[Steven Zahm]

@ Misty

re: I’m using Memberpress for my membersite.

Well, that is very odd… many of the membership plugins I’ve run into use roles to define their levels. Guess they do it different. There’s nothing wrong with different as long as it works well. Just unfortunately since they do not use roles it is more complex than it needs to be.

re: I am already using 4 of your plugins to try to make this work. All I wanted was a way for my paid members to be able to share their business/contact info with each other by adding it themselves and being able to edit their own entry.

Which Connections and Link does and is all that is required. You wanted Form so that could be done on the frontend (I’m assuming).

re: Seems like it shouldn’t be so complicated

It is not really. You do have a little more of a complex setup / set of requirements so that does make it a little more complicated than installing Connections/Link and adding a check to a couple checkboxes (explained here and in the installation instructions) … which is all that most others need.

re: I shouldn’t have had to spend weeks & buy and have multiple plugins hogging up my site trying to get this set up correctly…

Actually to counterpoint… bundling all these features into a single plugin which most people do not need or even want while adding unnecessary complexity to the core would be far worse. This way only those that need those features get them. Take Memberpress as an example… they have many add ons (not even counting those from third parties) that can be installed separately from the core plugin. Same thing, they just have a different pricing structure.

The extensions do not hog up the site… they are very feature focused and add very little overhead whatsoever to the site. If these features were part of the core plugin, the same amount of resources would be used. This is a very old myth that the number of plugins slow down WP. It is actually only the quality of the plugin that matter. A single poor plugin can bring a site to its use far more resources than many quality plugins.

Hope I explained things clearly and concisely as to not cause any confusion. Please do not take any offence as none is attended at all. I assure you none is intended, I only wish to comment on a few of the critical points you raised. I’m still here to assist you if you need any further assistance.

[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.

[Steven Zahm]

@ Eric

The view all page does not sure an date updated message. What template is this in regards to?

And…

Please do not double/cross post the same question in multiple forums. Having to take time to reconcile multiple post for the same question take time away from being able to reply. Thanks!

[Steven Zahm]

@ Eric

your sure this relates to the Excerpt Plus template??? I ask because that template does not show that.

[Steven Zahm]

User reported latest update fixed issues.

[Steven Zahm]

@ Florian

Apologies! I did not receive the email notice of your post so I am just now seeing this.

re: since last upate the media librairy cannot be browse anymore. it works as a list, but it doesn’t work as thumbnail gallery.

Well, Connections does not integrate or touch the media Library in any way at any level so I do not see how Connections could affect this.

re: i have also a conflict with the plugin fsqm pro. when i try to get the results of the survey, i get a HTTP error.

I’ve never heard of or used this plugin so I have no insight on why you would have this conflict.

For both of these issues… if you can give me a temp WP admin login, I’ll take a look. The login details can be posted here as a private reply.

[Steven Zahm]

@ Urs

re: I use the “categories” widget but: If I choose a catagorie at my frontends sidebar I end up on a “404 error” page. The same if I choose “download vCard” in the admin menue.

The issue is with the setup of WordPress permalinks. The index.php in the permalink is not support. Go to the WordPress Permalinks settings admin page and remove it. As a side benefit, you improve your site’s SEO.

re: All my entries are set “public”, but (whatever template I choose) the email addresses I entered are not visible at the frontend.

I see you purchase the Contact extension (part of the Extension Pro Pack)…

One of its main features to to suppress the display of the email addresses. If you want the email addresses to be displayed, then you need to deactivate this extension. I highly suggest that you do have the ROT13 extension activated though.

Hope that helps!

[Steven Zahm]

To anyone following this support thread, CSV export was added in 8.5 release over a month ago. Enjoy!

[Steven Zahm]

@ Lynn

First, I apologize! I just now noticed this post because I did not receive notification of it.

re: I have 1 hunting outfitter that hunts 6 different species. I am creating 6 different entries for the same outfitter; one for every species so I can highlight that species on the specific listing. Each entry is put in it’s own unique category (ie, bear hunting, moose hunting, etc.)

