Convert Raw HTML/ CSS / JS to working pro site for new JoeHaydenRealtor.com

[Battler45]

Vihang & Vihar,

I know that both of you are working on several other tasks, but, as you have time, our next task will be to get underway on integrating the programming, etc. into the raw HTML / CSS / JS of the new JoeHaydenRealtor.com website.

Vihar, the reason I've included you on this ticket is that, as we've discussed, I believe we will need to create a set of duplicate content and blog posts for this new site, which we'll then be able to work with in development without affecting the current live site. Can either you or Vihang move forward with that when you have time? I suppose this will also involve duplicating the current Sites record to a new record, and then also duplicating the site's current AdminUser to a new user.

Vihang, I've also configured a new working website for the new site. You can find it here:

http://joehaydenrealtornew.sierrainteractivedev.com/index.html http://joehaydenrealtornew.sierrainteractivedev.com/inner.html

You can access this site via FTP using the usual credentials, with the username, joehaydenrealtornew_dev

Once you log in to the site, you'll see that common files such as default.asp, content.asp, etc. have already been added to the site. I'm not sure how those got there -- I may have added them in copying the site, or it's possible that Arthur added them after finishing the site HTML. If you examine them and find that they don't belong there, or that you prefer to proceed in a different way, it's fine to remove or change them as needed.

In configuring this site, we are going to need to make some changes to the Communities page, by adding an number of new top-level Communities sections, and then assigning the (duplicated) pages in the content manager to the appropriate sections using the attached spreadsheet.

As you'll see in the attached spreadsheet, the client would like to add 15 new top-level sections to the new site, and many of the pages currently in the main Communities section will be re-assigned to these newly created sections.

Once that's done, the main Communities page on the new site (which includes the alphabetized list) will need to pull neighborhoods from all of these sections (similar to what we are already doing with MLSKY.net).

Can you get started with the programming integration there when you have time? Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks.

Posted by Shah Vihang(unfuddle username: vihang)

[Battler45]

Ben,

RE: #19 - I've begun working on integration custom-url changes (#98 and #99). I've update large number of live search-tools files on DEDN173. I should be able to complete these changes tomorrow. I'll then copy those changes to the live site on DEDJ198.

Pls note that in making this changes I found that none of the xml_feeds/*.asp pages appear to be working. I may not have called them correctly so pls verify the same.

Thanks. Posted by Shah Vihar(unfuddle username: vshah)

[Battler45]

Vihang,

Thanks for doing that.

Actually, the client is in the process of creating these default pages. However, he reports that he is not able to enter a "/" for the Page Filename parameter (it tells him he must enter a value). I'm not sure why that would be -- it must be a permissions setting of some kind -- so, for now, he is creating these pages with the Page Filename of either "homes-for-sale" or "condominiums-for-sale".

If you go into the Content Manager for this site and sort by Last Updated, you'll see the pages he has already created in this way. Can you go through these and update the Page Filename to be just "/", so that they will work as the default pages for these sections and connect with the links you created in the Search by Area box?

Thanks. Posted by Peskoe Ben(unfuddle username: bpeskoe)

[Battler45]

Vihang,

Can you please add the following testimonial to the home page for the new Joe Hayden website?

"Our family can honestly say that we were completely satisfied with the services we received through Joe Hayden and his entire team. From the beginning, we were impressed with his personal approach, professionalism, attention to detail, and hard work." Christina and Bobby W.

Also, the client is going to have a couple of additional testimonials, and would like these to rotate on the home page (fading in and out, each approx 8 seconds). Can you go ahead and set that up?

Thanks. Posted by Peskoe Ben(unfuddle username: bpeskoe)

[Battler45]

Vihang,

I'm sorry to hear you are not feeling well. Please take the time you need to feel better and get some rest, not a problem.

When you are feeling better, regarding the blog posts, this looks good, but perhaps it would be a better fit to mimic the styling of the links in the "Search by Area" box -- so, use the same red arrow as in that case, and the same gray background with 1px white border above and below, but with the same amount of padding as you have in the present implementation.

But, again, please do take the time you need and get some rest. I can work on these things, and there is nothing that can't wait.

