[Steven Zahm]

Glad to help!

[Steven Zahm]

@ RichardS

Sorry, no. What you are looking for is more of a CRM. There are several plugins available in that area that sounds like they will do what your need.

Hope that helps!

[Steven Zahm]

@ Jerry

Sorry, there is no best practice tutorial. The last time I set up a church directory, I entered everyone as individuals and then created families out of the individuals, even for the actual individuals. Here’s the tutorial on how to create families.

I then used the list_type shortcode option to limit the list to families only. This is why I created families even for individuals.

I would suggest creating a few entries using Connections before making any purchases to make sure Connections will meet your needs.

The two best templates for Connections for this would be the Default Entry Card template which comes with Connections and the cMap template.

You can make the directory require a login to view. This does mean that the church members will need user accounts.

Not nowhere near as secure, you could simply password protect the page and give that one password to all church members. I really would not recommend that but many churches choose the less secure method for convenience. I do guess that makes sense in the big picture because any info in the church directory is already very likely to be very easily found already online anyway. Sign of the times.

As for cost, depending on the size, small, just your time. Larger, you may want the CSV Import extension and the cMap template. What a lot of users do, they pick a template and add the Extension Pro Pack which is propbably the best overall value.

Hope I have answered your question thoroughly!

[Steven Zahm]

@ Karen

Looking at this site, it appears you have two way to submit to your directory.

1. This page which is using a custom Formidable Forms form. Submissions from this form will not go to your moderation queue. Perhaps this is the email you received?

This for is reached by the following URL. The link is displayed to the user when they hover over the Directory menu nav.

http://southernarizonaguide.com/submit-an-entry-to-our-business-services-directory/

1. If you navigate to the Directory page:

http://southernarizonaguide.com/business-services-directory/

And you click the “Submit New Entry” link, that will take you to the form where visitors can submit entries to your directory. MOderated if that is how you have it configured.

My suggestion is to change the link in the mai nave to match the “Submit New Entry” link to your visitors submit to the directory using only the one form

Hope that helps, let me know.

[Steven Zahm]

@ Michelle

re: excerpt

More or less just an fyi, there will be a minor update to Gridder coming soon. This changes the logic of the excerpt to use the core excerpt function in Connections vs a custom one in Gridder.

Settings the value to 0 will display the entire bio, effectively turning off the excerpt.

re: view profile link

The only to to move this is to edit the template’s PHP file. If that is something you are comfortable doing, here’s how.

Edit the card.php file found in this folder:
../wp-content/plugins/connections-gridder/

Locate this block of code at the bottom of the file:

if ( $atts['show_profile_link'] ) {

    echo '<div class="cn-gridder-detail-link">';

    /** @todo Should use @see cnEntry::getPermalink() instead. */
    cnURL::permalink(
        array(
            'type' => 'name',
            'slug' => $entry->getSlug(),
            'text' => __( 'View Profile', 'cnt_gridder' ),
            'home_id' => $atts['home_id'],
            'force_home' => $atts['force_home'],
            )
        );

    echo '</div>';
}

Move it to right after this line:

if ( $atts['excerpt_length'] ) {

That will move it above the excerpt.

To make your change update safe, follow the tutorial on custom template override files.

Hope that helps!

[Steven Zahm]

@ bobbyau

If you give me a temp WP admin login and FTP login, I’ll take a look. The login details can be posted here as a private reply.

[Steven Zahm]

@ Michelle

re: I am still not clear on how to get the actual size of the image to be proportionally correct per each image in the grid. This needs to be correct. Is there another template that handles this properly?

Sorry, but there is no way to set or configure the crop per image. All images will be crop center weighted. This is by far the most common practice when images need to be scaled and cropped to fit a specific dimension. This is exactly how the images is auto scaled and cropped on the single page too. The image itself is a different dimension (width x height) but still cropped center weighted.

If you like the way the image appears on the single page, then adjust the Gridder image size to be the same as the default image size of the single page. Like so:

[connections image_width=300 image_height=225]

Now, that said, if you changed the image size option for the Large image on the Connections : Settings admin page under image, then match the height and width that was set on the Settings page to the shortcode option height and width.

On the Settings page, you can also adjust the crop mode, if you changed it from the default “Crop and resize proportionally to best fit the specified dimensions, maintaining the aspect ratio.” option then the images will be cropped differently, but the crop is still center weighted.

The crop mode can not be adjusted for Gridder thru a shortcode option. It can only be changed by applying a filter to change the core default crop mode applied to all images. To do this:

Install the Code Snippets plugin. Create a new snippet with the following:

function cn_image_atts( $atts ) {

    $atts['zc'] = 2;

    return $atts;
}

add_filter( 'cn_output_default_atts_image', 'cn_image_atts' );

The valid crop mode options are:

• 0 Resize to Fit specified dimensions (no cropping)
• 1 Crop and resize to best fit the dimensions (default behaviour)
• 2 Resize proportionally to fit entire image into specified dimensions, and add borders if required
• 3 Resize proportionally adjusting size of scaled image so there are no borders gaps

[Steven Zahm]

@ Michelle

re: the images are not displaying correctly in the main grid, they are not being cropped to proportion as is on the single entry pages.

The image crop mode for the grid will be center weighted since most profile shots are centered weighted.

The image crop for the single page is also center weighted perhaps the size difference make them look different.

re: Also, how do I go about adding some padding around each grid entry, and making the images smaller then the default.

There is no way to add more padding. Well, I suppose you could use CSS to add more, but I am not sure who that will affect the display since it was designed to look the way it does.

re: I am assuming that there is no customization for the gridder template via the templates/customization as I do not get a customization option with gridder activated.

Correct, not at this time. However, you still have a lot of configuration options available to you.

re: how do I go about making the dropdown background a different color from the entry title? It seems like it might confuse some if the color is the same as other title areas in the same row above the dropdown info.

Not sure I follow. The activate entry, the entry with the contact panel open, the tint of the color is lighted to highlight it, make it different from the others. Here’s a demo.

Hope I have answered your questions thoroughly!

[Steven Zahm]

@ James

it is a another extension that is in development to enable advanced search. It is stable and production ready and is installed on a couple dozen sites. The reason it is not simply just sold and requires me to install is due to the fact there is no UI for configuration. It is added the page with a shortcode. The one option, to setup the multiple category search, has a somewhat complex syntax (but simply when you see exactly how to configure it) in order to set up which category parents are to be displayed, what the default placeholder text should be and what the search results message header should be. Here’s an example:

[cn_multi_category_search category="2||Select Insurance Plan|The results are being filtered by the Insurance Plan(s): %s,8||Select Specialization|The results are being filtered by the Specialization(s): %s"]

Does that answer your question?

[Steven Zahm]

@ Jeff

Sure, you can transfer it. My suggestion, do not activate it on the dev site. Only activate it on the production site. The only feature the license activation limits is the ability to receive updates and support, otherwise the template will function just fine without being activated. Here’s a faq about the support license keys.

Hope this helps, let me know.

[Author]

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