Vantage 1.1 Released
Well, here it is. Vantage 1.1 has been released. With this release, it could be said that we’re claiming it may be your favorite release yet. You’ve been patiently waiting for new features and updates, and we have listened. Our development team has been working hard to deliver an awesome feature-packed release!
Check out this list of the highlighted features:
Claiming Listings
You can now import or input many listings and flag them as “Claimable”. When the actual business owner finds their listing on your Vantage site, they can “Claim” it. After their payment, and upon your approval, the listing is handed over to them. They can edit, upload images, upload PDFs, modify any custom fields, etc.
Favorites
As visitors frequent your site, they will certainly come across business listings they like and will want to come back to them again and again. Vantage now has “favorites” where a logged in user can manage a list of their favorite listings.
Improved Location Search
We understand the importance of a strong site search engine and how location plays a big part in a business directory website. That’s why we are always looking for smart ways to improve this feature. With this update, when a user types in more general terms, like a city, state or country name, the system will auto generate a default radius for the general area of the location term they used. Just in case you didn’t know, Vantage search is backed by the best in the world for location searching, geocoding, and maps: The Google Maps API.
Pricing Plans
Since we know that you use Vantage to generate income, we realize that you need flexible options for pricing. Because of this, we have created Pricing Plans which allow you to do just that! Create multiple pricing plans. Attach the plans to categories. Offer featured as part of the plan or as an upsell. Allow businesses to relist with or without featured or with a completely different price plan. And check this out, listing duration and featured duration are separate! When the featured duration runs out, a business owner can repurchase featured status without repurchasing a new listing. Can you say, “Wow!”
AppThemes Payments
AppThemes is committed to helping it’s customers make the most of their business directory site. We have a dedicated team developing payment gateways for Vantage and our other themes. Site owners around the world need options. This means we don’t stop at PayPal and Google Wallet. We’re building gateways for 2checkout, Stripe, Authorize.net, Pagseguro and more coming. They’ll all be available for purchase in our soon to be “officially” announced Marketplace.
If you are a developer who wants to develop a payment gateway for use in our themes, check out our Payments Docs.
WordPress 3.4 Support
WordPress 3.4 came with some really great features. We knew we had to include them! Vantage will sport the new Live Theme Customizer, as well as updated header management so you can better control your logo image and sizing.
PDF Uploads
Uploading Images is great but it doesn’t cover every need. Now you can enable PDF (or other desired file formats) to be uploaded and displayed on listings! This means restaurant menus, pricing sheets, brochures and more!
Improved Importer
A good business directory should have lots and lots of listings right? And importing listings gives you a big head start on making that happen. Well, we have greatly improved the csv importer, which now can import remote images, set featured images, and even geo-code the addresses.
wp-admin Interface Improvements
We completed an overhaul of how admins can manage a listing from wp-admin. No more editing or adding listings from the front end. Admins can now manage every listing through the admin panel – including location/address management with map, manage the listing’s images/attachments, mark a listing as claimable, manage the listing’s contact information, moderation controls, and featured add-on’s status and expiration management.
How Do I get This Update?
That’s a huge list and there is an even longer list of resolved issues and code improvements that’s too long to list here. By now, you must be wondering how to get your hands on the new release. You can download a copy from your customer dashboard. Or better yet, download and install the AppThemes Updater Plugin to make updating a snap!
Comments (59)
in new release i miss as promised the following.
– Separate featured prices is not possible
– Stripe payment gateway
– Google Checkout payment gateway
– Bank transfer payment gateway
– Coupons and discounts for purchasing business listings
Hello Collectbox,
Stripe, Google Checkout (now Wallet) and coupons are available as plugins in our marketplace ( http://marketplace.appthemes.com ).
Bank transfer will be a part of the theme. We still have a couple of things to smooth out with this feature.
You can definitely set different prices for featured. Please see the following…
Payments settings ( http://demos.appthemes.com/vantage/wp-admin/admin.php?page=app-payments-settings ) allows you to set price and duration on featured.
Price plan ( http://demos.appthemes.com/vantage/wp-admin/post.php?post=1141&action=edit ) let’s you include featured as part of the price or require additional payment to upgrade to featured.
Cheers!
featured as part of the price or require additional payment to upgrade to featured. Is not posible read more forum.
Can you provide a link to the forum post you are speaking about? I cannot replicate the problem and I don’t see any threads addressing this. As of right now, I’m using it exactly as described on my Vantage install. We’d like to get it fixed if there is an issue, though.
Great stuff !! Sushi here i come !!
Hi Josh,
Thanks for the blog post and congrats everyone for the release.
Is there a way to have all listings showing together on a big map?
