Recent Blog Posts

Open-Realty® 3.1.11

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 14:10:44 -0500

Open-Realty® v3.1.11 has been released. This update has a number of bug fixes, and a very important update to help combat spam bot abuse of the email a friend form. All users are strongly encouraged to upgrade.

Feature Changes

Email a friend form, now requires the user to be a site member in order to use it. Also the contact form always displays a captcha. This is to prevent abuse by spam bots that have been targeting the contact form. All users should upgrade.

Bug Fixes

Fix and when no photo exists so that the nophoto and nophotobig images return the absolute URL, instead of a relative URL
Fix processing of the following tags, when there is no photo present: , ,
Fix Processing of custom_listing_search_block in listing view templates and in random,popular,featured listing templates
Fixed a call to die() when a error occured when trying to read listing data.
Fix filtering in Addon Manager, which was broken due to a change in jQuery datatables. Show Compatibilty Version number for Free add-ons.
Fix ListingView Page so the admin and listing agent can see inactive listings.
Ensure summary data is utf8 encoded for get blog ajax call.
Ensure summary data is utf8 encoded for get page ajax call.
Fix: bug when trying to use the sorttype parameter in the listings_custom_search_result_block tag
The following tags for images beyond #1 were not being removed if 0 images were found for a listing.
- {image_caption_X }
Fix Listing Image in agent lead notification.
Installer now checks for spaces in file path.
API: Fix bug in media__read API command, for when user is not logged in as an Agent.
Fix for use of Apostrophies in Field Values in the $args list for the custom search block.

Open-Realty® Extras Launched

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 21:52:14 -0400

I am pleased to announce that we have launched a new Open-Realty® Extras directory on this site. The new OR Extras section replaces our old separate add-ons web site and it is better integrated with the rest of the main OR web site.. The new Extras directory allows add-on and template developers to list their products making it easy to find new ways to expand the features and change the look of your OR-based web site. We will also be adding some new official Transparent Tech add-ons and templates to the Extras directory over the next couple of months. For add-on developers we have also updated the Framework add-on specifically (which is available for download via the new OR Extras directory), which includes examples of the latest add-on features, API, and template system

TransparentRETS v2.1.1 Released

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:01:19 -0400

We have released an update to our TransparentRETS add-on for Open-Reatly® v3.1.10+. This new release adds the ability to link to photos from a RETS server instead of downloading them to your hosting account. This can greatly speed-up a RETS import, while saving clients a lot of storage and bandwidth. The RETS server must support obtaining photo links using the "location=1" flag, this feature is optional in the RETS specification and not all RETS server vendors presently support doing this. You will need to check with the MLS or their server vendor to see if their RETS server supports this option. If you have any questions regarding a specific RETS server's ability to support this feature our sales team can assist you in determining comparability assuming you have your login credentials to the RETS server in question.

TransparentRETS v2.1.1

New Features

Added support for the optional "location=1" RETS parameter. This provides the ability to store links to photos stored on the RETS server instead of downloading and storing raw photos.

Bug Fixes

Ensure any empty fields are always created with an empty value.
Prevent double escaping any imported photo descriptions.

Note: If you are running an OR version prior to v3.1.10 you will need to upgrade OR first before upgrading TransparentRETS.

Open-Realty® v3.1.10 released!

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 13:20:28 -0400

Open-Realty® v3.1.10 has been released. This release has added a number of enhancements mostly targeted at add-on developers, to allow add-ons to interact with OR in more ways.

How to create scrolling featured listings

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 21:10:06 -0400

One of the really great things about Open-Realty is how flexibile the design of your site can be. In the v3.1.9 release of Open-Realty we added a new block tag . You can use this new tag to make some very cool widgets for your site. Today I am going to show you how to use this new tag to build a vertically scrolling featured listing widget. This does not require the use of an add-on, it is simply some simple JS, HTML, and CSS you are going to add to your template..

Open-Realty® v3.1.9 released!

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 12:11:41 -0400

Open-Realty v3.1.9 has been released.

Detailed Changelog

Bug Fixes:

Fixed broken jQuery Tools calls for tabs that used the history plugin.
PHP Safe Mode Enabled Warning Message was not being displayed during installation.
Securimage - improved visibility of text colors in these captchas. .
Changed hard-coded in-line styles for the captcha to CSS classes in the default stylesheet. Refined the Securimage captcha layout to remove items such as hard-coded tags that prevent full customization.
Make Blog RSS Post and Comments feed sort by date, as not all RSS readers will sort by the pubDate correctly.
Fixed jQuery validation of checkbox fields that are required.
Fix behavior of http://www.open-realty.org/index.php?action=addtofavorites&listingID=0tag on search results page.
Fix php error when deleting pdf files via ckeditor filemanager.

