Classifieds will automatically create 3 (three) pages upon activation.
Should you have any issues with this not being done or have the need to recreate these page you can completely Trash the pages, then deactivate and re-activate the plugin. We will come back to these in a bit to see what they do.
Let’s get the plugin setup! We will go through the settings quickly, you will find them easy to manage. The Classified>Settings menu contains a few tabs that we should go through.
General Settings
Here is where you setup how your users use your Classifieds site.
Payment Settings
Should you choose to decide to charge for the ability to create classifieds on your site you can set the Payment terms here.
You can choose from Recurring Payments, One Time Payments and Credit based options. Simply select the check box next to the payment method you prefer, then fill in the remaining values.
For Credits, you do not need any other plugins or elements, just fill out the values and your users will purchase the credits via the Payment Gateway you choose on the next tab.
You’ll also see a “Terms of Service” box filled with dummy text. You should replace this with your own.
Payment Types
This tab is where you set your Payment Details to accept Payments. If you want to have a Free Classifieds site then just click the Free Listings box and save the settings, then move on. Nothing else for you here. If you select “Free Listings” it will ignore any settings on the previous tab.
If you are choosing to charge, select the Gateway you want to use. The settings box for the applicable Gateway will appear below. You have the option in any of the paid Gateways to set Redirect URL’s on Success and upon Cancellation.
Note: You cannot offer both Free and Paid listings.
Shortcodes
This tab lists various shortcodes you can use around your site. Simply select a shortcode to use and insert it into your page or post. Please note that you can only use one of the attributes at a time, they are all shown in the examples so that you know what the options are. For instance you cannot insert [cf_classifieds_categories style="grid | list"]
into your page or post. You would need to enter [cf_classifieds_categories style="grid"]
or [cf_classifieds_categories style="list"]
.
Once you’ve saved all of your settings it’s time to see how it works!
Remember those 3 pages that were auto-created?
The Classifieds page that was created will automatically list all of your classifieds. This page is dynamically generated so you don’t need to do anything to it.
The My Classifieds page will take the user to their list of Classified Ads and give them a link to add a new Classified:
The Classifieds Checkout page is for exactly what it sounds like. If you have a Free site users will be prompted to Login or Register, once they have done so they will see a Registration Success Message. If you have the Payment Gateways enabled this is where they will select their purchase and checkout.
You’ll see some other menu items you should already be familiar with. Add New Classified, Classified Tags and Categories, all work the same as your accustomed, only geared directly for Classified posts.
This is where you will take care of any Pending Ads, if you have your General Settings to not allow Published Ads by users.
You will also notice a handy Dashboard menu item. This is a super handy location to manage your own classifieds from the Admin area.