Documentation

this documentation should be used starting with product versions bigger then Auction Factory 1.6.9 and Ads Factory 1.5.4

class FieldType_inputBox extends FactoryFieldTypes{

var $type_name = "TextBox";
var $class_name = "inputBox";
var $has_options = 0;
var $sql_type = "varchar";
var $length = 200;
var $_attributes = null;
var $_options = null;

function display($name, $id, $css_attributes="", $css_class="", $javascript_attributes="" ){
$attributes = $this->prepareAttributesString();
$css_class = $this->prepareClassName($css_class);
return "<input type=\"text\" name=\"$name\" id=\"$id\" $attributes class=\"$css_class\"
style=\"$css_attributes\" $javascript_attributes value=\"".htmlentities($this->value)."\" />";
}
function display_search($name, $id, $css_attributes="", $css_class="", $javascript_attributes="" ){
return $this->display($name, $id, $css_attributes, $css_class, $javascript_attributes );
}
}

You can add your check class as the input posted above. Customize the display and show search methods adding the name of the control to the fields.config.ini in the field_list= param .

You should have a class like:
class FieldType_checkBox extends FactoryFieldTypes
and add in the field_list "checkBox"

COLLECT MULTIPLE OPTIONS:

"overwrite the getVar method"
class FieldType_checkbox must have it's definition of the FactoryFieldTypes getVar method so the multiple options are collected all from $_POST.

"add the [] to the controller html field name "
A multiple optioned html control must have the name "name[]" instead of "name" in it's html output like bellow:
<input type="checkbox" name="mynice_name[]" value="value1" />
<input type="checkbox" name="mynice_name[]" value="value2" />

Note! A checkbox group is a multi option controlled by it's behavior - you can select more than one checkbox and all checkboxes refer to the same property.

PLUGIN EXAMPLE FOR A CHECKBOX FIELD:

class FieldType_checkbox extends FactoryFieldTypes{

var $type_name = "CheckBox";

var $class_name = "checkBox";

var $has_options = 1;

var $sql_type = "varchar";

var $length = 200;

var $_attributes = null;
var $_options = null;

function display($name, $id, $css_attributes="", $css_class="", $javascript_attributes="" ){

$this->value = explode(",", $this->value);
$css_class = $this->prepareClassName($css_class);
$ret = "";
if(count($this->_options))
foreach($this->_options as $k => $option){
$selected = " ";
if( in_array($option->option_name,$this->value) )
$selected = " checked=\"checked\" ";
$ret.= "<input type=\"checkbox\" name=\"{$name}[]\" id=\"$id\" $selected value=\"".htmlentities($option->option_name)."\" > ".$option->option_name;
}
return $ret;
}

function getVar($name){

return implode(",",FactoryLayer::getRequest( $_REQUEST, $name ));

}

function getValue(){
return $this->value;
}

}

To access the Deluxe Blog Factory backend go to Components and click on Deluxe Blog Factory.

You can either choose to go to any section of the backend or if you click on Deluxe Blog Factory the Dashboard will open.

On the dashboard you can view the Statistics, latest blogs, posts, comments, and also the Most viewed posts. Clicking on All Posts/Comments/Blogs will take you to their respective section in the backend.

Blogs: Here you can view all the blogs on your website, publish or unpublish them and some information about the date they where created, by whom and number of posts in them.

Clicking on a specific post will open a detailed view where a small description of the post is available.

The Blogs page is also where you can import blog posts into Joomla! content, when someone writes an article in the imported blogs an article is also created in a Joomla! category.
To import a blog just select the blog or blogs you want to import and click on Import content in the upper right corner of the page.

The import blogs window will appear, select the Section and Category you want and click on Import.

The import function can also be used to import only some posts from a specific blog. This can be done in the Posts section in the same way as the blog imports.

Posts: All the posts in your Deluxe Blog Factory component are found here.

You are shown some information about the posts, like the owner, date created, status and the blog it was posted in.

In the lower section of the page the display options are found, number of posts per page and page number. If you select to view all the posts in a continuous list the page browser will disappear.