Well… can’t really help you with that if you need to create different entries for the same business for each species to highlight that particular part of their business that want you need to do.

re: Now shouldn’t I just be able to add the bear hunting category to the menu and have the gridder list come up with all the outfitters profiles that hunt bears?

Sure, that is easy enough to do. Let’s assume you have a page named “Hunting” and on this page you have this shortcode:

[connections template='gridder' order_by='organization|RANDOM' contact_name_format='%first% %last%' phone_format='%number%' email_format='%address%' link_format='%title%' background_color="#7994a5;" background_gradient=TRUE enable_search='false' str_bio_head='View Hunt Details']

Now you can add this custom link URL to the menu nav with the title of “Black Bear Hunting”.

http://75.103.85.206/hunting/?cn-cat=2

When you visit the page, Connections will automatically filter the results by category ID 2, your black bear hunting category in Connections.

You can do this for each of you hunting categories, just change the ID number at the end of the URL.

For the hunting category lead in (intro) instead of adding it to the page, you would add it to the category description And then enable the Category Description option on the Connections : Settings admin page under the Display tab.

This could be made to be more SEO friendly to by using the same method but use the permalinks Connections supports for filtering by category. Instead of using the query var and the category ID you can use the category slug. Like so:

http://75.103.85.206/hunting/cat/black-bear-hunting/

You see that cat in the URL? That is configurable. You can change it to be more specific by changing it on the Connections : Settings admin page under the Advanced tab. You could change it to “species” and then the URL would be:

http://75.103.85.206/hunting/species/black-bear-hunting/

Just like the category ID url, to change what results are returned, you would change “black-bear-hunting” to another Connections category slug.

Now, you have a single page that can show the results based on the category being viewed. One thing I must mention… the category description will only display if you use the query var URL with the category ID.

Just so you do not miss it… this all assumes that you have a page named “Hunting” with the slug “hunting”.

re: If I do put the category on the menu it doesn’t load anything. I get, Nothing Found error. Here’s a link to the bear category;

Do not confuse the WordPress categories with the Connections categories … they are completely different. Also do not confuse WordPress pages with categories. The reason you get the not found message is because, from what I can tell, you have not WordPress category named Black Bear Hunting Alberta Canada You have a WordPress page, but no category. Like I said, completely different.

re: I’m also having problems with a few things, like when you click the + sign to open a listing it jumps to the top of the screen;

That would only happen if there is a fatal javascript error on the page. This breaks all javascript on the page, even in Connections. 99.99% of the time these are caused by the theme or another plugin. When I visited the page just now, the +’s worked just fine, so I assume something has changed since your posting and me viewing it.

re: I have a bunch of white dead space at the bottom I can’t figure out how to get rid of.

If you are referencing the whitespace at the bottom when view the entry profile page, that is where the map should be displayed. My best guess it is not being displayed because the Google Maps API tion was disabled on the Connections : Settings admin page under the Advanced tab.

re: My issue is, I have 50 outfitters who advertise, so right off the bat I have to enter 50 people, then if each one does 6 species, and i have to create a new entry for each species they hunt then I have 300 entries to do! On top of that there are over 400 more outfitters to add to the list that are not paid advertisers but will still have a listing. Now I’m talking about 700 entries!!!

There’s really nothing I can do about that. You are building a complicated comprehensive niche directory… even if you would add all species details to a single entry… you still have to enter it. My suggestion… create a base entry for each which will have the common details for each species. Then to create the specie specific entries use that nifty little copy feature to copy an entry. That should save you tons of time entering info by removing the need to re-enter redundant info 6 times.

[Steven Zahm]

@ Cindy

First, I want to apologize! I did not receive a notice of your post so I did not see your question until now.

Use can use the Names template in place of the Excerpt Plus template to achieve what you want.

Go to the Connections : Templates admin page and then activate the Names template.

Now click the Individual template top link (top left) and activate the Default Entry Card template. Do the same for the Organization entry type.

Lastly, go to the Connections : Settings admin page and click the Display tab and enable the single entry template option.

Hope that helps!

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