jReviews :: Customer support forum

jReviews looks to be a good fit for a new site I'll be creating using Joomla 1.5.

In simple terms, the site will be a guide to approximately 20 countries and each country needs its own reviews directory. The site will run on a single installation of Joomla.

My main concern at this stage is categories. I need:

Country / City / Category / Subcategory / Review

Users will browse reviews for a particular city.

The categories and subcategories for each city will be identical.

In some cases, there will be a substantial number of subcategories.

From what I've read, I could create a directory for each city. But that would involve manually creating the somewhat large (duplicate) directory structure for each city. Is that correct? Would there be any way to automate the process? Assuming a separate directory for each city is feasible, are there any other drawbacks or limitations to this approach?

I believe another way would be to make just one directory containing reviews for all locations and use advanced search to create links which filter the listings by country and city. Is that right?

If I used this tagging approach, will I have to manually create a "directory" page for each city? And what are the implications for directory navigation? For example, will the navigation module still work? Are there any other considerations or problems when using tagging to create virtual categories?

Also...

• Does/can jReviews and CB share the same registered-user information?
• If a user is logged into CB, are they automatically logged-into jReviews and vice-versa?
• Is it possible to hide empty categories?
• Do you charge for future upgrades/support?

Thanks in advance for your advice. If it sounds like I can organise my categories in a suitable fashion, I will download the trial and play with it for myself.

Many thanks for the reply 

I read in other posts that a large number of custom fields will degrade site performance, but that this issue should be resolved in 2.0. Is it still an issue in 2.0?

Would having a large number of directories (eg hundreds) have performance implications?

I also read that turning-off the entry count will improve performance. But if it's turned off, is it still possible to hide empty categories?

What's the cost for renewing the upgrades contract?

Thanks again for the info 

Maybe you misread or overlooked one of my questions:

>> Would having a large number of directories (eg hundreds) have performance implications?

Also, can common fields be used across multiple directories, eg if I had a custom field for "city", can this same field be re-used across several directories, or only within the same directory?

Sounds good. Many thanks for your helpful replies! 

One last question before I buy...

Can a directory structure be cloned?

If this is not a feature, would it be difficult to create a plugin that does this?

I don't know what you mean by cloning a directory. What exactly do you mean and what is the functionality you expect to get out of it?

Yes, it's compatible/integrated with CB 1.2

No, the setup is actually a bit backwards. You start the other way around, with the fields, criterias, categories and finally the directory you assign to the categories. You'll need to play with it a bit to understand what I mean. But the answer is no cloning. You can use a component called "mass content" that allows you to quickly create sections and categories in Joomla.