The Joomla classified ads extension 3.8.3 update is another major step in the Joomla 4 support direction. It brings, as always, a collection of new features/improvements suggested by our users.
Redesigned back-end
Most of the back-end views have been refreshed in the previous version. This update focuses on the last two, major views - “Item” and “Profile" Edit pages.
Since the Item page is probably the view that is used the most, we've put additional effort to make it as user-friendly as possible - apart from its layout improvements and added field descriptions, the major changes are:
- Info about the pending payment for the item (with an option to manually "Complete" it, without going to the Payments page)
- Category select with search option
The Profile page has also been redesigned, and the following new features are now present on the Profiles list view:
- Region filter
- Option to mark users as "Verified" directly from the list view
Additionally, both Items and Profiles views have gained the option of opening the front-end page of the item (the "Show front-end page" link appears on hovering the title):
Improved advert posting and payment flow
The Post Advert form and payments processing might be one of the most important parts of the DJ-Classifieds component - this update heavily focuses on this part, adding the following changes:
- adding only promotions to the ad does not unpublish the advert anymore - users can edit their ads to assign promotions to them, and they will remain active - the promotions will be applied to them once the payment for them is completed
- chosen, but not yet applied, promotions (due to the payment for it not being completed yet) are now visible on the advert Edit page
- advert's duration can now be changed, if a user chooses to return to the edit page after the initial payment page redirect (using the "Back to edit" button)
- the expiration time of the ad is now calculated from the time of the successful payment for it (as opposed to the time of advert posting/renewal). This is useful in scenarios where users are making payments not immediately after advert's posting/renew
- when a new payment for the ad is made, the previous one, that has been only started, is now automatically deleted - to make the payments back-end management easier
- the duration field has now an empty "- Select duration -" option (You can choose a default Duration by providing its "days" value in the "Ad expire in (days)" global parameter)
Registration improvements
The registration's form (in case the DJ-Classifieds registration plugin is enabled) received the following improvements:
- password's strength rules (set in Joomla! Users Options) are checked dynamically (by Ajax call) after the password's input
- in case the form fails to validate (due to e.g. captcha test not passed), the base filled out data is now remembered, so the users would not need to re-enter it again
Component's own captcha solution removed
Until now, the captcha keys for the Google Captcha needed to be provided in the DJ-Classified Options -> Security and were handled by the component. These parameters are now gone - the captcha keys are loaded from the corresponding Joomla! captcha plugin (by which the captcha verification is now handled).
New parameters
'Only ID in profile url' (SEO)
'Don't index empty categories' (SEO)
'Canonical tags' (SEO)
'Point price separator' (Global -> Prices)
'Pre-fill location data' (Global -> Map & Locations)
Additionally, we have added many more minor features and fixes.
Along with the component, we've updated DJ-Classifieds apps, modules, and plugins. In most cases, the introduced changes bring small fixes.
- Coupons App
- Ghost Ads App
- Bad Words App
- Subscription Plans App
- Conditional Fields App
- Invoices App
- Multicategories App
- Files attachments plugin
- Offers plugin
- Plans plugin
- User plans plugin
- Search alerts plugin
- Admin stats module
- Statistics module
- J!MailAlerts Latest Ads plugin
- DotPay Payment plugin
- PayU Payment plugin
The blog post's content comes from the DJ-Extensions website: DJ-Classifieds 3.8.3 update comes with a set of important new features and improvements
Active subscribers of the Joomla-Monster template, which uses DJ-Classifieds can download the latest version of the Joomla ads component.