You can publish more then one post by checking the boxes next to the desired posts and clicking on the Publish/Unpublish buttons in the upper right corner of the Backend Menu.

To view/edit a post click on it or check the box next to it and click on edit, this will open the detailed view.

Now you can see all the details and content of that specific post. You have the poster (username), the state (published or not), comments (on or off), category, title, content, tags, meta description and meta keywords. After editing press Save to keep any changes you might of made and close the post or click Close to just close the post without saving.

To delete a post or more just check the box next to it and click Delete in the upper right corner or the page while viewing the Posts list.

Articles can also be created in the backend if desired by clicking on New in the upper right corner of the page, select the Blog you want it to be posted in, category, fill in the other fields and press Save.

As you can see the Import content and Publish/Unpublish buttons can also be found here, like in the Blogs section.

Categories: Creating the categories, with their sub-categories can be done here.

For a New Category press New and write the name you wish, assign it to a “Parent” (a category that comprises other small ones) and press save. You can only assign Main categories as Parents, main are those that are not under other categories.

Comments: Here you can view all the comments made on posts. Who has made them, on what date, what post, the state and if it has been reported.

To approve/unapprove, publish/unpublish or mark as reported you can click on the sign in the respective column or check the box in the left and click on the button in the upper right corner of the page. You can also Edit comments by checking the box and clicking Edit.

Users: Here you can find all the users on the blog and edit their info if you want, on the list you see their Name, Username, Website and Blog if they have one. You can filter to see only user with or without blogs if you want by selecting which in the -Select Users- dropbox.

Clicking on a user will open the edit screen where you can change his name and website.

Imports: The imports you have made on your website appear here, you can see the Section and Category they are in and whether they are published or not,

by clicking on the imported content you open the edit screen where you can change the Section, Category and publish state.

Bookmarking: Deluxe Blog Factory features a lot of Bookmarking sites (Digg, Twitter, etc.)
The bookmarks are shown on every post, you can choose which ones to use by publishing or unpublishing them,

you can add others if you want by simply clicking New, in the upper right corner of the page, and filling in the required fields.

Tiny MCE Plugins: TinyMCE is a platform-independent Web-based JavaScript HTML WYSIWYG Editor control. You can install any Tiny MCA pluging you want, by default, Deluxe Blog Factory comes with Youtube plugins already installed.

Settings: Here is where you configure you Deluxe Blog Factory component.

General: Some basic settings are found here, like:

Post rating: Users can vote on every article on the website.
Guest View: Choose if you allow guests to view content on the website.
Bookmarks: Enable or disable bookmarks on posts.
Categories: Select which categories to use.
Smarty templates: Enable or disable smarty templates.

Allowed bloggers: What group of users can post a Blog on your website, you can see bellow which users can post blogs.

Comments: Here is where you set the commenting options:

Guest comments: Choose if you allow guests comments on the website.
Approval status: Choose who gets to approve comments, or auto approve.
ReCaptcha: If you want ReCaptcha words on comments (anti-spam feature).
Comments rating: If users can rate comments.
Comments per page: How many comments to display on a single page.
Comments order: Select if the Newest or Oldest comments are shown first.

Pingbacks: Select if to allow pingbacks and update services.

A pingback is an XML-RPC request sent from Site A to Site B, when the author of a blog at Site A writes a post that links to Site B (via hyperlink). When Site B receives the notification, it automatically goes back to Site A checking for the existence of a live incoming link. If the link exists, the pingback is recorded successfully. Pingbacks are less prone to spam than trackbacks.

User Folders Quota: Here you can enable the user folders and choose if they are allowed unlimited space or a fixed amount. If you don't want all user classes to have unlimited quota you can type "-1" in the ones you want to give unlimited space and individually set it for every user group to the amount you want.

Avatars: Here you can select if you want to enable avatars and set the resolution. Deluxe Blog Factory also gives you the option to use Community Builder.

ReCaptcha: Deluxe Blog Factory uses ReCaptcha for anti spam, to enable it on your website you must register for an account on the ReCaptcha homepage and they will provide you with the required information to fill in the public and private key fields.

Banned words list: Here you type the words you don't want to be posted in comments, user comments that include words on this list will be rejected.

