sec:

- Add ratings to comments
- Add affiliate links into text

Each one of these features can be done by other wordpress plugins which are free. (I admit they may not be as good, just read the read the rest and you'll see my point)


But lets take a look at some of the features which cannot be found elsewhere for free (at least not to my knowledge):

- CSV import to create posts which are distributed over a time period
- Generating ratings automatically

Both of these are essentially tools for automatically adding content and therefore value to your site and I LOVE them. In my opinion these type of features are what sets WFReview away from the competition and I feel they need to be developed more. Content spinning is just the next step. The rival to WFreview (WPReviewSite) already offers content spinning for automated comments.

Personally I feel for SEO benefits as much as anything else, that content spinning for posts especially when linked in with the already kickass csv import would be absolutely killer.

[nickmattern]

Larry,

You're 100% right about the aff links and the other thing. But that's not why people buy WFReview.

The CSV import and ratings generator is the most popular feature.

For 3.0, this is what we've done:



Scheduled Improts. We made a CRON for imports. You can schedule them to run any time: every X days, weeks, or months.
FTP importing. Have a remote FTP? No problem, you can import it.
Google maps with panning/zoom/directions support
Google Snippets
Highly optimized CSV Import. 100/posts per second is what we're currently at, and we'll continue to optimize this.
And a few other minor tweaks/goodies.

Keep in mind WPReviewEngine is buggy as fuck. We have 2-3 people a WEEK come over from his camp and the stories I've heard are nothing but terrible support, 1-2 days for responses, etc. We have a 10 month perfect track record (Minus the months I wasn't involved!) of darn near instant support and customer satisfaction.

In all fairness, content spinning from CSV isn't out of the question, but if we're going to do it, I would like the userbase to define the feature set, not me.

If you guys want it, please detail exactly what you want and how it should work. We'll collect those and make it happen.

[medicalhumor]

I like the ability to have sponsored listings show up first and have the user be able to create his own listing and pay via paypal or whatever.
I think you mentioned this was coming out previously, but got spun into a different plugin altogether.
Will that be available in WFReview 3.0, or will it be a new plugin?

[larrybn]

Larry,

Scheduled Improts. We made a CRON for imports. You can schedule them to run any time: every X days, weeks, or months.
FTP importing. Have a remote FTP? No problem, you can import it.
Google maps with panning/zoom/directions support
Google Snippets
Highly optimized CSV Import. 100/posts per second is what we're currently at, and we'll continue to optimize this.
And a few other minor tweaks/goodies.



Nick when you speak I just hear music...

[larrybn]

Also is this bullshit or something that could actually help with SEO?

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=146645

[jklein]

I've been waiting for the premium placements plugin for over five months. What is the status of the plugin?
Thanks

[nickmattern]

I've been waiting for the premium placements plugin for over five months. What is the status of the plugin?
Thanks


Yes, I have some good news on the plugin, it is in development NOW and will be released by October 15th.

Thanks for all who were patient, it'll kickass like nothing has ever kicked ass before!

[gwkg]

Also is this bullshit or something that could actually help with SEO?

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=146645

I think that formatting should definitely be integrated into plugin. If Google asks for information in a certain format, there is no reason not to give it to them.

But lets take a look at some of the features which cannot be found elsewhere for free (at least not to my knowledge):

- CSV import to create posts which are distributed over a time period
- Generating ratings automatically

Both of these are essentially tools for automatically adding content and therefore value to your site and I LOVE them. In my opinion these type of features are what sets WFReview away from the competition and I feel they need to be developed more. Content spinning is just the next step. The rival to WFreview (WPReviewSite) already offers content spinning for automated comments.

I agree. And after using the plugin again today, I cannot help but bring up an early proposal that you have greater control over the commenters.

Right now you can either choose: Male, Female or Both. It would be simple to have a text box next to there to add a percentage that would let me generate 80% Male and 20% Female names.

Of course, I would like it to be a lot more robust than, that, as I mentioned in an earlier post. But its definitely a start in the right direction.

[larrybn]

---Quote (Originally by gwkg)---
I agree. And after using the plugin again today, I cannot help but bring up an early proposal that you have greater control over the commenters.

Right now you can either choose: Male, Female or Both. It would be simple to have a text box next to there to add a percentage that would let me generate 80% Male and 20% Female names.
---End Quote---
I'm sorry but that's completely pointless. Lets not divert Nick and Ryan (Ryan still working on it?) with this rubbish.

If you really wanted to do that you could just add some male names to the female names list. Job done.

[nickmattern]

I think that formatting should definitely be integrated into plugin. If Google asks for information in a certain format, there is no reason not to give it to them.




