JA Job Board Component 8,554 posts

[ccoastsearch Friend ccoastsearchJoin date: August 2010Posts: 30Downloads:0Uploads:2 Thanked: 2 times in 1 posts]

#155216

I have been setting up Job Board and I Have had occasion to find several issues such as PHP errors. I wanted to report that the Joomlart folks were tremendous in getting to my issues and fixing them.

However, now that it works I found several issues that are troublesome. I have just posted about the inability to set both the number of postings and the time limit in the subscription form. Just check my post ion that regard.

But I found other issues that need fixing and I have decided to list them here so we can check them off as we go.

1) Wrong registration redirect: When a Guest clicks on “Buy subscription” and other links, they are taken to the regular Joomla registration page, not the Ja Board registration. This can be a problem since users that don’t register as “employers” cannot buy and post jobs or edit their profiles.
To fix this I created an intermediate page and I made those links “registered” so guests cannot see them.

2) Links in menu system do not work consistently: Most of the links I created from the Menu manager in Joomla by going through the usual process turned out to be either wrong or broken. Eventually I published the Employer m,enu” and I copied the links from there, but generating new links gives you pages that either say “Invalid token” send you to the wrong page or don’t work at all. (note, the last time I tested this was a previous version)

3) Default link “Employer Cpanel” is linked to wrong page: I used the same links that come with the stock installation and one is called “Employer Cpanel” Yet, the page that it displays is the same page as the “account balance” link. Basically it shows only how many posts a user has left.
This is hardly a Cpanel. In fact, I wasn’t able to find anything resembling a “Cpanel” where wan employer can go to manage their site in its entirety. I finally built my own but it should be something available to them.

4) Missing description in list of posting plans: In the Job posting form in the backend there is a description for each “product”. There is also a help note that says that the description will show in the list of products. However, it doesn’t. I wasnb’t able to display the description at all anywhere. Since the title is limited in how manuy caracters one can write the description is very important and should be fixed.

4b) In the description field if one uses JCE (I have not tested with tinyMCE) the text area parses the HTML code and it displays the HTML tags in plain text. Since that description is not visible in the front end I couldn’t test if that transplates into am issue on the front end, but I am positive it would.

Basically if one writes:

<blockquote>This is a description</blockquote>

Once the form is saved and the page refreshes this is what will appear in its place:

<blockquote><p>”This is a description”</p></blockquote>

which in the HTML view looks like this:

<blockquote><p><p>This is a description </p></p></blockquote>

5) Spelling: Some of the spelling and some of the English used in the default installation is not correct. I am, sure there would be plenty of English speaking users that would be more than happy to help correct the language file and make it more compliant with regular English.

I will use this space to post more issues as I find them. To me there is no doubt Job Board is a brilliant piece of software, but it needs to be integrated better with Joomla and there are issues that need to be fixed. If it was a free component one would not complain as much but as a fairly expensive component some of these issues need to be fixed ASAP.

Again, tech support has been prompt and courteous. No complaints there. I also know how hard it is to code something like this. I am not bashing Joomlart, I just want to help fix these issues.

EDIT

While setting up the modules I found another issue that needs fixing

In the “Latest Jobs” module, there is a RSS link to subscribe to the jobs via rss.

The code for the link is:

<blockquote><div align=”right”>
<a href=”index.php?option=com_jajobboard&view=jafeeds&layout=guide&Itemid=1000″>Jobs via RSS<img alt=”RSS help” src=”rss.gif” /></a>
</div></blockquote>

The <div align=”right”> tag is wrong in this case. It makes it almost impossible to edit the location and alignment of this RSS. For starters, the align=”right” rule has been deprecated years ago.
But beside that it prevents me from changing the alignment and visuual display of the rss feed link.

Why not assign a class to the <div> then it would be easy for anyone to edit the lok of it.
naturally, I can go into the module and easily ad my own class in place of the “right” alignment rule, but then it would be another thing to check when a new version is released. I am trying to keep these kind of changes to a minimum to make sure that updates don’t take hours each time.

Also, any other place where something like this is used should be changed in the next version.

EDIT 2

Ordering list of packages for sale

One other issue I found is that in the job posting list, in the administration, there is no way to adjust the order of the packages in the front end. Apparently each posting, whether new or edited goes to the bottom of the list in the administration.
However in the front end They seem to have a set position that cannot be changed. In addition, p[rices are displayed without the $ sign. The fact that it is in the top column doesn’t help. Americans at least are trainined to see prices with the $ in front. Not having it makes that number look like something else.