Notifications: Here you can set and enable the notification messages for all types of actions, like new posts, new blogs, reported comments. All notifications are sent via email.

Backup and restore: This is where you create a backup or restore you Blog with a previous backup.

About: The About section shows you if there are any updates available, the latest announcements from The Factory and links.

Revised "Deluxe Blog Factory" version 1.1.1.

Deluxe Blog Factory is a multi user blogging component from The Factory developed for Joomla! 1.5. Deluxe Blog Factory comes with everything you need for blogging so you do not need to install additional extensions, everything is found within the Blog Factory component.

Some of the features of Blog Factory are:

Multi Blogging: unlimited number of users can have blogs on the same website.
Comments with integrated Captcha words to prevent spam.
Fully SEF and SEO oriented, SEF urls.
Import Blogs into Joomla content.
Full control over the Blog component from the administrator backend.
Follow other blogs and be followed.
Social networking websites bookmarking.

Before you can start blogging you first have to create an account, click on Create an account, usually located on the Login Form.

A Registration form should appear looking like this:

All fields are mandatory and should be entered correctly, depending on the website settings the account will be activated instantly, by email or by an administrator. The Username is the one you will be using for logging in.

To start blogging click on My Blog Dashboard and register a blog.

After registering a blog you can go to My Blog Dashboard to see the content of your blog, comments and followers.

The Deluxe Blog Factory component has a Web 2.0 Dashboard that allows you to drag and arrange the panels as you wish only by clicking and dragging with your mouse. You can hide or show any panel by clicking on the + sign found in the right corner of each panel. The Latest Posts and Comments panels also have an individual refresh button so you don't have to refresh the entire page to see the latest comments or posts.

Each of the panels has the option to view all of its content. The Latest Posts panel also gives you the option to add a new post or view only the unpublished ones.There is also the Comments and Pingbacks page that can be accessed by clicking on the small "text balloon" icon in the right of each post. This will take you to a list where you can view all of them by selecting the appropriate filter.

If you click on the "All" button on the panels you will be taken to a list with all the content. When hovering over a post the Unpublish/Publish, view, edit and delete buttons will appear.

Here you see all the posts, their date, category and comments. There are also some filters for category or status. When hovering over a post the same options will appear as in the Latest Posts dashboard panel.

If you want to modify the status of a post select change category from the drop-down menu and a new menu will appear on its right with the categories on your website, then click go.

When hovering over with your mouse above the toolbars of the Latest Comments, Latest Followers, Latest Posts and Followed Blogs panels a configure button will appear. By clicking on it the panels will change to configuration mode where you can choose how many to show and depending on the panel, a few other options.

For instance the Latest Comments panel has the option to choose how many characters of the comments to show if a specific comment exceeds the set amount. You can also set the widget reload interval in minutes. When you are done with the configuration press "save" or "cancel" to return to the normal view. Each panel loads and refreshes individually so you don't have to worry about losing changes made to another panel if you are editing more than one at a time.

In the Settings page of the Deluxe Blog Factory component you can find General and Avatar settings, and Blog settings if you have a blog created.

The General area shows your Name and Website, the website will be shown when posting comments on the website.

Under the Blog page you will find the Blog description, number of posts per page, pingbacks, update notifications, comment notification and report notification.

Selecting "No" for "Send update notifications" will disable both the new comment and report comment notifications.

In the Avatar section you can upload an avatar or use you Community Builder avatar, if available on the website. To upload an avatar click on "Select image" and select it from your hard drive. After making your desired changes click on "Save settings", the Settings page can also be found in the Shortcuts panel in the Blog Dashboard.

Creating a new post can be done by clicking on "Write a New Post" in the Main Menu or by going to your Blog Dashboard and clicking "Write new post" in the "Shortcuts" panel.

Under the Post Content section you have the Name and the main body of the post, where you write the actual article. On the toolbar under the Name you have a few text features and Media management. Clicking on the green downward arrow opens the second toolbar with extra text editing features like font or text color.

The Deluxe Blog Factory component allows all users to upload content onto the website they can user later or just store, the amount of space each user has is set by the administrator and can vary depending on user class.

