Help

Setup

The setup section allows Administrators to edit user information and Listing field settings.

Admin Users

The Admin Users page can only be accessed by users with "Administrator" access. From this page, you may create more users by typing in a new username, setting the access, and typing a password, then clicking the "Add" button.

You may also edit user access and change passwords from this page. Be sure not to change your own administrative account access from "Administrator" to "Writer" or "None" or else you won't be able to access the administrative settings!

Admin Listings Settings

This page allows you to choose which Listing fields to show and hide, and also allows you to change some selected field names, in particular:

  • Display Name (this is the display name of the user who added the listing)
  • Display Email
  • Address
  • City
  • Subdivision
  • MLS #
  • Zip Code
  • SQFT
  • Lot Size
  • Bedrooms
  • Baths

This feature makes this database extremely flexible. Although limited to the particular data types defined by the database, you essentially have have nine custom fields with the ability to change the display name for these fields!

Unless otherwise specified, if you check/uncheck a field, it will show/hide it in both the frontend and backend. For example, if you uncheck "Address," the field will not be displayed in the catalog or in the "Add Listings" page.

Note: You will need to decide whether to show the "Address" or the "City" field, or both. You must have at least one of these checked!

Changing the Used/New field display names

Changing the used/new field display names is a slightly different procedure. Open the "includes/variables.inc" file and change the display text for "Type1" and "Type2." For example, when you first open the file, you should see:

...
Type1 = "Used"
Type2 = "New"

If you would like to change Used/New to Rent/Buy, simply type:

Type1="Rent"
Type2 = "Buy"

Please note that this is case-sensitive. You will want to capitalize each word.

Search Settings

This page allows you to change which fields will be used in the product search. Please note that this page and the listings setting page are independent - changing the listings settings page will NOT change this page as well!

The right column shows you the way the search will look. You may also use it to run some test searches on your catalog.

View Listings

The View Listings Administrative Page allows you to view, search, and sort your listing records. From this page, you may click links to Edit records, Delete records, or Preview the record in an actual catalog page. (Clicking "Delete" will put up a confirmation note to make sure that you really want to delete the listing.)

To add a new listing, click the "Add New Listing" link in the menu area.

Tip: You may always click on the "View Listings" link or "Admin Listings" link to return to this page.

Tip: Click on the column headings (ID, Name, Price, Active) to order your listings by those fields.

Keyword Searching

When you have a large amount of listings, it is easier to search by address or MLS #. Simply Enter the Address to search by street name in the field next to "keywords" and press submit.

Use AND, OR, and NOT to create a "search sentence."
For example, leather AND interior will return results that have both "leather" and "interior" within the listing name or description. Actually, leather interior will return the same -- all keywords listed without OR, and NOT are required by default. As another example, leather NOT interior will return all results that have "leather," but don't have "interior." Finally, leather OR interior will return all results that have either "leather" or "interior."

 AND, OR, and NOT are case sensitive - they MUST be uppercase.
You can use +, ~ and - as shorthand for AND, OR, and NOT.

Use quotation marks to search for phrases.
For example, "Sharyland" will return one listing.

Use parentheses for complex search sentences.
For example, leather AND interior OR power will return all listings with "leather" and all results with "interior" and "power." In this case, the search runs first on "leather AND interior," then looks for "power." You can use parentheses to be more specific, such as leather AND (interior OR power). This will then look for "interior" or "power" that also have the word "leather."

Editing Listing Information

This page allows you to edit listing information. After changing the various fields, be sure to hit the "Submit" button at the bottom of the page for your changes to apply.

If you wish to cancel and not make any changes, simply use your browser's "Back" button, or click a menu link to perform a new task.

Adding Listing Information

This page allows you to add listing information. After entering the information, be sure to hit the "Submit" button for the listing information to be added.

Note: You will need to upload your listing images separately by clicking the "Submit A Photo" located at the top of the Admin page.

Listing Active

Use this dropdown to specify whether or not your listing is "active." If a listing is marked as Active, it will show up in your web page. If a listing is not active, it will not show up in the web page but still be listed in the database. This is an easy way to remove listings from your web page that you may add in at a later time.

Listing On Sale

Use this dropdown to specify whether or not your listing is "on sale" or reduced in price If a listing is marked "On Sale," it will display the sale price in RED. This is an easy way to keep the original price in your records while being able to display a reduced price.

Buy/Rent

Use this dropdown to specify whether or not your listing is "For Sale" or "For Rent".

Short Listing Description

This short description is what shows up in the "Featured Listings" areas on the home page and catalog pages. Keep this under 255 characters.

Long Listing Description

This long description is what shows up on the Listing Details page. The "Smart Edit" interface allows you to bold, italicize, change fonts and styles, make bulleted lists, create hyperlinks, and more! "Normal" view is similar to any text-editing software. We recommend that you minimize font changes so that the formatting is consistent with the rest of the Web Site.

You may also switch to HTML view, if you are comfortable with HTML code, to make use of additional styles from your stylesheet.

The HTML code from this long listing description field is inserted directly into the Catalog page layout, so keep from adding too many tables, forms, or other code that may conflict with the Catalog page.

Tip: Besides a listing description, you may also want to add dimension or contact information if your "custom fields" are already used up. You may also want to add a line of "keywords" to help the listing search find the listing.

Listing Images

Photo or image should be NO LARGER than W280 X H216.

  1. Right click on each picture, and select “Open with…” and click on “Microsoft Office Picture Manager”.
  2. Click the “Edit Picture” button on the top part of the window.
  3. Click “Resize” on the right side.
  4. Select “Custom width x height:”  and select width/height according to your instructions on your ADD/EDIT page under Admin (where you originally clicked from to get this page)
  5. Click OK
Click on the File menu, and select Save.

Entry Date

This date is when the listing was added to the database. You will not be able to change this without opening the database in Microsoft Access.

Administer Featured Listings List

This page allows you to select up to five listings that you wish to display in the "Featured Listings" section of the home page. Simply select your five featured listings and click "Submit."

Forgot Your Password?

If you forget your password, contact Web Planet Design and we will inform you of your password. We can change your password at any time for you.