EDIT 3

Bad syntax in list of products

While trying to fix the list of products I found that one of the tables is badly formatted. Specifically, it has the class defined twice, like this:

<blockquote><td width=”15%” class=”sectiontableheader” class=”sectiontableheader”></blockquote>

As you can see, there are 2 classes defined. This is pretty easy to fix and I’ll do it, but it needs to be fixed by the next version as I will not mark it for after update edit.

The file is located at:

<blockquote>components/com_jajobboard/views/japosts/tmpl/selectplan.php at line: 61</blockquote>

[Anonymous Moderator JA DeveloperJoin date: September 2014Posts: 9914Downloads:207Uploads:152 Thanks: 1789 Thanked: 2008 times in 1700 posts]

#358750

Hi,

Thank you so much for such a valuable post. Let me answer one by one as below:

1) Wrong registration redirect
>> Please provide me more info on the link “Buy subscription and other links” for further chekck. Where is it ?
>> Our JA Jobboard menu module supports to create 2 links “Register as an Employer & Register as a Job Seeker”. I have checked and could see that it still works fine

2. Links in menu system do not work consistently
>> It is due to some permission issues, Employer Menu Item and JobSeeker Menu Item are created automatically and do not support to copy/paste to another menu item.

3. Default link “Employer Cpanel” is linked to wrong page:
>>I think it is a naming issue, you can rename it. The data giving you is just demo data, you can modify as you wish.

4. Missing description in list of posting plans
>> Please detail more and capture screen shots if possible.
>> There is no ralationship between “Posting plans” & “Job posting form” & “description for each ‘product'”

4b. In the description field if one uses JCE
>> This is the bug of JA JB that has been reported and assigned to coming release via http://pm.joomlart.com/browse/JAJB-698

5. Spelling
>> Many thanks for the correction, we will check and fix for this release.

6. EDIT problems
>> I did create an issue via http://pm.joomlart.com/browse/JAJB-699 to keep track of.

Kindly check all again and any comment is highly appreciated.

Regards,

[ccoastsearch Friend ccoastsearchJoin date: August 2010Posts: 30Downloads:0Uploads:2 Thanked: 2 times in 1 posts]

#358837

Thank you so much for the prompt response. Once again, I wanted to stress that my intention here is to help make Job Board a better product, not to bash or complain.

<blockquote>1) Wrong registration redirect
>> Please provide me more info on the link “Buy subscription and other links” for further check. Where is it ?
>> Our JA Jobboard menu module supports to create 2 links “Register as an Employer & Register as a Job Seeker”. I have checked and could see that it still works fine</blockquote>

Upon reviewing this issue I traced it back to the fact that 2 menu links were left open to guests: those that take a user to the page where they can buy ad spaces. I think in this case the user level of those pages is such that Joomla ACL kicks in and redirects users to the regular Joomla registration.

In other words it’s not so much a Job Board issue but a normal procedure in the Joomla CMS.
However, it would be nice if those pages were able to display the product and price list to non-registered users and then require them to register if they intend to buy an ad.
As it is, I cannot find a way for a guest to view a price list in the system without registering as an Employer. That means that I will need to create a static page to display the same information. That’s not such a big deal but it would be better if some of those pages were available to guests. It would reduce the amount of work necessary to maintain the products.

Let me know if you need more clarification in this regard and I will create a video to explain it better.

<blockquote>
2. Links in menu system do not work consistently
>> It is due to some permission issues, Employer Menu Item and JobSeeker Menu Item are created automatically and do not support to copy/paste to another menu item.</blockquote>

I am not sure I explained this issue clearly. I know that the Employer menu generates slinks to the relative registration pages.

What I was referring to were the links displayed after clicking the “New” button while in Main menu. I attached a screenshot of it called “job-board-menu.jpg” .
When I created links using those options, the resulting pages were either broken or they did not work properly. At least many didn’t.

<blockquote>3. Default link “Employer Cpanel” is linked to wrong page:
>>I think it is a naming issue, you can rename it. The data giving you is just demo data, you can modify as you wish.</blockquote>

I think I created that link using the “New Link” as explained above. I went back and there is no such link in the list of available links anymore, so possibly this is something that has been eliminated from the flow.

<blockquote>4. Missing description in list of posting plans
>> Please detail more and capture screen shots if possible.
>> There is no ralationship between “Posting plans” & “Job posting form” & “description for each ‘product'”</blockquote>

Actually, I learned a bit more about this after posting my report.

What I am referring to is the form where a user creates a new “package” of ads. In the front end it is displayed as a list of ads packages. The link is:

index.php?option=com_jajobboard&view=japosts&layout=selectplan

What the issue is here is that the description for each product is displayed as as a “Tooltip” in the front end.
At first I wasn’t able to even find it.