New Features:

Updated jQuery Tools library to v1.2.6
Updated CKEditor to v3.6.2
Add which allows the display data when a field is not filled-in or or does not exist for a particular listing.
New Tag: allows you to perform a search and return listing results, to main.html and any Blog or Page Editor page.

Open-Realty® 3.1.8 Release

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 12:00:47 -0400

Open-Realty v3.1.8 has been released. This is strictly a bug-fix release to address issues found in OR v3.1.7 introduced by the recent update of jQuery which prevented IE browser users from using certain functions in the administration area.

Detailed Changelog

Bug Fixes:

Fixed broken jQuery ajax call on blog publisher page, which was breaking tabs and add post functionality.
Fixed jQuery issue in IE which prevented use of certain administration functions in Site Config.
Remove compatibility mode from OR_Small admin template that was forcing IE8 standards mode.

Open-Realty® 3.1.7 Released

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 21:28:01 -0400

Open-Realty v3.1.7 has been released. This release addresses recently reported bugs, updates to several jQuery libs, and provides a few enhancements.

Detailed Changelog

Bug Fixes:

Patched the Blog Keywords for metadata
Fixed bug in listing status detection in listing__read command that affected sites using listing expiration.
Member signups initited from the contact Agent form, now correctly trigger email verification if enabled in Site Config.
Skip referrer check on send email when accessed via verify email address link. [OR-3]
Fix link in new user notifications that are sent to the Admin [OR-1]
Fix bug in listing__update API that allowed the use of duplicate seotitles.
Fix Page URL Parsing when the SEO link is only set to seo_title.
Twitter Disconnect link now works properly [OR-6]
Fix URL parsing when using the 'select_users_template' GET variable. [OR-8]
Fix max length validation for textarea fields. [OR-7]
Fix the ability to save 'no' values for checkbox fields.
Fix the ability for Agents to change their password.
Fix "permission denied" message if an Agent attempted to edit a different user account.
Fix RSS Item Title in Blog Post RSS feed. [OR-9]
Improve SEO parsing for listing pages when using the tag.
Fix link to tooltip image for Edit User page.
Added missing vtour image to the html5 demonstration template.
Fix modified date for listing pages in the sitemap.

Language Changes:

Fixed link at admin_challenge_phrase lang variable (original.inc.php)
Updating pt-br language file (3_0_0.inc.php)
Added "Your feedback has been sent to:" (your_feedback_has_been_sent) message LANG variable [OR-4]

Enhancements:

Update to wordpress-inject feature to support wordpress export files v1.1 as well as v1.0
Enabled the 'selected_language_template' variable to be passed via a GET or a POST variable.
Added support for 'listingview_main.html' templte file which can be optionally loaded for listing detail pages that need to bypass (replace) the content normally displayed via 'main.html'.
Added and permission tags. *Note these tags act independently of the mobile template, if a user is using a mobile device, regardless of if they are viewing the regular or mobile template, the tags will correctly detect if the visitor is using a mobile device and allow/deny content accordingly. [OR-12]

Javascript Changes:

jQuery to v1.6.1
jQueryUI to v1.8.13
jQuery datatables to v1.8.0
jQuery fullcalendar to v1.5.1
jQuery colorbox to v1.3.17.2
jQuery validate to v1.8.1
jQuery Tools to v1.2.5
jQuery weekcalendar to v2.0 https://github.com/themouette/jquery-week-calendar
ckEditor to v3.6.1

Transparent Technologies Community Portal

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 17:45:48 -0400

Transparent Techologies, is happy to announce we have launced a new community support portal to allow customers to communicate, ask questions, and share ideas about all of our products and services. This new community portal uses the same login information as our Helpdesk and Billing system uses, which means you have a single login to both locations. For customers already using our Open-Realty Community Forums, this new community area will be replacing the old forums. For the time being we are going to leave the forums active, after 30 days we will be marking the forums as read only, so the great content that is already there will remain avaliable.

You can access the new community support portal at http://community.transparent-tech.com

Open-Realty® 3.1.6 Released

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 14:06:44 -0400

Open-Realty v3.1.6 has been released. This release contains an important security patch, as well as some bug fixes and minor enhancements. We highly recommend all users upgrade to this latest release.

