Best Extension for Real Estate website

[ramjet]

A friend wants a website he can easily add houses to rent (a few pictures, a map, a blurb etc and some data re number of bedrooms,price etc etc) as they come up.
Is there an extension or combo already existing for this kind of thing (to allow the client to add everything easily).
I'm assuming catalog (its about time I try it) but perhaps a client would not easily manage additions using this????
Maybe there are other solutions.
Feedback is appreciated.

[thyon]

One of the first websites I used the catalog for was a property website... My client is very happy to enter the property data after a bit of training on the BE.

you can also repurpose the NEWS module, if you wanted to, but there aren't enough fields to

I'm starting to think that making custom modules for every type of occasion is a much better solution than trying to build a catalog that doesn't work in all occasions.

[ramjet]

I'll try it in Catalog Thyon unless there exists some purpose built module.... i've wanted to test drive catalog for a long time actually as the idea behind it is fantastic, and people rave about it in all sorts of situations, so now I've got a specific project for it.
i've downloaded the latest ver 2 and seen a good starting video on Blair and Freds site. Plenty to read, but there seems to be plenty of info available.
I won't be starting for another three weeks probably, but any pointers aimed towards a site showing houses would be great.

I'm wondering mostly about the best way for him to add several images in to each record. Through the filemanager manually into a self created folder ... or through a script?

[thyon]

http://www.remaxteamaa.co.za/properties.html

[ramjet]

yeah absolutely perfect.
and easy you say for him to control (hes savvy enough).

I'm curious Thyon (i'm not saying you should) but for that particular setup of catalog can it be delivered to me?
By this I mean like Ruud and Veras "clean install" can you deliver and I install a file (.sql? ) to "set it up"?

[thyon]

you can just install my UNZIP extension. its brilliant. It allows you to client to load 1 ZIP file with all the images, and then he can unzip them into the folder. You then select a folder with all the images in it as the gallery of images (make a multiple selection field).

[Doublespark]

i've downloaded the latest ver 2

Where is this available please?

**EDIT**

I have found catalog 2.0.a3 but says last update in November, is that the latest release?

[thyon]

check the Sticky Topic in the catalog/catalog_ext forum, which provides the Google Code link.

[ramjet]

for that particular setup of catalog can it be delivered to me?

What I'm getting at is this....
Yours is not a module to handle real estate specifically but rather a setup of Catalog to handle real estate.
Is there a way for you to provide that particular setup to me instantly, so I don't have to configure Catalog to do what you have already done? (ie: you export that particular Catalog setup as a kind of Catalog-Template-for-Real-Estate, and I import it into Catalog)

Likewise if I made a Catalog setup for say the dental industry or book cataloging, could I pass my setup to someone else who might have a dentist as a client needing the same thing.

Hope I'm making sense.
I'm wondering about the idea of Catalog Templates really, and whether they are possible.

[thyon]

That is the idea. To have some sort of packing utility to make it possible to install and then have it ready to reuse.

Its possible to export the catalog using an SQL Backup... then you can just copy the template files and the modules out as well...

[ramjet]

I like the idea of Catalog templates.... the ideal would be to make available an export/import of the configured setup but not the record data I guess.
I need to start playing with Catalog first to find out what it is