Archive for June, 2007

Open Realty Addon: ImgSold

Posted on Tuesday June 26th, 2007. Get the Feed or Leave a Trackback
Open Realty ImgSold Logo

Here is another Open Realty addon I have developed. This addon places a “Sold” sticker on top of real estate listings that have been marked as sold. The addon allows you to specify which field in the listing template is used for denoting sold status, and which value denotes that the property has been sold. The addon includes the sold graphic as well as the source Photo shop file that you may use to customize the “Sold” sticker.

Installation

  1. Download the Open Realty ImgSold Addon v 1.6
  2. Unzip to your Open Realty Installation folder in the “addons” folder
  3. Access the admin page for the addon through the Open Realty admin system.
  4. Select the field from the listing template that you use to set the property status and click “Submit”.
  5. Replace Open Realty image tags with the addon template tags.
  6. Create transparent .PNG graphics for each of the property status values you wish to have overlay stickers. For example if your property status field has a value of “Sold” for one property and you wish to display a sticker on top of this image, use the included “sticker template.psd” PhotoShop file to create a graphic called “Sold.png” inside the addon imgSold directory. The addon includes, by default graphics for “Sold”, “Pending”, and “Lease” property status values. If for example you use the word “Unavailable” to denote a sold property, simply rename the Sold.png graphic “Unavailable.png” to have the sold sticker appear on all “unavailable” properties.

Template Tags

  • {addon_imgsold_slideshow} Displays listing thumbnails as slideshow
  • {addon_imgsold_listing_images} Displays listing thumbnails in a <ul> with links to full sized images
  • {addon_imgsold_listing_images_java} {addon_imgsold_main_image_java} Displays listing thumbnails in a <ul> that toggles main image.
  • {addon_imgsold_listing_images_java_caption} {addon_imgsold_main_image_java_caption} Same as above but with captions
  • {addon_imgsold_thumb} Displays search result thumbnail with link to listing. Must be inside {search_result_dataset}{/search_result_dataset}
  • {addon_imgsold_featured} Displays an unordered list of the featured properties in static order (Use instead of {featured_listings_NAME} tag)
  • {addon_imgsold_featured_random} Displays an unordered list of the featured properties in random order (Use instead of {featured_listings_NAME} tag)

Change Log

  • Version 1.6: Added featured listing tags, improved standards compliance of core default styles.
  • Version 1.5: Fixed bug causing IE not to display thumbnails caused by having width/height = 0 in admin section
  • Version 1.4: Fixed small bug with $misc Open Realty functions.
  • Version 1.3: Fixed small bug with case-sensitive servers.
  • Version 1.2: Addon now allows you to create custom overlays for any property status value, simply by creating a transparent PNG graphic inside the addon directory called [property status value].png
  • Version 1.1: Addon is only accessible to admins
  1. biyi Says:

    July 10th, 2007 at 9:36 am
     

    Great work you have done here:
    in addon.inc.php there is an error that prevents the thumbnail from showing:
    $display .= “fields[’listingsimages_thumb_file_name’]) . ” height=”$displayheight” width=”$displaywidth” alt=”$alt” />“;
    should be
    $display .= “fields[’listingsimages_thumb_file_name’]) . “” height=”$displayheight” width=”$displaywidth” alt=”$alt” />“;

     
  2. Dan Imbrogno Says:

    July 10th, 2007 at 9:48 am
     

    Thanks for the feedback! I have made the correction to the code. If anyone else spots bugs please feel free to report them here. If you can include the line number it would be of great use to me.

     
  3. biyi Says:

    July 10th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
     

    can I PM you I was wondering if I could get you to do some stuff for me. I am integrating Open-Realty with Joomla - cmsrealty

     
  4. Lee Says:

    July 11th, 2007 at 7:25 am
     

    This addon is fantastic, its so simple but effective.

    Love how you included the editable photoshop files, and the coding is very clean, type css is very good.

    however I had unordered list type bullets next to my images at first and took some google searching to figure out how to remove them, perhaps you could include a css sample with the addon.

    I assigned {addon_imgsold_listing_images} into my tample file.

    And this to my Style Sheet.

    #img_sold img, #img_sold ul {
    border:5px solid #ffffff;
    list-style-type:none;
    margin-left: -25px;
    padding-left: -1em;

    }

    just an example..

    Thanks again Lee

     
  5. Germ Says:

    July 16th, 2007 at 5:50 am
     

    Hi,

    I am already looking for some time for a similar addon and was most pleased that I found yours.