Thanks. Posted by Peskoe Ben(unfuddle username: bpeskoe)

[Battler45]

Ben,

I hope you are doing well now. To inform you on the work-progress - I've updated programming on DEDN173 (Live site) to integrate custom-url changes. I've also modified a few files on the DEDJ198 server for the same. I'll update the rest of the files and update CAA (live) tomorrow.

A couple of points:

1 -- In order for the new Joe Hayden site to work correctly on the live database, we'll need to publish the new GLAR updater as soon as possible. The new updater will handle generation of unique-ids (spid). This will make sure that the new detail url-structure will function correctly.

Per our discussion in the last week, we had planned to initiation GLAR photo migration today (Friday). Unfortunately I couldn't start it as the ftp server (glarmls.com) contains daily photo files as well. Pls note that the photo-migration app was created to process weekly files only. A couple of workarounds are

a -- to download only weekly files from the FTP server and then process those photos. Once those photos are migrated, the new GLAR updater can be configured to process photos of last few days (starting from Monday).

b -- to publish the new GLAR updater without migrating photos. The front-end sites' programming uses the value of the PhotoServer field (MLSPhotos) to build photo-paths so we should be fine even if photos are present on both new and old servers.

Pls let me know your thoughts.

2 -- The disclaimer_text.asp file contents are different on DEDN173 and DEDJ198. Pls confirm if the file on DEDN173 contains the latest changes.

Thanks.

Posted by Shah Vihar(unfuddle username: vshah)

[Battler45]

Ben,

In verifying front-end sites, I found that some sites like viewlouisvillehomes.com and allhomesinlouisville.com have the FormDetailLinkFromAddress defined in their local functions.asp file ([site-folder]/res/includes/functions.asp). This results in errors in loading search-tools pages; removing the FormDetailLinkFromAddress from the local file fixes the issue. Pls let me know if you encounter such issue or if a client reports similar issues.

Thanks. Posted by Shah Vihar(unfuddle username: vshah)

[Battler45]

Ben,

I have completed work on the jQuery Autocomplte plugin integration. Please note the following points regarding this:

1-- User can search Address (Street Name or Street #), Subdivision, City, Zip Code or MLS # from the location box.

2-- We get number of matching results for the "Street Name" and "Subdivision" so for now, I have set a limit to return top 10 matching results of each of these location types.

3-- The first matching result would be automatically selected. This is a workaround to force user to select from the matching results since we allow search on multiple location type and it is important for us to associate selected result with the appropriate location type.

4-- The Autocomplete would be activated, that is the matching results would be shown only after user has entered three or more characters.

Also, please note the following points:

1-- I forgot to mention this in earlier comments; I have used same styling for the content label widgets as in the old site and the images are pulled from http://joehaydenrealtor.sierrastatic.com/res/images/sicm/.

2-- The content on the home page is static and I haven't yet included the /shared/global/sicm/content/content_body.asp file in the default.asp file as the content on the home page is quite large and different compared to the content in the template.

3-- The HTML Document type used for the template pages is Strict whereas for the site it was set to use Transitional as a result there were few issues in the quick search box and sidebar display. So, I have updated the HTMLDocType to Strict on the Admin Settings form in CAA and also updated the main pages and blog pages for the same.

4-- We haven't yet updated the search tool links and image/file urls in the pages/posts contents. That is we have not yet replaced /property-search/ with /louisville-mls/ in links and images/files would be pulled from the /userfiles/182/ folder. I think it would be good to update image/file urls at the time of making site live, we can rename /userfiles/182/ to /userfiles/340/ otherwise we will need to copy images/files from old site (182) to new site (340). But please let me know if I should update the search tools links in the pages/posts contents.

Please check these changes and let me know your feedback.

Thanks

Posted by Shah Vihang(unfuddle username: vihang)

[Battler45]

Vihang,

RE: #32

The auto-complete plugin seems to be working great, thank you. Can you please:

1 - Update the default text of the search box to, "City or Neighborhood or Zip or Address or MLS #"

2 - Update the order of the results returned to be in that order as well. So, city results would be the first returned, then neighborhood, then zip, etc. That way, a neighborhood result would be selected by default rather than an address result, which I think will be the more common use case. Also, a question: if the client wishes to add Area to the list of options (in place of City or in addition to the options already there), would that be a problem?