Right now you can either choose: Male, Female or Both. It would be simple to have a text box next to there to add a percentage that would let me generate 80% Male and 20% Female names.


The snippets code? It's in 3.0!

The % of male/female is an interesting concept. Larry brings up a good point, but it's not that hard to throw the names in a DB and do a % split. Let me sit on that one!

Ryan is still working on it. I only use the best!

[denny]

My Suggestion from Earlier this year I think is still a good one. Thought id bring it back up

Second vote on this one.

[nickmattern]

We are definitely looking at adlib support for version 4. I do want you guys to detail how you want it to work and what you want it all to do before we go further!

[BeerNuts]

As mentioned over AIM I am moving this to the public at the request of nick.

Quick run down, I was asking if they were going to open wfreview to 3rd party apps since I had the idea of making it possible to use multipile datafeeds and make a price compare site along the lines of price grabber and such. I was going to do though the trouble of writing this thing my self but I just realized that wfreview already has the code to do this!

Now then here is the idea. Since all datafeeds have SKU number that do not change from merchant to merchant it would just be a matter of matching the SKU and then adding the new company/price/link to the template. This 'could' be done by merging all the csv's together with some sort of compare bull shit but wfreview already has a compare and update system as of v3.0. The ID system. The ID system was designed to update posts based on a field i.e. Name or SKU but this system was made to replace the old post with a new one rather than adding to the post.

But with the ID system modified to only update the post template with new fields it would be possible to upload like 10-50 datafeeds, and have the system auto add the new company/price/buylink from all the feeds by matching the sku. This could be accomplished by making a new update import template just for these auto updates and by rewritting the code for the ID system to be a new system that only added to the template.

If this works this could be the most massive change to the entire wfreview plugin giving it an entirely new feature and would make this script near priceless with the ability to auto generate price compare sites in seconds if not automatically with a datafeed webupdate feature with a cron job.

Discuss.

[Xdreamer]

Any chance to make this plugin compatible with headspace (http://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/headspace2/)2? I would love to get a datafeeds description field (if existing) placed as meta description into each post. Also using the title as the meta keyword. A great addition would be generating tags based on your different post titles (which could be used as meta keywords also).

[nickmattern]

Any chance to make this plugin compatible with headspace (http://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/headspace2/)2? I would love to get a datafeeds description field (if existing) placed as meta description into each post. Also using the title as the meta keyword. A great addition would be generating tags based on your different post titles (which could be used as meta keywords also).

You can throw datafields into custom fields very easily, but adding them to other plugins is not possible at this point.

See if you can't get the other plugin to make a datafield enhancement, then it'd work smashingly!

[Steve]

Now then here is the idea. Since all datafeeds have SKU number that do not change from merchant to merchant it would just be a matter of matching the SKU and then adding the new company/price/link to the template.
The SKU is an internal number each merchant assigns to a product. You're thinking of a UPC that is assigned by the manufacturer. Not every merchant publishes the UPC in the datafeed. I'm dealing with a few merchants now trying to get them to add the UPC so I can accomplish what you describe.

[larrybn]

As mentioned over AIM I am moving this to the public at the request of nick.

Quick run down, I was asking if they were going to open wfreview to 3rd party apps since I had the idea of making it possible to use multipile datafeeds and make a price compare site along the lines of price grabber and such. I was going to do though the trouble of writing this thing my self but I just realized that wfreview already has the code to do this!

Now then here is the idea. Since all datafeeds have SKU number that do not change from merchant to merchant it would just be a matter of matching the SKU and then adding the new company/price/link to the template. This 'could' be done by merging all the csv's together with some sort of compare bull shit but wfreview already has a compare and update system as of v3.0. The ID system. The ID system was designed to update posts based on a field i.e. Name or SKU but this system was made to replace the old post with a new one rather than adding to the post.

But with the ID system modified to only update the post template with new fields it would be possible to upload like 10-50 datafeeds, and have the system auto add the new company/price/buylink from all the feeds by matching the sku. This could be accomplished by making a new update import template just for these auto updates and by rewritting the code for the ID system to be a new system that only added to the template.

If this works this could be the most massive change to the entire wfreview plugin giving it an entirely new feature and would make this script near priceless with the ability to auto generate price compare sites in seconds if not automatically with a datafeed webupdate feature with a cron job.

Discuss.

I don't fully understand, but it sounds awesome.

[ClarkeW]

I'd never really thought about it that way, but I agree it would be priceless if something like that became possible.