Detailed Changelog

Security Fix:

Fix potential XSS vulnerabilites, and a possible admin-side SQL injection vulnerability.

Bug Fixes:

Fix the maintenance mode page display.
Fixed a notice error caused by uninitialized variable in listing api
Fixed a permission check on listing__read API command that could potentially be used to allow non Agents to read expired listings.
Fixed the after_user_login developer's hook, which was being triggered incorrectly.

Enhancements:

Only users with Admin privileges can delete other users with Admin privileges.
Set PHP Session Garbage collection to enforce 100% cleanup for development installs when using the 'devignoreinstall' option.

Open-Realty v3 - One Year Later

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 12:26:22 -0400

One year ago we released Open-Realty® v3.0, which included new features like our Blog Manager, customizable SEO URL generation, the ability to post listings to Twitter, and a lot of other desirable features and improvements. The v3.0 release also marked the retirement of our open source project version of Open-Realty® and for the first time, professional commercial support was offered as a part of our OR v3 Professional Edition License. There was much speculation from the open source community and our usual detractors about OR moving from what was essentially a "free beer" business model to a commercial business model, and some naysayers even went so far as to insist that OR could never survive if offered as a commercially supported application.

Open-Realty® 3.1.5 Release

Wed, 18 May 2011 13:56:03 -0400

Open-Realty v3.1.5 has been released. This is a bug fix release only, which addresses two issues we discovered shortly after yesterday's v3.1.4 release..

Detailed Changelog

Bug Fixes:

Fix search page layout for FF and IE browsers
Fix rendering of agent/member price fields

Open-Realty® 3.1.4 Release

Tue, 17 May 2011 12:16:08 -0400

Open-Realty v3.1.4 has been released. This is a primarily a bug fix release to address a few issues that were found or reported. This release also adds support for displaying QR Codes which are similar to bar codes. A QR code is a scannable image that contains a link to the listing page on your site, great for printer friendly listing pages.

What is a QR code?

Detailed Changelog

New Features:

Add ability to generate QR codes for listing detail pages. New tag:
Remove
tags from search page form element generation. style_default.css was updated as part of this fix.
Update installer to check for PHP v5.2+
Update installer to check for PHP GD Library.

Bug Fixes:

Fix Display of Seletected Timezone in Site Config
Fix issue, with "Update Listing" button saving the listing twice.
Fix JS validation for Open-Realty Date format #2
Fixed handling user defined date fields when creating/updating listings.
Fixed Listing Expiration handling of Date Formats other then Type 1
add_user.html - Remove false user is inactive messages in template.
Fix user_id template tag rendering for edit_profile template
Fix some non seo friendly urls that use & instead of & in the URL generation
Fix issue with secureimage reading the wrong captcha when a user clicked the audio button on the capthca
Fix a bug in refine search for min_max fields.
Fix bug on search page if multiple non unique pclass options are passed.
view_leads.html & leadmanager_edit.html - Fix Edit Listing Link on View and Edit Lead Page
API was sorting listing__search based on sort options set in site config. This was not correct as it affected all searches both front end and backend and not just searches from the front end search page.
Fix: adding fields to additional property classes. This was not always creating the field correctly for all listings.
edit_listing.html Disable pclass select option on edit listing page.

Open-Realty® 3.1.3 Release

Tue, 03 May 2011 13:10:08 -0400

Open-Realty v3.1.3 has been released. This is a simple bug fix release to address a few issues that were found or reported.

If you were one of the users that reported a problem with your Agents/Members showing duplicated fields after you edited a user, all you need to do to fix things is the following: After upgrading to v3.1.3, edit any affected users in your user manager and just resave. This will automatically remove any duplicated fields.

Detailed Changelog

Bug Fixes:

Page Editor - Show correct error message when page title is not unique.
Fix 404 response when using old style seo links for listings and no listing is found.
Fix error with minmax search field generation.
Fix Edit User Template, to prevent duplicated POSTS being sent which could casue user data to be duplicated.
featured listing was not respecting pclass parameter.
Fix SEO Friendly link for contact_listing_agent.
Fix broken link in agent lead notifcation email.
Fix Autologin on contact agent form after user signup.
Changed admin.php to index.php for Free Add-ons Commercial Add-ons Free Templates Commercial Templates tag
Stop User Editor from saving extra data in the userdbelements table.
Fix maintenance mode, which would show a error saying the powered by logo was missing.
Fix next_prev number of records per page for the admin ares listing editor
API - Fix error with remote API commands.
API - listing__search - An error was occuring when searching for only listing with vtours.
Language -Fixed a typo at Indonesian language file

Open-Realty® v3.1.2 Released

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 14:13:47 -0400

Open-Realty v3.1.2 has been released. This is a bug fix release to address a couple of issues that were found.