3 - In the formatting of the options in the results list, can you format them more closely to how they are presented in the chosen drop-down, matching the colors, line-spacing and indentation used there? I believe the Chosen results list formatting is a bit easier to read.

It really seems to be quick at returning results, and the user interface is very intuitive -- nice job!

Regarding the additional points:

1 - That's fine. I am going to be making some further updates in this regard tomorrow.

2 - Yes, I agree it's best to leave that for now. I will ask the client to let us know his wishes there.

3 - Yes, I apologize that I forgot to mention this, but it's fine (and necessary) to use the Strict Doctype. I should have realized this would cause problems for you.

4 - Yes, I agree about waiting to update the links to site assets / photos until we are ready to make the site live, because then we will be able to do it all at once rather than in multiple steps. But, please do go ahead and update the "/property-search/" links to use the new "/louisville-mls/" URL structure.

Thanks. Posted by Peskoe Ben(unfuddle username: bpeskoe)

[Battler45]

Ben,

I hope you are feeling better now. This is to clarify about publishing GLAR updater (comment-31) - pls note that publishing the new updater is not a must. The changes are at stored-procedure level only (to generate unique-id and move record to OffMarket table) so it would be fine to continue with the old GLAR updater by updating those stored-procedures. In that case however the old updater programming will need to be updated to create search-tool page links based on the UrlStructure and SearchToolsRootDirectory values (Sites table). This will ensure that correct links are added to the email-alerts.

Pls let me know if I should go ahead and update the stored-procedures and old updater programming for the same.

Thanks. Posted by Shah Vihar(unfuddle username: vshah)

[Battler45]

Vihar,

I am feeling mostly better and am back at work today. Thanks for your work integrating the updates into the front-end sites and into the live CAA. I did find one instance of the type of problem you described on AtHomeInLouisville.com and have corrected that on the Live and Dev versions of the site. One thing I realized is that some of the older pro sites are not referencing the common version of the programming from within listing-carousel-2.asp (AtHomeInLouisville.com was not). All sites eventually should be updated to use this common file (which is what we are doing now on the newer sites). Also, all sites should be updated to pull listings for the carousels via saved search rather than AgentOfficeID, in order to give the client control of these listings via the CAA. Since we have so much else to do at the moment, it's not a priority to go back and update all of these sites now, but we should remember to do that at some point.

With these updates in place, are we now ready to switch the new JoeHaydenRealtor.com development site back to pointing to the live database / CAA? If so, can you or Vihang please go ahead and make that change?

I am going through that site today making some updates and would like to send the client a link to begin previewing it tomorrow, but I would rather not do that until it has been switched to the live DB, because I am sure he will immediately want to begin making content changes via the admin area.

Also, to catch up on some of the previous comments in this thread:

RE: #29

I have verified that the Trulia and Zillow feeds are working correctly by setting up:

• http://www.louisvilleproperties.com/property-search/trulia/
• http://www.louisvilleproperties.com/property-search/zillow/

This site is on DEDN173 and these files are both working properly.

RE: #30

Regarding integrating the new page components into the search tools pages, my understanding was that, when you brought the dev branch back into the master branch on the CAA, you would need to publish the updates you completed a long time ago for the additional page components in the Edit Page form. This would force these components to become active in the CAA, and so I understood that we would therefore need to implement programming on the front end to make them active there as well. Is that not the case?

RE: #31

Regarding publishing the new GLAR updater, I agree that it would be best to do this as soon as possible. Your approach (a) sounds fine -- processing weekly files first, and then, once those are completed, processing the files from the past few days. Even if it ends up requiring us to process photos from past 5-6 days, that should be fine. Because, as you say, the value of the PhotoServer field is already set for the GLAR photos, front end sites should work without a problem during this transition, correct?

That said, our immediate need is to get the joehaydenrealtor.com development site pointing to the live database so that the client can review and begin making edits. As I understand it, we are now at the point where that is possible -- the only remaining item being the formation of the URLs in the new listing email notifications in the old GLAR updater.

If that's the case, once we switch to the new GLAR updater and you initiate the photo migration app, all new listing email alerts from that point will be generated by new GLAR updater, and so this issue will no longer be a problem, correct?

Regarding discliamer_text.asp, yes, you are correct that the most recent version was on DEDN173. I have updated DEDJ198 with the same, and also verified that Inetpub-DEV on DEDN173 is up-to-date.