It seems that there is only a widget for showing a single listing on a little sidebar map.
Regards
SoftFaber
SoftFaber, we will be working on map features for Vantage 1.2 that will include multiple listings on a single map. For now, it’s just the map widget on single listing pages.
Where do I find a english language file for the new version 1.1?
Do you mean British English? I know our themes are built in American English, much to the chagrin of the inventors of the language. I don’t believe there is a British version or any other English translation that I know of. You would be interested in creating one? We have incentives for doing so. Email support@appthemes.com if you are interested. Thanks.
Hi Shannon, the English language pack available to download is for version 1.0. Can you add one for version 1.1 so I can translate ‘Favorites’ to British/Australian English?
We’ll have this up soon, mtchairs. By the end of the weekend.
Thanks for getting this updated. I now have Favourites instead of Favorites and I’m happy 🙂
Hooray! Finally the proper English spelling!
I look really forward to getting this on my website, thank you 🙂
Yesssssssssssss !
… was eagerly waiting for the same… Cheers !
Coooooooooooool !
do you have a plan on adding an Event calendar? where clients can post events of their business on a calendar? greetings from the philippines.
Yes.. We’ll be working on events for the next major release.
You sad “Stripe, Google Checkout (now Wallet) and coupons are available as plugins in our marketplace ( http://marketplace.appthemes.com )”
but there’s no coupons there ???
The Coupons plugin and Google Wallet plugin will be available soon – within days.
I see you mentioned that Google Wallet and Coupons plugins will be available in a couple of days…that was in August. Have you created them yet? I don’t see them in the marketplace? Does that mean they are included with the them, or are they plugins that cost additional money? Please advise.
@VegasKev, the coupons plugin has been available in the Marketplace for a while. We’re still working on the Google Wallet one, however.
Yes…I found it, thanks….sorry for not replying to my reply earlier. I’m researching it now.
where is the language file to translate? a lot is now back to english since update
Since our language files are updated by volunteers, it may take a little time to get updates. When they are available, you will find theme here: http://www.appthemes.com/support/languages/vantage/
Hello Shannon,
I would like to know what the approximate period for the implementation of PagSeguro.
And I wonder if you also make custom plugins for payment. I need a payment gateway for a service called “Cobre Direto”.
Thank you,
Jones.
Tyler is working on payment gateways. Pagseguro is taking a little longer but is progressing. Hopefully it’s just a couple of weeks away.
Can you tell us a little more about Cobre Direto. We don’t do custom work, but if it’s a gateway that others would use, we may consider building it.
Hello Shannon,
Thanks for the quick support.
CobreDireto is a big platform of payment gateway made generally to registered companies, and PagSeguro is an intermediary payment like PayPal (though the two are from the same company).
I think that the big difference between the two systems is that PagSeguro is usually used by people who do not have contracts with credit card operators, differently from CobreDireto.
I do not know if it helps, but they already have a plugin for WP e-commerce:
https://www.cobredireto.com.br/integracao/conectores/wp-e-commerce/
Both services are used by millions of people, but they have different audiences. I think it would be interesting for your company also work with this platform to win this new market.
*Ps Sorry for my english,
Jones.
Thanks for your insight, Jones. We’ll have to take a closer look at CobreDireto.
Hi guys,
This is an awesome update – congratulations and well done.
However, one thing I was praying for are subscription payments via PayPal for a listing. Do you know of any plugins that can make this happen as I see it’s not included 🙁
I recently launched a visual web directory (http://asiancapture.com) on another platform and it uses PayPal monthly subscriptions. The automatic monthly billing is absolutely essential to making this a success…
I want this also.. desperately.. I will purchase this theme as soon as it offers this option
softfaber,
Are you referring to the main page search results showing multiple listings as well as their ratings? I have been working on exactly that over @ medassist.ca . If you type in “test” for the search it will put all of the results on the map. Further, I have it currently showing all of the paid advertisers on the map initially once you hit the site.
J
That looks like some interesting stuff, J. I did the “test” search and see the multiple items on the map. Good work.
Hi jcummings68,
medassist.ca looks great Can you share these modifications?
Thanks
Hi Shannon, can you let us know if you are planing to add the ability to rate listings on multiple criteria in Vantage 1.2? There are already a couple of identical open suggestions for this in the Ideas Exchange with votes split between them. See this thread in the forum http://forums.appthemes.com/mutiple-ratings-35916/.
Rating multiple criteria is not planned for Vantage 1.2 and not something we have considered yet. I have a full response in the thread you have linked to.
Hi Shannon, thanks for the response in the forum. Bit disappointed about no Multi-ratings but at least we know now and can try and find another way. Now that 1.1 is out would you be able to outline in a blog post what features you do have planned for 1.2?