[optimizedads]

Okay, maybe I'm off base here, correct me if I'm wrong or dumb guys :)

I upgraded a couple of my sites tonight, and because I wanted to get the maps integration going for all of them, I had to remove my previous inserted records, and then re-add them.

Now, when I went to go remove my old posts, of course this deleted all the legitament comments too - this particular site only had like 3 or 4 so no big loss, but still something to think about.

Is there a way maybe when re-uploading, or replacing the existing posts, we can delete all old posts, but KEEP comments somehow, or maybe attribute the post id in the uploaded CSV as a number so we continually overwrite the same one?

Maybe I missed something in the importing and this is already doable, but if not, would probably be a worthy feature addition.

Oh, and maybe some finer grain control over the placements of the reviews too, like if we could specify float left, or right, and if we wanted to only show "overall review" instead of all of the combinations of stars that make the overall (for example if we wanted the "overall" rating with x stars at the top of the post, and the full overall rating with category ratings at the bottom of the post).

Maybe more to come if I can think of some :)

[larrybn]

Oh, and maybe some finer grain control over the placements of the reviews too, like if we could specify float left, or right, and if we wanted to only show "overall review" instead of all of the combinations of stars that make the overall (for example if we wanted the "overall" rating with x stars at the top of the post, and the full overall rating with category ratings at the bottom of the post).

Well you can do some of that with the CSS, but not much. I too would like greater control over the look and feel of ratings.

[Crack]

First time, long time everyone... love the forum...

Haha just kidding. Who am I kidding. I can't hide anywhere with this fucking name.

Sup everybody. This shit's like Wicked Fire but with different skin! I'm seeing everybody I feel like I'm in Kansas again with Toto.

Anyway, I'm not sure if this is already a feature or not because I'm still in the process of cleaning up my mess that I made when I started using this plugin again. But I request that if the data that you scrape includes like an aggregated number/grade for the particular products/services that's been averaged already from all across the Internet, that you can somehow have the automatic star ratings stay consistent with this.

For instance, I'm doing a video game review site right now and am using metacritic.com and the other game rankings site to get most of the raw, basic data. If you go here: http://www.metacritic.com/games/xbox360/alpha/ you'll see that each game already has a number score that's been averaged from pretty much every review all across the known universe. If somehow, we could have the star ratings stay somewhat consistent (eg: 75 would be 2.5 stars, an A- would be 4/4.5 stars etc) that would be frigging awesome. :cool:

If it's impossible then whatever, it's not too big a deal. It's not like there isn't 1,508 other ways to somehow make a money-making site with this little fucker. Sorry if we're not supposed to swear on here also, or if anyone is offended by them. :rolleyes:

[optimizedads]

Couple more;

- I can save a template with the same name as an existing (should not let me, and or warn me that it's going to overwrite and overwrite).
- Should have the option to delete or rename templates

Just upgraded about 8 sites and this is all I can come up with including the previous couple I mentioned (the comments was a bitch, I had to search through every one with a "." in it (for the ip), save the page(s) as html, and then reimport my items, and then visit each page and add my comment..)

:)

[picard75]

I'm not a customer yet (taking a look to decide between WPReviewEngine and this), but I just want to stand on a chair and shout "yes!" at this.

It would accomplish a lot that I have in mind. Specifically, not creating 5 separate posts if the same t-shirt is sold at 5 different sites.

I don't know if it's possible, but some kind of stock check feature would make this gold. If the datafeeds can be uploaded each week, and there's some check to see what's in stock compared with last week so that old stuff can automatically be marked as such - that would be heaven.

Also, a secondary suggestion to Crack's: being able to include reviews from other sites and spin them would make this a no brainer. I'm not sure if the A/75/Love It type of reviews can be automated for star conversion - probably would have to be a manual find and replace on a CSV - but being able to pre-pop with semi real reviews would be something else that really sets this apart.


As mentioned over AIM I am moving this to the public at the request of nick.

Quick run down, I was asking if they were going to open wfreview to 3rd party apps since I had the idea of making it possible to use multipile datafeeds and make a price compare site along the lines of price grabber and such. I was going to do though the trouble of writing this thing my self but I just realized that wfreview already has the code to do this!

Now then here is the idea. Since all datafeeds have SKU number that do not change from merchant to merchant it would just be a matter of matching the SKU and then adding the new company/price/link to the template. This 'could' be done by merging all the csv's together with some sort of compare bull shit but wfreview already has a compare and update system as of v3.0. The ID system. The ID system was designed to update posts based on a field i.e. Name or SKU but this system was made to replace the old post with a new one rather than adding to the post.