Thanks.

Posted by Peskoe Ben(unfuddle username: bpeskoe)

[Battler45]

Vihang,

Just FYI, I was able to make the updates to the blog post formatting today, so we are all set on that point.

Thanks. Posted by Peskoe Ben(unfuddle username: bpeskoe)

[Battler45]

Ben,

RE: #26 - I've fixed the issue in newpanda, trulia and zillow feed-generation but I couldn't verify whether or not correct data is generated. Apparently all those files use the OfficeMLSID value (and most likely a few additional parameters which I couldn't figure out) for retrieving records. I tested the trulia and zillow feeds for joehayden and hometoindy sites but it didn't pull any records. Are these feeds used for a few sites only?

Thanks. Posted by Shah Vihar(unfuddle username: vshah)

[Battler45]

Ben,

I've updated the remaining files on DEDJ198 to integrate custom-url specific changes. I've also published the changes to the CAA and lead-distribution web-service. I've verified the changes in CAA and web-service. I'm currently verifying front-end sites hosted on the DEDJ198 server.

Pls note that I found an issue in juliepogue site in that the features listings weren't not getting displayed on the home-page. Apparently the programming in the listing-carousel-2.asp is calling the FormDetailLinkFromAddress function. Pls note that this function has been updated as a part of the custom-url change. This function now requires a couple of additional parameters viz. search-tools-root-directory and url-structure values (Sites table) and unique-id value (MLS table). To fix this issue, I've updated the listing-carousel-2.asp file to pass default values to this function.

Moreover, the file was referencing the \shared\global\sicm\main_includes\functions.asp file for FormDetailLinkFromAddress. Pls note that this function is now moved to a common-file, \MLS_Tools_Integrated\res\includes\common_functions.asp which is internally referenced from the \MLS_Tools_Integrated\res\includes\functions.asp and shared\global\sicm\content\widget_saved_listings_top.asp files. All other files (including \sicm\main_includes\functions.asp) have been updated to remove the definition of FormDetailLinkFromAddress function.

Can you pls let me know if there are other such instances where the FormDetailLinkFromAddress function is called from within the site specific programming? We'll need to change all those instances to pass additional parameters. I thought about performing full-text search of Inetpub files but that might slow down the server. Pls let me know if we have any other way of checking this.

Thanks. Posted by Shah Vihar(unfuddle username: vshah)

[Battler45]

Vihar,

RE: #37

I would prefer to go ahead and publish the new GLAR updater sooner rather than later if you are confident that everything is in place there.

Thanks. Posted by Peskoe Ben(unfuddle username: bpeskoe)

[Battler45]

Ben,

Glad to hear that you're feeling better now.

I also thought about referencing the common programming for those sites but they have some differences in the way data is retrieved so I didn't make the change. I agree that it would be good to revisit this later.

As for launching the GLAR updater - the imported data appears to be in order so I'm confident about that. The only thing I'm concerned about is the photo migration. As mentioned earlier, the photo-migration app was built to process weekly photos so I'll need to revisit it once before we initiate the transfer.

That said, the new updater is needed to be launched so that the email-alerts contain correct links. As I understand we won't be launching the new JoeHaydenRealtor site for another few days so we can continue with the old GLAR updater for another couple of days. That will give us time to prepare for the launch of the new GLAR updater, which is critical considering the number of sites we have in that region.

The only change that would be needed for now would be to update the spInsertUpdateMLSListing and spRemoveListingByMLSNumber stored-procedures so that they start moving records to the OffMarket table. Pls let me know if now would be the correct time to update those stored-procedures. If the old updater has already started then perhaps I'll do that my early tomorrow.

In any case, I've changed the new JoeHaydenRealtor site to point to the live db and use the live search-tools programming.

Thanks. Posted by Shah Vihar(unfuddle username: vshah)

[Battler45]

Vihang,

We've had some feedback from Joe Hayden on his new site, and so far he likes it a lot, but he does have a couple of requests:

1 - With the quick search, it seems to be agressive in auto-selecting the first option. For example, he says that if he starts typing in "Lake" with the intention of typing "Lake Forest" it jumps to "Boulders of Mallard Lake." Is there a way to make it function in this regard more like the Chosen plugin, where the first option is highlighted so that if they hit Enter or Tab it is selected, but that it does not automatically populate without that? Then, if they don't select from the drop-down list, the value would be nulled out? (Meaning, they would not be able to enter a value without selecting from the auto-complete list.)

