Thread

Greetings,
I’ve been on the fence for a while about becoming an EE customer.  I’m a long-time Joomla user, and have gone pretty deep with it.  But recently I’ve been contacted for a couple of projects that need what is known as “CCK” capabilities in the Joomla world.  Suddenly, I’m finding myself a bit frustrated.

My most recent client is a real estate rental/sales company.  At first, I saw them as just an interesting new project.  But soon, I realized that what they need is a perfect test case for deciding what CMS I will want to use for many sites to come.

Beyond general aesthetic principles, here’s what I need to accomplish with this project:
1. The owner of the company wants her employees to log in and enter new property listings.  They need “listing forms” on the front end with all property fields (title, price, location, address, listing ID, images, etc).
2. The form should allow employees to place a listing into one of two broad categories: “sale” or “rental.”  Within that, they need to specify three sub-categories: “pending,” “active,” or “archived.”
3. Employees need to be able to see all the listings they have created, and edit them.
4. I need the site to generate “articles” (using EE templates?) that grab field submissions from the “listing form” employees fill out.  These articles need a customized layout (I suppose by plugging some kind of tag reference into specific HTML divs?).
5. Create menu links for “sales” and “rentals” pages (listings) that can be accessed on the front end.

I’ve been examining a lot of ExpressionEngine sites.  The one that comes closest to doing what I’m talking about is Snapdigs (http://www.snapdigs.com).  Their “apartments for rent” feature is almost what I’m looking for.

Using Snapdigs as a model, can anyone tell me if the “apartments for rent” feature can be implemented using a set of available EE add-ons, or would that require custom coding?

I’m what might be called “intermediate” regarding coding.  I’m able to plod my way through figuring out PHP, but it raises my stress level every time I do it.  I’m quite comfortable and effective working with any challenge in HTML and CSS.

Anyway, using what I said about my real estate client, and using Snapdigs as a model, I think I can make some decisions about ExpressionEngine.

Opinions, comments…

Thanks,
Matthew

Hi Matthew, welcome to ExpressionEngine!

1. The owner of the company wants her employees to log in and enter new property listings.  They need “listing forms” on the front end with all property fields (title, price, location, address, listing ID, images, etc).

You can acheive front-end editablity using a free add-on called Safecraker also note that custom fields or in your case “property fields” is one if the things that EE does best.

2. The form should allow employees to place a listing into one of two broad categories: “sale” or “rental.”  Within that, they need to specify three sub-categories: “pending,” “active,” or “archived.”

Categories of this type will not be a problem and “pending, active or archived” can be accomplished by using either sub-categories or better yet something called “statuses” which you can customize in such a manner. You could also separate the sale and rental categories into two different channels so they each can have their own custom fields, their own editing forms and their own templates etc.

4. I need the site to generate “articles” (using EE templates?) that grab field submissions from the “listing form” employees fill out.  These articles need a customized layout (I suppose by plugging some kind of tag reference into specific HTML divs?).

Yes, you have the general idea with template tags and “customized layouts.” You can pretty much set things up which ever way you or your client want by using html and tags from the custom fields and channels.

5. Create menu links for “sales” and “rentals” pages (listings) that can be accessed on the front end.

Yes you can do this as well by linking to the two different templates (channels or categories if that helps it make sense.)

Using Snapdigs as a model, can anyone tell me if the “apartments for rent” feature can be implemented using a set of available EE add-ons, or would that require custom coding?

I am not specifically seeing the “apertments for rent” feature, are you referencing search feature? If you don’t mind elaborating a bit I can help get this answered.

I’m what might be called “intermediate” regarding coding.  I’m able to plod my way through figuring out PHP, but it raises my stress level every time I do it.  I’m quite comfortable and effective working with any challenge in HTML and CSS.

I think you can build the majority of what you have specified for this type of site without writing a line of php (I say this without me seeing the above snapdigs feature.)

Not sure you saw this site though, it’s a nice real estate site in my opinion: http://heathertherealtor.com

Lastly, the EE staff may want to elaborate on this for you but, don’t hesitate to ask me more questions.