To access the Media management panel click on the respective thumbnail and the folder manager will pop up.

You can add as many folders as you want, delete them and upload files to a file. When you upload files they will be stored in the folder you are browsing at that time. Moving files can be done by clicking on the item, dragging and dropping it over the folder you want to move it in.

Click on Upload files if you want to upload something, choose the item you want to upload and an upload screen will appear.

Click on Start uploading and wait for the file/s to upload.

Now that you have uploaded content on the website, you can use it in any post without having to look for it on your hard drive or use the files when you don't have access to your computer.

To insert the picture in the article just click "insert" on the picture thumbnail.

Another way to insert pictures in the text is by clicking on the Insert/Edit image thumbnail (the small three icon).

This is used for adding images located on the internet, just paste the link of the picture in the Image URL space. There are also some alignment and dimension options available.

If you want to add media to the article you can click on the filmstrip thumbnail and the Insert/edit embedded media pop up will appear.

There are also some Advanced options for the media you want to add.

When you are done adding content to the post you should go to the Post Information tab and add tags, choose category, select if you want to allow others to write comments on your post or allow pingbacks.

Optionally you can add Metadata Information like a description and keywords.

After you are done with everything click on "Save post" or "Save and return" which will return you to the previous page. You can edit posts from the dashboard in the Latest Posts panel or by clicking on the edit icon when viewing the post in your blog.The button is located under the post.

Viewing all the Blogs on the website can be done by going to the Latest Blogs.

If you want the blogs can be shown either in thumbnail mode or in a list where the owner is also shown by clicking on "Change View". If you want you can view only the blogs you are currently following by using the filter.

By hovering your mouse over a certain blog, a bar with the View blog and Follow options will appear. If you select to follow a blog you will be announced if the owner posts anything new, the notification is sent via email.

To view the specific blog click on View blog or the blog name, depending on the view you chose.

Here you see all the articles on that blog along with some Category options, its followers and the RSS feed. Under each article its category and number of comments is shown. If you click on a specific category only the posts under that category will be shown, to view all the posts again click on the "all categories" text that will appear under the name of the blog.

Clicking on the name of an article will open the detailed view.

Here you see the whole post along with its tags, category, comments, rating, the Bookmarks and who posted it under what blog.

Each user can rate a post by clicking on the stars (1-5), depending on the rating of each post they will be shown by the Top Rated Posts module.

The Deluxe Blog Factory component allows you to submit every post on a social news website like Digg or Facebook, just click on the respective bookmark and you will be directed to its homepage.
If you want to submit a comment just fill in the fields in the "Write a comment" section, enter the correct Captcha word and click Submit. Comment may have to be approved by the blog owner or the administrator of the website.

To view the latest posts on the website click on Latest Posts on the main menu, this will show you a list with all the blogs in order from the last posted to oldest. All posts from all blogs are shown here, they can be filtered the same way as in the Blog view by clicking on the category or blog name of the respective post.

The Deluxe Blog Factory component comes with seven modules for easy display and management of content on your website: Tag Cloud, Random Blogs, Latest posts, Top Active blogs, Top Rated Blogs, Top Rated Posts and Search.

Revised "Deluxe Blog Factory" version 1.1.1.

What is a position?

A "position" is an area of the component Smarty template where certain fields assigned to it will automatically render and display.
At installation of Ads Factory 1.5.0 there are by default installed two positions and included in the templates of their scope:

Listing Middle ( listingmiddle ) in t_listadds.tpl
Details Page Header ( defdetailspageheader ) in t_details_add.tpl

A position, in order to display fields must

exist in database ( check in Positions / Position Definitions Manager ); for achieving that read this
have the Smarty snippet that include the position ( ex: {include file='elements/display_fields.tpl' position='listingmiddle' this_add=$item->id} ); for achieving that read this
have fields assigned to it

Management of positions

Management of positions implies creation new positions or editing a field display from a position.

Access to this section is from Sections / Page positions:

Creating New positions
Press the "New position" link from the "Page positions" section and fill the details of the new to be created position.
Of importance are the unique name field, the template for wich the position is and the Position item layout.
Verify is just a flag that get's setup to "Yes" on the first loading of a page with the position on it.