2 - Can you copy over to the new site all pages that Joe has added or updated since you and Vihar did the original export of pages to the new site?

3 - Also, can you create a new spreadsheet of neighborhoods in exactly the same format as the original one, but this one picking up with neighborhood pages added after the last one was created? (I believe the cutoff date was November 28.)

4 - On the customer-facing sitemap on the new site please include all site pages including those in all community sections.

Thanks. Posted by Peskoe Ben(unfuddle username: bpeskoe)

[Battler45]

Vihang,

Thanks for doing this. I've notified the client about the missing default pages -- I assume he is in the process of adding them, but wanted to double-check. Also, I believe what you have done with the Section Filenames / Section Names so far is correct -- I will let you know if the client has any requests to the contrary.

Thanks. Posted by Peskoe Ben(unfuddle username: bpeskoe)

[Battler45]

Vihang,

RE: #57

Sorry, I thought that I had already responded to this comment. I do think it would be good to stick to the old site and add new sections into the old site, and your suggested approach seems good. Let's plan on taking this approach when we get closer to launching the site.

Also:

1 - In the quick search on the site home page, the updated auto-complete functionality seems to be working very well, but I'm getting a javascript confirmation message when I submit the form. Can you remove this?

2 - On the interior page quick search, please remove the Area, MLS # and Street Address tabs, leaving only the main tab. Then, change the "Location" label to, "Location, Address or MLS#" and implement the same functionality on this box as on the corresponding box in the home page quick search.

3 - On the home page, please remove the current "facebook / twitter" box and replace it with a "from the blog" box. As content for this box, please include links to the 5 or 10 most recent blog posts. This will be slightly different than what we typically do on these sites in that it will only be the blog post title included, but not the date posted, or any of the post content or who it was posted by, etc. It will basically look like the attached. However, instead of the triangle icon, please just use the same square "dot" image that is being used in the li element of unordered lists (bullet points).

Because the height of this content will always vary with the length of the post titles, I think we will need to include a scroll bar at the right edge of this box so that the user can scroll down to view overflow.

4 - On the interior pages, please replace the Twitter / Facebook widget in the same way. In that case, though, include links to the 8 most recent posts and allow the height of the widget to vary so that a scroll bar is not necessary on the interior pages.

(Also, on the interior pages, the text of the Free Market Analysis header is a different font size than the other widget titles for some reason.)

5 - Also, on the neighborhood pages, the client would prefer that, for the sidebar navigation, we take an approach more similar to what we have done on the recent stealth sites, where we include the Fetured Searches rather than links to all pages in that section.

So, can you please update the sidebar for all of the neighborhood pages / sections with featured searches links for each section?

These would include:

• Newest Listings
• Price Reductions
• Foreclosures
• Short Sales
• Subdivisions

The client has already created "Newest Listings" and "Subdivisions" pages for all sections (I believe). Can you work on creating the saved searches and associated pages for the remaining items? (The client has already created a "Foreclosures" page in the Highlands section for use as a template for this and other pages, just replacing "Foreclosures" with "Short Sales" and "Price Reductions" as needed.)

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks. Posted by Peskoe Ben(unfuddle username: bpeskoe)

[Battler45]

Ben,

I have updated the filename (to "/") of the default pages of new sections. It appears that the client hasn't added default page of the following sections:

• Patio Homes
• Prospect Homes
• Shelby County Homes
• Spencer County Homes
• St. Matthews Homes

Please let me know if I should add the same.

Also, please note that while updating section filename, I had also updated section name, that is, Subdivision was replaced by Homes. For example, "Anchorage Subdivision" was updated to "Anchorage Homes". Similarly I had updated the links in the "Search by Area" box as well. However, I noticed that the Page Title of the default page is set as "[XYZ] Subdivision". For example, the Page Title of the default page of the "Anchorage Homes" section is "Anchorage Subdivisions". So, I wanted to confirm if I only needed to update the section filename. Please let me know if I should replace Homes with Subdivisions in the section name and "Search by Area" links.

Thanks

Posted by Shah Vihang(unfuddle username: vihang)