Thanks for understanding, mtchairs. We’ll make a post about plans for Vantage 1.2 in a few weeks.
Ok, look forward to it.
On another topic, is it possible to have regular listings display randomly? I could only see a setting for featured listings which I’m not using. There is also a problem with the Upgrade listing link still appearing even if Featured listings have been disabled that I’d like to draw your attention to. There is a forum thread for this but no response from Appthemes yet http://forums.appthemes.com/still-getting-upgrade-listing-option-even-when-35935/
Right now, I do not believe there are admin settings for post order. There is a plan to add order sorting in the future but that would be a front end feature and not an admin setting. I know there are several general plugins that will help control post order in WordPress. You could try those out. Unfortunately, we have no reports of anyone using them with Vantage. If you give it a try, let us know how it works.
The upgrade button issue has been reported. I’ve updated the thread. Cheers!
Hi Where is the Social Connect ?
sorry forgot about the Indian Rupees..
Where is that ?
Indian Rupees are not supported by PayPal, which is the default payment gateway for Vantage. You would need to use another payment gateway that supports rupees. We have a 2checkout gateway plugin which would support rupees. You can get it here: https://marketplace.appthemes.com/plugins/payment-gateways/2checkout
You have to install Social Connect separately ( http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/social-connect ). Or you can go to the WordPress admin on your site and search for Social Connect in plugins.
We have not added Social Connect to Vantage. We simply made sure it works with Social Connect.
Why i’m getting “500 internal server error was encountered while trying” @Shannon again and again from appthemes.com/blog !
Thanks for letting us know. We’ll get this fixed ASAP!
Search by city on the previous version was fine, but on the new update is not working again: and I put 50 miles distance.
http://screencast.com/t/4SXVcE3DP1r
jmaldonado, sorry that you are having problems. I’m not sure what the issue is. I just checked our demo site – which is running Vantage 1.1.1 and do not see the same problem. You can see for yourself…
General location search: http://demos.appthemes.com/vantage?ls=&location=st+louis
Location search, 50 mile radius: http://demos.appthemes.com/vantage?ls=&location=st+louis&radius=50
I noticed in your screenshot a radius of 0 miles, which shouldn’t be possible with the distance slider. Regardless, I can simply edit the URL to get a 0 mile radius and still do not see an issue. http://demos.appthemes.com/vantage?ls=&location=st+louis&radius=0
Can I ask you to hop in the forums ( http://forums.appthemes.com ) and create a thread so an AppThemes support agent can help you with this? Thanks.
When will you add the feature to assign multiple categories to a listing? Our clients always fall into more than one category when doing the listings. This is desperately needed!!
Allowing multiple categories for a single listing creates some problems. Since we allow pricing plans and custom forms to be assigned to categories it sets up the potential to have conflicting price plans or conflicting custom fields. For example…
Suppose category “used cars” has a price plan that is $2 for 30 days. And category “new cars” has a price plan that is $10 for 30 days. When a business wants to be listed in “used cars” and “new cars” which price plan is presented?
We know that multiple categories is a big deal and a wanted feature. We’re sure to have more discussions about this in an attempt to come up with a solution.
This is definitely a needed option. I recommend charging for each category, price plan individually. For example… if you list your listing under “used cars” with a pricing plan that is $2 for 30 days and under “new cars” with a pricing plan that is $10 for 45 days, then you run the listing for 30 days in the “used cars” category for $2 and list it under the “new cars” category for 45 days for $10. The checkout amount would be for $12, it would be two line items in the checkout process. This is just a suggestion…
Great Job on the app, nicely done!
This is fantastic, thanks Guys! Keep up the good work!
Looks like a great update. The Claim listings feature could be important for me as I am looking at moving over from another system.
Hi, I want to know when will be released PagSeguro gateway for Vantage.
We’re still working out a couple of issues with Pagseguro. It might be another couple of weeks.
When are paypal payment subscriptions going to be implemented? AKA annual “auto-renew” listings? This is essential before I purchase this theme.. as I have seen many other beg for as well.. Thanks..
Not sure at this time. We will announce as soon as we know.
What I really want from a geo directory theme ?
– clean & responsive design of inkthemes geocraft
– clean code and admin backend of appthemes vantage
– various features of templatic geoplaces (widgetized homepage, widgets everywhere, maps on every category, custom fields manager, multi-city, etc.)
– multi-city seo features (to be improved) of themetailors geotheme
🙂
Then buy the one that is closest to what you want, and then add the customizations that you want to it. Pretty simple decision if you ask me.
If you feel that AppThemes has the cleanest code, get this one, and then add the features you want to a child theme.
You got this…no sweat.
Discussion is closed.