REALTYNA - SALES DEPARTMENT

Last update: Oct. 31st, 2019

Contents of this Manual are applicable to the WPL Advanced Portal Search Add-On. Details of this Manual may be different based on the customizations you have or your software.

Introduction

This Manual contains information about the Advanced Portal Search (APS) Add-On, an extension for the WPL plugin.

The APS Add-On is a powerful extension that enables real estate WordPress websites to add AJAX search and map search functionalities into their real estate website.

System Requirements

To use the APS Add-on you will need the following:

WPL PRO (Do not install any add-on to the WPL basic)

Installation

If you have the Installation Package of the APS Add-On, you can upload it from the following path: WordPress->WPL dashboard->Install Addon form.

Glossary

Below are a list of terms and their definitions used throughout this manual:

APS: It stands for Advanced Portal Search add-on.

Map View: The map section of the property listing page. By default, the WPL property listing page uses a Google Maps activity to show properties on the map.

List View: This is the listing section of the property listing page. By default, the WPL property listing page has a listing section that contains Grid and Row styles for listings, and two sections for sort options and pagination.

AJAX: The technology of loading new contents without needing to refresh the page.

MySQL: One of the most famous database engines for storing data. WordPress and most PHP applications use this database engine.

Configuring the APS Add-On

Enabling the AJAX Search

After the installation, you will see the "AJAX Search" option in the WPL Search widget options:

Open

You will then be able to enable it if you like. By selecting the "Yes" option, the Search Widget will search the listings after a user clicks the "Search" button. If you select the "Yes (On the fly)" option, it will search the listings after changing your search parameters without needing to click on the "Search" button.

The AJAX feature of the Search Widget can update both the Map view and the List view in the frontend.

Enabling Map Search

To enable the Map Search feature you should use the WPL Google Maps activity option. Go to the WPL->Activity Manager and search for "map".

Open

Click on the "Edit" icon of the property listing map activity. You can find the property listing map activity by its position. It should be "plisting_....".

After loading the Google Maps activity option you should enable the map search option.

Map Search Toggle: You can provide your users with the ability to turn the map search on or off by enabling this feature.

Map Search: If you set the Map Search to "Enabled – Checked" and check the toggle option to “Enabled”, the map search functionality will be enabled. If you set the toggle option to "Enabled - Unchecked", the map search functionality will be available but turned off until the user turns it on by using the toggle option.

Draw Search

The APS add-on gives online consumers the ability to draw an area on the map to search within. They have the option to draw circles and/or polygons on the map. Please check screenshots below:

Circle Search

Polygon Search

Please Note: The Polygon search will not work accurately if the MySQL version of your host is lower than 5.6.  If needed, request your host provider to upgrade your MySQL to a newer version.

Property Preview for Google Map activity

By enabling this option, a sidebar will appear on the map which displays the listings on the map. By hovering on each listing on the sidebar, the related marker on the map will be highlighted too, as depicted below:

Note: The Map Search feature must be enabled in order to use this feature.

Suggestion Search

By adding the Suggestion Search field in your search widget (as depicted below) you will have the ability to get suggestions on writing your search query in the Suggestion Search text field.

Here’s how the suggestions work: You should first choose the category you want to search for, then start typing your search query. You will receive suggestions based on the selected category. See the images below for an example:

Landing Page Generator

Using this feature, you can create landing pages for your searches. This button will appear near the Save Search button, after searching for properties:

By clicking on this button, the following pop-up will appear:

You can enter your desired page name and click on Save, which by then you will get the Page Link and also the Edit Link for the newly created page. The content of this page will be automatically set to the current search criteria.

Note that in order to see this button in search results page, you should have access to Landing Page permission:

Listings Results activity

The APS addon includes an activity which is used to display a navigation menu in Property Show (Detail) page:

By adding this activity, whenever you search for properties and then click on any of the properties in search results page, you will have the ability to navigate to Next or Previous listing in the search results or even return back to the results page.

Bing Map activity 

Using APS addon, you can add Bing map activity to your website. This activity has both Road view and Bird’s Eye view modes.

By using the Activity Manager, you can simply add the “bingmap” activity to pages like property show:

Note that you will need to sign-up for Bing Map Authentication Key in order to use this feature. For more information, please visit:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff428642.aspx

Divi Builder and Visual Composer Integration

The Summary widget is compatible with both Divi Builder and Visual Composer plugins, and you can add this widget as an element there.