But with the ID system modified to only update the post template with new fields it would be possible to upload like 10-50 datafeeds, and have the system auto add the new company/price/buylink from all the feeds by matching the sku. This could be accomplished by making a new update import template just for these auto updates and by rewritting the code for the ID system to be a new system that only added to the template.

If this works this could be the most massive change to the entire wfreview plugin giving it an entirely new feature and would make this script near priceless with the ability to auto generate price compare sites in seconds if not automatically with a datafeed webupdate feature with a cron job.

Discuss.

[brentdev]

The biggest feature you could add that would make my life 10X easier is a way to BULK-DELETE any of the import sessions after they've already finished importing.. i can't tell you how many times i've tried to import a csv file only to realize after it parsed through 100k that I messed something big up + had to start over. Once the import is done the little display offering you the chance for a one-click deletion is gone.. It'd take weeks to remove large category/posts/tag db's by hand + it's a pain to always have to go into phpmyadmin to delete 'em!

[auspiral]

I've been using a plugin called Wordpress suicide it kills everything, and is pretty quick.

[Xdreamer]

The ability to give own postings a rating, quick and easy.

[larrybn]

The biggest feature you could add that would make my life 10X easier is a way to BULK-DELETE any of the import sessions after they've already finished importing.. i can't tell you how many times i've tried to import a csv file only to realize after it parsed through 100k that I messed something big up + had to start over. Once the import is done the little display offering you the chance for a one-click deletion is gone.. It'd take weeks to remove large category/posts/tag db's by hand + it's a pain to always have to go into phpmyadmin to delete 'em!

I'm sure you can already do this.

[pwave]

I'd love to see a "Collective Map" as Nick calls it. This may tie in best with the preferred listings, but it would look great and load faster compared to 10 google maps.

If you'd like to see what I mean, check out:
http://www.gymticket.com/gyms/NY/White%20Plains/?zip=10601&address=null

It has a few listings on the map and they have custom tooltips as well... When you click the tooltips a small blurb appears with the gym info etc.

Anyone else want to see this?

[jondoe0069]

Besides what we discussed in the other thread about bulk redirecting affiliate links through cleaner internal links, I think the following would be cool, but may be out of the scope of this plugin (hell, there may even be a plugin for this already and I will look into it tonight, just in case):

It would be beneficial to conversion rates if users had the ability to sort posts by price or overall rating. The plugin could auto tag all the fields and then there could be a simple nav at the top of the home, search, archives, etc. pages that allows users to sort by whichever fields the admin decides to include in the sorting feature. Any auto generated posts would be included in this sort and any posts without these fields would be simply pushed to the bottom. This would allow users to think they are narrowing down their options somewhat and help get them to click through to the advertiser's site before they realize that my site isn't human.

[jondoe0069]

The biggest feature you could add that would make my life 10X easier is a way to BULK-DELETE any of the import sessions after they've already finished importing.. i can't tell you how many times i've tried to import a csv file only to realize after it parsed through 100k that I messed something big up + had to start over. Once the import is done the little display offering you the chance for a one-click deletion is gone.. It'd take weeks to remove large category/posts/tag db's by hand + it's a pain to always have to go into phpmyadmin to delete 'em!

I think what would be nicer is if you could bulk edit the template for an import after it has already been imported, updating any posts in that batch.

When I have to make a small tweak after an upload and post, I bulk delete and start all over again. It would be nice to be able to call the template back up and make the adjustments then have the edits applied to all posts in that batch.

[logosi]

My question is whether or not I could manually rank a product higher or lower, or in essence force one to be the top product.

Also, and I'm presuming I simply missed this on your promo video, do users have the opportunity to click and submit their own rating? And if so, is there a way to limit abuse from happening, like "only one review per IP" or something like that.

Look forward to your reply. I'll no doubt buy this or the the engine tomorrow.
You can manually work your idea in, depending on the setup of the site. If you're running a 3-4 item review site for some continuity offer, then manipulating the reviews to get one product on top is super easy.

---

If you have 3,000 products and want to make 150 of them the top post, that's a little more challenging. What specifically do you want to do, or is your question just in generic terms?

In any respect, if we don't offer it, we're gathering requirements for version 4 here: http://www.reviewpluginforwordpress....read.php?t=231 So feel free to add yoru input.

Initially (for my main client) we want to review financial newsletters, with the caveat that some are ranked near the top (not necessarily #1), maybe in the top five or so. Interested to know if this will be possible in the 4.0

[nickmattern]

Personal ramblings:

Squeeze page feature - allow entry/exit pops
-custom data entry fields
-fields exportable as CSV
-Aweber integration for list building

Cloaking feature
-Define list of IPs to either redirect or show static cloaked page
-FTP update of IP tables (cron)

[logosi]

Personal ramblings:

Squeeze page feature - allow entry/exit pops


Definitely agree on this one. Our plan was to do the reviews of multiple newsletters, then offer (for a fee) the ability to include the signup form for a particular newsletter.