Thanks Nate, great answers! Matthew, feel free to elaborate on the apartments for rent feature. So far it sounds like EE is a good fit for this project.

Hello,
Thank you very much Nate and Brandon.

I’ve struggled with this whole concept inside Joomla and Drupal for a while.  To gain the ability to create articles from form submissions in Joomla and Drupal takes added “CCK” extensions, whereas it seems that it’s part of EE’s core (not sure if that’s the right technical description).

I was going along fine using Joomla until I needed article-creation capability from front-end forms, and discovered—to my surprise—that it’s almost impossible.

Thanks to the people here in this forum for being patient as I ask questions about EE.  It’s a big question, because I’ve devoted hundreds and hundreds of hours to Joomla site development, and if I switch to EE, that will become my sole CMS, since I don’t have the time or resources to stay updated on two CMSs. 

Regarding SnapDigs: what I was referring to was the “Add a Listing” function on the front page (I don’t know why I gave it the wrong name earlier).  The “Add a Listing” feature is very close to what I’m talking about.

Thanks again,
Matthew

Hi, Matthew -

It appears that SnapDigs is run on ExpressionEngine; so yes this can be done.  You shouldn’t need PHP for this.

Just to clarify, as mentioned above you would use SafeCracker to build your front-end forms.  Each property listing would be an entry, categorized exactly how you described.  No coding is necessary for this but you’ll need to learn EE’s template system, for sure.

If you want things like “Favorites” that does take a third-party add-on.

Hi, Matthew -

It appears that SnapDigs is run on ExpressionEngine; does that answer your question sufficiently? *grins*

Hi Lisa,
Yes, I know it’s run on ExpressionEngine, which is why I suddenly became more aware that EE could probably do everything I’m asking for.

However, I wanted to make sure that the content-creation functions I’m wondering about in SnapDigs are derived from “typical” uses of EE add-ons and extensions, or whether it took custom coding to make it happen.

Sorry if that’s convoluted.  Lately, my head hurts a bit with all the CMS comparisons!

Thanks,
Matthew

Hi, Matthew -

Yes, SafeCracker can be used to build the entry/creation form.  So it’s all just templating.  SafeCracker was a third-party add-on, but is now first-party so it’s part of EllisLab’s product offering.

We do have a 30 day refund policy if you wanted to give it a try, as well. =)

Matthew for whatever it’s worth I had almost this same exact dilemma not so long ago rather for a magazine/classifieds/business listing/job board project so, you can image finding the right fit was imperative.

I looked at Joomla which I had used quite some time ago and really never cared for then, I actually attempted it in Wordpress which I like for most stuff though, I felt I needed to learn more php for “CCK” type plugins and or allot of theme skinning which I didn’t want to do since I felt that was only semi-custom and then I spent 2 months learning Drupal which was more php and re-skinning and to be honest if I couldn’t understand half of the control panel I knew my client wouldn’t either. Ultimately I gave ExpressionEngine a try.

Quite frankly I was amazed at what I was able to achieve with EE and a few add-ons. I only had to use php once to generate some json which maybe wasn’t even necessary since later I found a json add-on that might have done the job.

So like Lisa said there is the 30 day money back gaurentee so you really have nothing to loose and if your like me you might just enjoy working with EE so your time won’t be for nothing.

Thanks for the additional info, Natetronn.

Matthew, does the additional info help?

Hello,
Yes, Sue, this has been quite helpful.  I’m uncomfortable having to ask such detailed questions, but I kind of need to, since I can’t peer into the functionality of EE without purchasing it.

But I’ve been very impressed with the support here—certainly more robust than what I’m used to with other CMSs!

The one remaining question I had was point #3 in my original post.  It’s important for people to see all the listings they have created and edit them any time.

This has been a long road for me, and I’m pretty close to making a decision.  The more I think about it, the more I’m realizing that this real estate project is a great test case for ExpressionEngine, and if things work well with this client it will likely be my choice for future projects.

Thanks again,
Matthew

Hi, Matthew.

3. Employees need to be able to see all the listings they have created, and edit them.

You can create a template where they would find the entries written by them, and have links showing so they can edit them online using SafeCracker.