I can see why a tooltip was used, it requires a lot less code and it keeps the table looking neat, but very few users will be able to read the description presented as a tooltip.

A much better solution would be to generate either a modal window with the description, a more attractive tooltip ( the code is everywhere) in the style Netflix uses for instance, or simply to display the description inline with the title. The way it’s displayed right now is simply not very useful.

IN regard to the Language file spelling, I will be happy to correct both the spelling and the way some messages are presented and send it back to you guys. You can at least use it for reference.

Unfortunately, I Have a couple more urgent issues I submitted as tickets, so I’ll be checking on those.

Thank you very much for your help.

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[ccoastsearch Friend ccoastsearchJoin date: August 2010Posts: 30Downloads:0Uploads:2 Thanked: 2 times in 1 posts]

#358847

I have just uploaded a language file where I corrected most misspellings and also I changed some notices to something a bit more “english”

Note that I corrected “Favourite” (UK Spelling) to “Favorite” (US Spelling). It’s up to you which one you want to use.

[Anonymous Moderator JA DeveloperJoin date: September 2014Posts: 9914Downloads:207Uploads:152 Thanks: 1789 Thanked: 2008 times in 1700 posts]

#358930

Hi Ccoastsearch,

Thank you so much for getting back to us and really appreciate your comments/suggestions/ideas/questions as well as your goodwill for us. Continue our discussion, please see my feedback as below:

1. Wrong registration redirect
>> Our development team has reviewed this and reported via http://pm.joomlart.com/browse/JAJB-701 for coming release

2. Links in menu system do not work consistently
>> All menu layout items in attached file have been checked and now they work fine. It would be best if you could show me in more details on which menu item does not work correctly for further investigation.

4. Missing description in list of posting plans
>> We has considered and reported via http://pm.joomlart.com/browse/JAJB-702 for coming release.

Once again, thank you so much and let me know if you have any concerns.

[Anonymous Moderator JA DeveloperJoin date: September 2014Posts: 9914Downloads:207Uploads:152 Thanks: 1789 Thanked: 2008 times in 1700 posts]

#358932

<em>@ccoastsearch 198350 wrote:</em><blockquote>I have just uploaded a language file where I corrected most misspellings and also I changed some notices to something a bit more “english”

Note that I corrected “Favourite” (UK Spelling) to “Favorite” (US Spelling). It’s up to you which one you want to use.</blockquote>

Thank you and we will make an update soon.

[nishunb Friend nishunbJoin date: March 2010Posts: 57Downloads:0Uploads:5 Thanks: 6]

#359252

Hi ccoastsearch

I happened to take a look at your site and it seems to have a very clean and neat layout alongwith integration of JomSocial. You have detailed some issues / feedbacks for the Menu system which are similar to my concerns and it seems that you have taken care of a few of them on your own.

That is why I am taking the liberty to ask you a query of mine and hopefully you will have some answers / advice for the me

I want to put in some text/ images on the registration pages instead of simply opening up the registration page for employers or Job seekers. Can you give me a pointer to how to do that through backend or without going into editing the php / html code as you have done the same in your own site

TIA
Nishant

[Anonymous Moderator JA DeveloperJoin date: September 2014Posts: 9914Downloads:207Uploads:152 Thanks: 1789 Thanked: 2008 times in 1700 posts]

#359374

Hi,

In order to do this, you can customize this file: modulesmod_jajobboard_menutmpldefault.php

[nishunb Friend nishunbJoin date: March 2010Posts: 57Downloads:0Uploads:5 Thanks: 6]

#359384

Hi

Thanks for the info. Will try and let you know if it works 🙂

[ccoastsearch Friend ccoastsearchJoin date: August 2010Posts: 30Downloads:0Uploads:2 Thanked: 2 times in 1 posts]

#359447

<blockquote>In order to do this, you can customize this file: modulesmod_jajobboard_menutmpldefault.php </blockquote>

That indeed would work, but since I try to make the process of updating Joomla components as straightforward a process as I can, I usually try to build my sites using as few core code edits as possible.

In my case, what I did was to “include” a position in a plain Joomla article using Joomla own plugin {loadposition user}. That allowed me to insert any module I want in that page.

I also used another plugin you can freely download from the JED to insert copy tailored to the access level of the readers, so that guests see one thing and registered users another. I’d love to have a way to also target employers and Job seekers individually, but so far I wasn’t able to find a way.

If you like, PM me and I’ll be happy to send you more specifics.

Incidentally, I’d love to learn more about the way you are setting up your Job Board. I think we could all benefit from sharing our experiences.

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