[Steve]

Expire post on a specific date. Use custom meta to set the date and have the post moved from published to draft/deleted.

Already an existing plugin that does this http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/post-expirator/ but each post needs to be set rather than auto setting from a custom meta field.

This is a great addition to 'time sensitive' posts.

[sobiz]

bayesian weighted ratings would be awesome.

[nickmattern]

bayesian weighted ratings would be awesome.


They already are.

[jchunk]

- ability to show the ratings in the excerps
- ability to exclude certain categories when you choose for Global (applies to all posts)
- ability to use "last rated", "highest rated", etc. as a function instead of a widget so I can use them as hooks in a custom_functions.php.
- support for foreign characters like é, ë, á, etc.
- ability to link a question to a rating item. e.g.: Rating item: Service. Question: What did you think of the service you received?
- ability to choose stars, 1-5 rating or 1-10 rating
- ability to mass-edit existing post templates to add new information (don't know if possible yet without deleting all the posts first and remaining the ratings)

[nickmattern]

- ability to show the ratings in the excerps
- ability to exclude certain categories when you choose for Global (applies to all posts)
- ability to use "last rated", "highest rated", etc. as a function instead of a widget so I can use them as hooks in a custom_functions.php.
- support for foreign characters like é, ë, á, etc.
- ability to link a question to a rating item. e.g.: Rating item: Service. Question: What did you think of the service you received?
- ability to choose stars, 1-5 rating or 1-10 rating
- ability to mass-edit existing post templates to add new information (don't know if possible yet without deleting all the posts first and remaining the ratings)


These are excellent, let's chat on AIM this weekend and expand on them, cool?

[jchunk]

That's fine. You can ping me by mail.. :)

[larrybn]

- ability to mass-edit existing post templates to add new information (don't know if possible yet without deleting all the posts first and remaining the ratings)

Yeah, fo sho

[jchunk]

- disable loading wfreview's css and google api call on pages where the script isn't active, like my homepage. (two redundant http-requests)

[nightfire]

I would really love the ability to assign the imports to a specific user. I can do this with my autoblogged posts and in addition to all the cool stuff already mentioned in this thread, that would be a feature I would hope isn't to difficult to incorporate.

[WFReviewAdmin]

Thank you for all the feedback, here is what I have decided will be included in the next version.

Game changing features
* central UPC dataset - append data from separate sources about the same product to the same post
* expire post on a specific date - use custom CSV meta to set the date and have the post moved from published to deleted
* much easier installation
* bulk redirecting affiliate links through cleaner internal links
* custom data to posts

Better CSV Imports
* Import .gz files straight from CJ
* Much smarter CSV import, no longer worry about many of the format issues
* assign the imports to a specific user

Better User Interface
* ability to choose different stars within the UI
* comparison tables
* the ability to sort posts by price or overall rating
* improved commenter names, choose a percentage of male/female
* improve commenter name data to be more realistic
* pre-populate comments from CSV
* avatar support for commenters

Better Editing Support
* no longer need cron to run scheduled jobs
* delete and rename templates
* warn before saving a template with the same name as an existing template
* one-off post ratings

Better Developer Support
* disable loading the css and google api call on pages where the script isn't active
* ability to use "last rated", "highest rated", etc. as a function instead of a widget so you can use them as hooks in a custom_functions.php.

[chanilla]

If there's any way to integrate this with a2p (append data set in same post) and mix amazon reviews (more detailed) with auto generated ones, I would get on my knees. <----:eek:

[BeerNuts]

Might I also request a way to move the license.txt file out of the main directory of wordpress. Every time I upgrade my blogs I have to re-download my licenses. I am sure there is some sort of work around but id rather have it as part of the script.

[nickmattern]

Might I also request a way to move the license.txt file out of the main directory of wordpress. Every time I upgrade my blogs I have to re-download my licenses. I am sure there is some sort of work around but id rather have it as part of the script.

It's been in the plugins\wfreview\ directory since 3.0.3

[WFReviewAdmin]

a2p (append data set in same post) will be included! Thank you!

[bosserik]

Import into multiple categories. I specify a 'category' column in the CSV file. This column contains one or more categories, separated by comma's.

E.g. "cat1, cat2, cat3"

Importing would place the post in all three categories.

[WFReviewAdmin]

4.0 has been released, please add requests to the 5.0 thread.