Open-Realty® 3.1.1 Release

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 15:19:19 -0400

Open-Realty v3.1.1 has been released. This is a bug fix release to address a couple of issues that were found after the 3.1.0 release.

Open-Realty® v3.1 Release

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 10:43:14 -0400

Open-Realty v3.1 has arrived. Our latest release includes some very important new features, that I blogged about a a few weeks ago as well as an assortment of bug fixes. The full change-log for this release is below, as well as some upgrade notes that everyone should read before performing an upgrade.

Open-Realty® v3.1 Status Update

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 20:58:52 -0500

I wanted to take a few moments to keep everyone updated about Open-Realty development, and tease you with some new features we have completed. We have been very hard at work on Open-Realty v3.1 and are finishing-up our final testing. We are very anxious to get our very latest version of Open-Realty rolled out to you. Not only have we fixed and closed a number of bug reports, but we have also added some new, and very nice features from our long-term roadmap, a few are mentioned below. We hope you enjoy using our latest software, the 13th release in the 3.x edition. We are eager to get this into your hands and hear your feedback so we can get started on our next round of features and improvements already planned for Open-Realty v3.2.

Open-Realty® v3.0.12 released

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 13:14:48 -0500

We have just released Open-Realty® v3.0.12. This update includes a number of bug fixes, and one updated template file.

Open-Realty® v3.0.12 Change Log

TEMPLATE: blog_article.html has been updated. - Put tags around blog comments to allow linking to specific comments

Fixed a link in the blog comments RSS Feed.

Fixed RSS Top Level Links for the Blog Comment and Blog Post RSS Feeds

Fix MagicURLGeneration for blog_comments

Fix and optimize the "Show NextPrev Bar On Listing Page" option.

Fix Show Count In Search Options:

Make Listing Template Quick Editor show fields that are set as"Do Not Display", to show in the custom field area.

Language: Added Arabic Language option to installer. (NOTE you need to edit the main.html files for your site and admin templates and add dir="rtl" to the tag. This translation is not complete, so expect a mix of arabic/english until the author completes their work on this.

Open-Realty® 3.0.11 Release Notes

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 20:26:18 -0500

We have just released Open-Realt®y 3.0.11. This update includes a number of new API commands, which will benefit add-on developers and third parties wanting to retrieve data from Open-Realty®. We are now also using these new API commands to build the search page and search result pages. We have gained almost a 50% speed increase in rendering certain search pages. Also we have gained about a 16% speed increase in building the search result page.

I was recently asked, why a developer should use the API? The API should be used instead of doing direct SQL management of the OR database. This allows us to modify ORs database structure in the future, without breaking your add-ons. It's also a lot faster than writing custom code and queries. For example, if your add-on creates a property class, instead of manually inserting the property class into the database with some custom code and SQL you should use the pclass API. Our add-ons and Open-Realty® itself make use of the API. We are working steadily with each update to make every aspect of Open-Realty use the API. This is an ongoing process, and will take us many more releases before it is 100% complete. Add-on developers that have questions about our API, can post those questions to our support forums and we will be happy to assist you.

Along with the API changes detailed above, Open-Realty® v3.0.11 includes the following other changes.

TEMPLATE: Agent/Member Signup Pages have been templated. (IMPORTANT! Copy the new agent_signup.html and member_signup.html template files from the lazuli template to your custom template folder after upgrading.)
Fixed the "Tag Setup" Tab in the Blog configuration screen that was throwing an error.
Fixed an issue where referrer check was preventing mail from being sent when using listing notifications.
Improved error reporting in listing notifications
Added an option to site config to set how many thumbnails will be shown per group on the slideshow template. (The admin template file site_config_uploads.html was modified)
Added an option to site config to control the number of listings shown per page in the Listing Editor. (The admin template file site_config_listings.html was modified)
API: New listing__read API command, allows you to retrieve a listing record.
API: New listing__search API command allows you to retrieve a list of listing id's that match your criteria.
API: New field_metadata API command, allows you to retrieve information on listing fields.

