jReviews Support Forum

Hi all

I have been busy working on a website based on Jreviews, displaying reviews of digital photo frames:
http://www.digitalphotoframe.org.uk/

I have managed to tailor Jreviews exactly how my client has required, through plenty of searches on this forum I've found lots of useful advice.

However, there are two issues I am faced with to finish off the site that I am a little stuck on:
The Review by Manufacturers menu was created by copying the URLs from the Advanced Search module and applying the Itemid of the 'Link to Url' menu.

Issue 1) I have configured sh404SEF to display friendly urls throughout the site, however when used on these particular Review by Manufacturer menus, the results don't abide by the filtered selection and display all frames from all manufacturers.  For example:

Without SEF url: http://www.digitalphotoframe.org.uk/index.php?option=com_jreviews&task=list&criteria=1&query=any&cat=Array&jr_manufacturer=Vason&order=alpha&Itemid=52
- Non SEF URL but with filtered display of frames according to manufacturer.

With SEF url:
http://www.digitalphotoframe.org.uk/philips-digital-photo-frames
- SEF URL but now frames from all manufacturers are shown instead of just Philips frames.


Issue 2) On the Review by Manufacturer pages, how would I display a title at the top of the page, as per the normal category pages of Review by Size? For example:

http://www.digitalphotoframe.org.uk/7-digital-photo-frames/
Title displayed as jr_itemlist_title with class of contentheading

http://www.digitalphotoframe.org.uk/philips-digital-photo-frames
I'd like to add a similar title on the top of these pages based on the Advanced Search result urls.


Any advice on these two issues would be greatly appreciated! Many thanks in advance

Chris

Nice job!

From searching this forum you know I don't support sh404sef. However, you can try removing the cat,Array parameter from the url because it's wrong. it's actually a bug that will be fixed when I have time to release 1.2.11.  You can also try removing the criteria,1 and query,any params.

If I understand your question correctly, this manufacturer pages are the result of click2search links  and you can use the SEO Manager not only to show a title, but also to customize the meta data, so both use the actual text of the field. There's a setting in the SEO Manager for the title:

Show page title at the top of the list:   No   Yes

Hi Alejandro

Many thanks for your message!


That's true! But I'm afraid I've given almost all the SEF components a try with sh404sef getting the closest to the requirements for DPF.org.uk!

I've given your advice a whirl, I've taken out the params as mentioned leaving:
index.php?option=com_jreviews&task=list&jr_manufacturer=Linx&order=alpha&Itemid=54
(Removing anything else broke the link altogether)
This was then placed in the menu and an SEF alias added, unfortunately it still brings up an unfiltered list:
http://www.digitalphotoframe.org.uk/linx-digital-photo-frames

Unless I have overlooked anything?


With regards to the second issue, you were right in your understanding.  I actually took a look at the SEO Manager previously but foolishly didn't spot the options underneath, I simply turned it on and noticed nothing happened!  ::)

This time I entered the title, which as you mentioned displays the page title.  While this is a big step forwards I don't suppose this title can be customised for each individual select option rather than the select list as a whole?
EG, I could enter 'Reviews by Manufacturer' as a general term, but it would be great if I could use 'Philips Digital Photo Frames' for the Philips frames, 'Vason Digital Photo Frames' for the Vason frames etc.


Many thanks again

Chris

I am afraid for the menu link I don't have a solution, it's sh404sef messing it up. If the non-sef link works, then why doesn't the alias work? Did you purge the urls from the cache??

Regarding customized titles for each manufacturer, that is exactly what you can do! The tag {FIELDTEXT} prints out the field text. Don't get rid of it and read the instructions on the page :)

It's amazing what can be accomplished when the instructions are read! Thanks!  :D



They are my thoughts exactly! Cache is currently disabled but was just cleared just to make sure.
I've just tried again with a few variations on sh404sef configuration, and different urls with no luck.

I meant purge the friendly urls, all of them. The way sh404sef works is that each non-sef url is stored in the database with a reference to the friendly url, so once stored. Any change you make requires a purge. Check the jos_redirection table to check what is actually being stored for your friendly aliases.

Tested again after deleting all urls and re-setting up, and tested on a different link with no effect.

Can anyone recommend any of the other SEF URLs components?  However to meet the requirements of the website it has to be one that allows urls in the format of:
http://www.digitalphotoframe.org.uk/7-digital-photo-frames/
http://www.digitalphotoframe.org.uk/philips-digital-photo-frames
http://www.digitalphotoframe.org.uk/vason-dpf104a-104-digital-frame

In this sense, the ability to create custom urls was one feature of sh404sef that was particularly useful, something I didn't seem to find on the other SEF Components?

Just a quick update with some thoughts on this:

Would it be possible to hard-code a custom redirect for each of these urls through the htaccess file?

