[Gopal]

Hi,

I am looking to build a business listing website with the below features.

1. Import business listing data in bulk (I guess CSV import would do)
2. Owners can register and claim listings (Link extn)
3. Business can have multiple specialities (default feature of connection)
4. IMP : Ability for end users to search for entries ‘near’ their location
5. IMP : Ability for end users to select multiple categories and perform an ‘AND’ search (Find me listings that are both a restaurant AND a hotel)
6. Custom fields, esp more than 1 image, some form of ID number, education, etc

I would like to know if connections can be used to address points 4,5,6 and if possible, how.

Thanks!

PS: I read in the forum that lot of progress has been made on custom fields end of last year, but would like to know the current status.

[Gopal]

Forgot to mention, and can connections support 500,000 + listings without affecting performance?

[Steven Zahm]

@ Gopal

Apologies for the tardy reply!

In regards to 4,5,6…

4. Nothing out of box. The Connections core can support such queries but there is nothing available yet that is plugin and play. Other devs of custom coded thos feature to meet their needs.

5. All the templates that feature the searchable category drop down contain a beta feature (which works quite well) that allows the selection of multiple categories. When this feature is enabled, the query is an operational ‘AND’ query. So in short, yes.

6. Not in the current release version. The next release which is due out really soon does and an API which devs can use to add custom field support. This next release does not contain a point and click way to create custom fields, they would have to be added by a dev. There are already a few dev that are using a pre-release version of Connections on client sites that utilize this new feature to great success. This is basically the status of the custom fields support. At this point I consider it finished for the next release.

re: performance:

My test database is on a little over 25k entries and it performs quite well. I do know that there are users with 30-50k and it works fines for them too. I am not aware of any installation with 500k so I do not have a solid answer for you. Sorry. The best I can say is that I’ve done my best to model the queries after the WordPress core queries so if those scale will, my should too.

I hope that helps!

[Amy]

Steve, You mentioned:
“5. All the templates that feature the searchable category drop down contain a beta feature (which works quite well) that allows the selection of multiple categories. When this feature is enabled, the query is an operational ‘AND’ query. So in short, yes.”

Can you tell me how/where to enable this?

Thank you.

[Steven Zahm]

@ Amy

Add enable_category_multi_select=true to the [connections] shortcode like this:

[connections enable_category_multi_select=true]

This will work for any of the templates which support the category drop down.

[Amy]

This reply has been marked as private.

[Steven Zahm]

@ Amy

re: And now the search dropdown is just not showing at all.

Do you meant the category drop down? For Gridder, that is off by default and must be turned on. Basically you need to add that option to the shortcode to.

Hope that helps!

[Amy]

Sorry Steven, I meant that the category dropdown is not showing anymore. I do have it enabled and it was working before.

Thanks again

[Steven Zahm]

@ Amy

If the shortcode you gave in the reply is correct:

[connections enable_category_multi_select=true enable_search=true image_width=200 image_height=250]

Then the category select is not enabled. It needs to have the option enable_category_select=true like in the docs.

[Amy]

This reply has been marked as private.

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