    I have installed the addon_imgsold in de addons section of open-realty, have set the permissions to write, but can nog configure the addon because I can not access de admin page through the OR admin system. There is no possibility in the admin to acces the admin of the addon.

    What I am doing wrong / how can I configure the addon besides the admin section of OR.

    Please be so kind to assist me in this. A reply to my email address would be perfect.

    Regards

    Germ

     
  6. Atif Iqbal Says:

    July 26th, 2007 at 8:12 am
     

    I tried to unzip the folder but it do not transfer file in the unzip folder. Many files are of 0 KB may be thats why.

    can you please tell me any other way. I am using WIN XP PRO default unzip.

     
  7. Atif Iqbal Says:

    July 31st, 2007 at 7:07 am
     

    Thank for your mail reply. That issue is resolved. Now I have downloaded full pack.

    As per explanation I follow the same in my searchresult page as under:

    {addon_imgsold_thumb} Displays search result thumbnail with link to listing. Must be inside {search_result_dataset}{/search_result_dataset}

    But it create double entry rather then showing sold property water mark.

    I am not sure what mistake I am doing. Kindly help me

     
  8. Dan Imbrogno Says:

    July 31st, 2007 at 8:22 am
     

    Atif I will contact you by email and see if you can send me the entire file so I can look at your code.

     
  9. Dave Says:

    August 7th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
     

    I tried out your addon but have had limited success.

    I am unsure where to place the template tags, as I am getting php errors when I add them into my theme.

    I also want to double check the folder permissions. I gave imgsold 222 permissions. Correct?

     
  10. Dan Imbrogno Says:

    August 14th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
     

    Permissions should be 777 for the folder. This is only temporary and is necessary for creating the configuration file. After you have configured the addon in the admin section you can change the permissions to whatever you like.

     
  11. Flukie Says:

    August 17th, 2007 at 11:36 am
     

    Hi Dan
    Thanks for the addon, works great. One thing though in the admin, all agents have the abilty to edit the addon fields. How do I hide the addon from all except the admin.

     
  12. Dan Imbrogno Says:

    August 17th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
     

    Hi Flukie, I have updated the code. The addon is now only accessible to administrators. Thank you for your feedback.

     
  13. Daniel Says:

    August 18th, 2007 at 7:52 am
     

    is there any way i can creat another tag like: {addon_imgsold_listing_images_java_thumb}

    as i use {listing_images_java} in all my templates…

     
  14. Daniel Says:

    August 23rd, 2007 at 2:55 am
     

    sorry… i meant {listing_images_java_rows}

     
  15. Murray Says:

    August 23rd, 2007 at 6:19 pm
     

    Hi Daniel, this is a great add-on. I am having a bit of trouble configuring it correctly. I have added {addon_imgsold_thumb} in the search_result_default file as prescribed but I am getting 2 listings for each sold property. One with the sold banner on the image and the second without. I have tried using one of the default templates with the same result.
    What might I have done wrong. “admin password is still default”

     
  16. Dan Imbrogno Says:

    August 24th, 2007 at 8:19 am
     

    After you have added {addon_imgsold_thumb} to the template page you can remove the tag called {image_thumb_1} from the template page. This may be causing your problem. Let me know if require further assistance.

     
  17. Daniel Says:

    September 13th, 2007 at 6:52 am
     

    is there any way i can creat another tag like: {addon_imgsold_{listing_images_java_rows}}

    as i use {listing_images_java_rows} in all my templates…

     
  18. Alex Says:

    September 16th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
     

    Hi, I’m having the same problem as Germ had… any suggestions? Thanks

    Quote from Germ:
    Hi,

    I am already looking for some time for a similar addon and was most pleased that I found yours.

    I have installed the addon_imgsold in de addons section of open-realty, have set the permissions to write, but can nog configure the addon because I can not access de admin page through the OR admin system. There is no possibility in the admin to acces the admin of the addon.

    What I am doing wrong / how can I configure the addon besides the admin section of OR.

    Please be so kind to assist me in this. A reply to my email address would be perfect.

    Regards

    Germ

     
  19. Francis Says:

    September 17th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
     

    I would like te use the imgsold addon, but there seems to be a problem. For your information: I am working on a Joomla site (1.12) in combination with OpenRealty 2.4.1 and CMS-Realty 1.1. There is an imgsold directory in the folder addons. In the admin section the sold.png shows up, but after clicking on the image a blank page opens, so it is not possible to configure this addon. The sourcecode shows ……
    Any idea how to solve this?
    I have installed some other addons and they all work fine.