A position can be deleted. The snippet code is left to be cleared manually. ( for cleaning template should be): after deleting the database records of the position you will be pointed for the snippet to look for in the template.

Position displaying in templates
After a position information is stored in the database, the position must be included in the template in the area you need / like.
If you are familiar with HTML this should be very simple.
Otherwise a look on the template will give you a hint on location areas of the template for that actual HTML knowledge not been necessary.
For instance if you want your new position bellow the category name when looking at the details page, it is kind expectable to search in the t_details_add.tpl for "category" or "cat" or "catname" occurrences and see if it sounds with what do you see on the page.
If you are using the template editor from the component, point your cursor there and insert the position with the snippet tool
or insert the actual Smarty if you have it in clipboard.
Evidently you can use any PHP / text editor for inserting the Smarty position code.

Observations

Debugging / previewing a position place: Instead of introducing the position Smarty snippet you can insert some valid HTML just to see how it will be visualized on front.
Inserting something like : LABEL : VALUE should give you a visual on how it would look when it will be rendered with fields.

Adding surrounding HTML, CSS properties: The "Insert at cursor" tool just inserts the position renderer meaning this:
{include file='elements/display_fields.tpl' position='defdetailspageheader'}
You could add extra html arround this like:

<div>
{include file='elements/display_fields.tpl' position='defdetailspageheader'}
</div>

Or CSS properties

<span style="color:#DEDEDE important!;" >
{include file='elements/display_fields.tpl' position='defdetailspageheader'}
</span>

Or even JavaScript

<p onmouseover="alert('These are some custom fields!');" >
{include file='elements/display_fields.tpl' position='defdetailspageheader'}
</p>

The snippet must be inserted in HTML valid positions:
Some of the infinite examples of invalid positions ( see where "HERE" is ):

```
<a href="/HERE">Some link</a>
```
```
{$add->wash_hands HERE}
```

<table>
HERE
<tr>
HERE
<td>bla bla</td>
HERE
<td>bla bla</td>
</tr>
</table>

For the listing templates: The snippet must be inserted between the {foreach} smarty tags ( {foreach .. } and {/foreach} ) so the custom fields of each item will be displayed!

Custom Fields assigning to positions

Custom fields can be setup to be displayed automatically to a certain position by just assigning the field to that position. For Ads Factory 1.5.0 new installations, there can already be assigned fields to the default installed positions (Listing Middle - listingmiddle and Details Page Header - defdetailspageheader). When other positions created, fields can be assigned to those too.

In section "Positions / Fields positioning" you can do this:

A field can be assigned to all the positions available.

Revised "Ads Factory" version 1.5.0.

General: these are the general settings for the Love Factory Joomla 1.5 component.

Enable user comments: Choose whether or not users can post comments on profiles.
Enable user messages: Choose whether or not users can send each other messages.
Enable user rating: Enable or disable the rating system for each profile.
Enable user email notify: If enabled users receive notifications via email.
Nr. of search results shown per page: How many matches will be shown per page when searching.
Allow guests to view user pages: This enables people without an account to view profiles.
Send end membership notification: An email notification will be sent to the user at membership expiration if enabled.
Terms and Conditions: Users will be required to accept the Terms and Conditions when creating an account.

           In the Technical tab you can enable the Smarty Templates, more info about the Love Factory templates can be found here.

  Photos: here you can set the pictures and thumbnails maximum resolutions.

Memberships: The Love Factory component features up to 4 User Levels that allow you to set the maximum number of photos and friends that rank of user can have, 0 is for unlimited. Each Level can be disabled or enabled and given a Title.

   As a general setting you can choose to display the membership icons.

Payment Gateways: For payments you can opt between using PayPal, MoneyBookers or both. To choose which you want to use select yes or no in the Enable tab of the respective gateway. Enter you own email address, set the currency and you can to go the Pricing area where you can configure the Membership Plans.

  Notifications: Here you can write the template messages that will be sent to users for for reports or membership expiration notification.