I don't have any experience with mod rewrite but from reading a few tutorials I came up with this:


Needless to say it doesn't work!

Can anyone offer any advice on this - is it a viable solution?

I suggest you get a trial of SEF Advance and test it. I know it's commercial, but it just might be worth it. It does allow for url aliases. I also suggest you try to get support from sh404sef to try to find out why it's not working. Unfortunately I know as much as you  of htaccess custom redirects

Thanks Alejandro, I briefly gave SEF Advance a try but didn't seem to spot the configuration for URL aliases but I'll definitely give it another try - I hope my 5 days free trial hasn't run out yet  :o

There is a little post on the sh404sef forum but unfortunately it doesn't seem to be as active as this one.


Update: SEF Advance
I reinstalled SEF Advance this evening but unfortunately this doesn't seem to provide any solution to the manufacturer urls, listing them as:
http://www.digitalphotoframe.org.uk/digital-photo-frame-reviews/list/jr_manufacturer,Philips/
(digital-photo-frame-reviews being the string replacement for jreviews)
I thought an alias would solve this but they don't seem to make any difference.


If I was to stick with SEF Advance, there are a couple more little issues I would need to find ways around:
1) Is there any way to change the following url structure:
http://www.digitalphotoframe.org.uk/digital-photo-frame-reviews/digital-photo-frame-directory/digital-photo-frames/7-inch-digital-photo-frames/
..to something like:
http://www.digitalphotoframe.org.uk/digital-photo-frame-reviews/7-inch-digital-photo-frames/ (cutting out the digital-photo-frame-directory/digital-photo-frames)?

2) Despite entering all sorts of characters in the URL Replace box in the configuration I can't seem to get rid of quotation marks from the URLs, for example:
The title: Vason DPF70A 7” Digital Frame  is rendered as; vason-dpf70a-7%94-digital-frame/ in the url.


If anyone has any experience with SEF Advance I'd be very much appreciative of your advice!

I'm in two minds whether to stick with the potentially more stable SEF Advance (not as many reports of problems) or go back to sh404sef, which was a little closer to the client's requirements on the url structure.  ???

What do you mean aliases don't do anything in SEF Advance? You need to disable all sorts of sef and use the non-sef urls to create your aliases and they should work. I suggest you try getting support from Emir, the developer, through his forum or via email. He's been very responsive to me in the past since I am also a client.

Regarding the change in url. That would only be possible with a lot of work to the sef_ext.php file and I don't have the time to help with that. Even if you create an alias, I think the page pagination for more pages will still use the non-aliased urls. Or you would have to create an alias for each page, for each page and ordering option, etc.

Just a quick update on this site in case the info helps out anyone in the future:

I have managed to get the SEF URLS working correctly on the manufacturer link titles with the sh404sef component.  Instead of using the click2search links the urls were instead generated via the Advanced Search Module, which in turn allowed an alias that actually worked to be added.
(If I'm honest I'm sure I tried that the first time around - but this simple change worked in the end)

This then allowed me to add custom Title and Meta descriptions via the sh404sef component with the built in Custom Tags Module.

This has allowed me to take a big step forwards in the progress of the site, but as always for me one solution leads to another problem!
As mentioned above by Alejandro I was previously able to add a title to the page on the manufacturer pages using the SEO Manager (eg, Philips Digital Photo Frames).  Now the page is generated as an Advanced Search link this option is no longer available...

Is there any other method or hack that could be implemented to display a title in the form of a  contentheading on these particular advanced search result pages?

As long as you search for only one field in advanced search, the result of the click2search link and the advanced search is the same and both should show the title. In the demo site, this is the click2search link:

http://demo.reviewsforjoomla.com/review_component/list/cameras/digital-cameras/jr_brand,Canon/order/alpha/

and this is the advanced search result link:

http://demo.reviewsforjoomla.com/review_component/list/cameras/digital-cameras/all/jr_brand,Canon/order/alpha/

You can see that it's pretty much the same and in both cases the browser title says "List of products for Canon" which is generated by the SEO Manager. Only the "show title" setting is not enabled.

I'm happy to say I've found the solution!

Alejandro, after your message I had a further look into the urls developed by the Advanced Search Module using different methods.

The type of url generated when using the click2search or {JR_FIELDNAME} tag in the advanced search html are those that (for whatever reason) don't work with sh404sef. Just like your examples above.

On the contrary, searching for the fieldname as a term directly in the advanced search module produces urls that work with sh404sef but don't have the options available in the SEO Manager, such as showing the title.

The solution was to simply cut out this section of the first url:   and add it into the second type of url.
The result: URLS that display a filtered list of products, work with sh404sef AND have the title from the jreviews field options!


Thanks again for your time and responses, despite being a quite unusual issue I hope this little solution helps others in the future.