API documentation can be found at the following link: http://api.open-realty.org/

Open-Realty® 3.0.10

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 13:49:24 -0400

Open-Realty® v3.0.10 has been released. This release is contains a number of bug fixes to correct a couple of issues with the previous v3.0.8 release.

Open-Realty® 3.0.9 was not released, after we found some additional issues that we felt needed to be addressed in 3.0.10, which is why you will see both updates install.

Open-Realty® 3.0.8 Released

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 23:58:35 -0400

Just a quick note that we have released Open-Realty 3.0.8. This is a minor fix which corrects a bug with setting the image rank when using the media__create api command. This is the only change since the 3.0.7 update.

Open-Realty® 3.0.7 Released

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 12:25:20 -0400

Open-Realty® v3.0.7 has been released. This release is contains a number of bug fixes to correct a couple of issues with the previous v3.0.6 release.

Open-Realty 3.0.6 Released

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:45:39 -0400

Open-Realty® v3.0.6 has been released. This release is contains bug fixes to correct a couple of issues with the v3.0.5 release. It is important to note that this Open-Realty® release now includes a robots.txt file, if your site already has a robots.txt file please make sure to backup that file before you upgrade.

Open-Realty® 3.0.5

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 18:05:24 -0400

We have released Open-Realty® v3.0.5. This release contains a security fix. All Open-Realty users are strongly encouraged to update to this latest release. Along with the security fix, we have introduced the following new features.

Open-Realty® 3.0.4 Released

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 14:57:00 -0400

We have released Open-Realty® 3.0.4. This release contains a number of bug fixes, as well as some very exciting new features.

One Click Upgrade

Your Open-Realty® administrator can install future updates for Open-Realty® by clicking a link from your Open-Realty® admin page. This single click will download any new files as well as update your database to the latest version. This feature should make keeping your site on the latest release of Open-Realty much easier.

Open-Realty® v3.0.3 released!

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 18:53:44 -0400

We have released Open-Realty 3.0.3 This is the third set of bug fixes, which address all the issues found to date with the Open-Realty 3.0 release. Below is the complete change log. This 3.0 release should be very stable at this point, so if you were waiting to try it out I would say now is a good time.

Change Log v3.0.3

Upgrading Open-Realty® 2.x Templates For Open-Realty® 3.x

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 13:12:47 -0400

We have been getting some questions on how to upgrade templates that were built for Open-Realty® 2.x to be compatible with 3.x. I thought I would provide a quick guide on how to upgrade your templates. This quick guide only keeps the overall site design changes made to the main.html template. Any sub templates, like listing_detail_default.html that were modified will need to be modified again after you complete this quick guide.

You should start by making a copy of your custom v2.x template. In the steps below you will modify this template copy and not your original template files. This way you have the original files left to compare any other custom changes you may have made to sub templates.. Now that you have your new template copy, follow the steps below.

Open-Realty v3.02 Released

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 19:44:13 -0400

We have released Open-Realty 3.0.2 This is the second set of bug fixes, which address all the issues found to date with the Open-Realty 3.0 release. Below is the complete change log. I would like to thank Eduardo (ebmarques) and the other language translators for their continued work on the language file translations.

Change Log v3.0.2

Open-Realty® 3.0 Search Engine Optimization

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:01:54 -0400

Open-Realty® 3.0 has introduced a number of new features that improve search engine optimization. First off, for anyone who does not know what search engine optimization is, wikipedia .org provides a decent description which follows:

"Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site or a web page (such as a blog) from search engines via "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results as opposed to other forms of search engine marketing ("SEM") which may deal with paid inclusion. The theory is that the earlier (or higher) a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine."

Open-Realty® v3.0 released!

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 15:02:00 -0400

On behalf of Transparent Technologies, Inc., I would like to announce the immediate release and availability of Open-Realty® v3.0.

With this release we have added many new and exciting features and optimizations, and re-written a considerable amount of the core, making this our finest and most powerful version of Open-Realty® to date. We have greatly improved our blogging system, added the ability to automatically post listings and blog posts to Twitter, enhanced our listing editor, rewritten our listing field editor to be much easier to use adding drag and drop support, and we squashed a big pile of bugs that were reported by the community. More than 100 user requested items/improvements were addressed alone. Of no small consequence, we have also changed the Open-Realty® license. Open-Realty® from this point forward will be licensed as a commercial product, backed with available commercial support. I will address our new license changes first, then I will discuss a few of the new features we have added.