     
  20. Dan Imbrogno Says:

    September 18th, 2007 at 9:19 am
     

    Hi there, I will look into the problem shortly. If you can look in your php error log on your server for any specific error message you receive when trying to access the admin section that would be very helpful to me.

     
  21. Francis Says:

    September 30th, 2007 at 9:29 am
     

    Hi, sorry for my late reply (in fact I was expecting an email if there was a reaction …). Anyway, the problem is still there. Could the problem be caused by the fact I installed the image sold addon in OpenRealty, which is integrated in a Joomla (1.12) and CMSRealty 1.1 website? Has the addon been tested for this? I could give you some login details, so you can see that the addon shows up in the admin panel, but a blank page opens when you click on the imagesold picture. Two other installed addons work fine and open with their configuration page. I hope I can use your addon in the same way.

     
  22. Dan Imbrogno Says:

    October 15th, 2007 at 10:36 am
     

    Version 1.4 fixes the problem Francis was describing. Small bug with a variable I was using not being defined in a certain function. If you are experiencing any troubles please upgrade before posting issues.

     
  23. Terry Says:

    October 23rd, 2007 at 5:23 pm
     

    Saludos from Atenas! I am using OR UMP Version 2.4.3
    and the addon is working great, Thanks! I was wondering if you can think of a way to get the sold sign to say “Vendido” in the Spanish section of the site and “Sold” in the English section? Obviously I need to re-do the .png files but then what? Any ideas?
    Also the thumbnail ends up being smaller than the rest, can I change the size?
    Pura Vida!

     
  24. Dan Imbrogno Says:

    October 24th, 2007 at 8:17 am
     

    Hi Terry,
    Thanks for the comment glad the addon is helping you out. If you’re comfortable with php what you can do is open up the addon.inc.php file inside the imgsold directory in your addons folder and look at the function on line 640 called:

    function checkNeedsOverlay($listingID)

    Inside this function is the logic that tells the system which overlay image to display. If you can detect what language is currently being used on the site you can add a suffix to the file name for the language. So on line 669:

    $siteLang = “es”;

    $listingStatus = $misc->make_db_unsafe ($recordSet->fields[’listingsdbelements_field_value’]) . “_” . $siteLang;

    now you will have to rename the graphics in the addon folder from
    sold.png to sold_es.png and sold_en.png

    That should do it!

    If you do update the code with this and get it working can you please zip it and send it back to me so I can update it for everyone to use?

    I don’t believe my addon does any image resizing, it just takes your existing thumbnails and overlays an image on top of it, so I am not sure why it is appearing smaller then other thumbnails. Are you showing your thumbnails at a larger size then their actual resolution? For example, the thumbnail image is 100×125 but you stretch it in the html code to 200×250?

    Thanks!

    Greetings from Guanacaste!

    Dan

     
  25. Dan Imbrogno Says:

    October 25th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
     

    Instructions for template specific imgsold stickers. As of now I am not planning on including this functionality in the code, because I think it seems rare that most people would want to do this, and requires more installation steps.

    If more people request this though, I may add it.

    1) Open up the addon.inc.php file in the ImgSold folder

    2) Go to the line that reads:
    if (file_exists($config[’basepath’] .”/addons/imgsold/” . strtolower($listingStatus) . “.png”)){

    (should be 674)

    3) Replace with
    if (file_exists($config[”basepath”].”/template/”.$config[”template”].”/images/imgsold/” . strtolower($listingStatus) . “.png”)){

    4) Go to the line that reads:
    $watermark= $config[’basepath’] .”/addons/imgsold/” . strtolower($overlayType) . “.png”;

    (should be 684)

    5) Replace with
    $watermark= $config[”basepath”].”/template/”.$config[”template”].”/images/imgsold/” . strtolower($overlayType) . “.png”;

    6) Now the addon is going to look for the overlay images inside a folder called imgsold inside the images folder of your template folder. So move the sold sticker to this location. For example:

    /template/englishtemplate/images/imgsold/sold.png
    and
    /template/spanishtemplate/images/imgsold/sold.png

    now, when you are using the english template it will grab the sold.png in yoru englishtemplate folder, and when you are using the spanish template it will grab the sold.png in your spanishtemplate folder.

    Hope this helps some people!

     
  26. Vicky Rowe Says:

    October 26th, 2007 at 9:11 am
     

    Great add-on! I got it installed, and changed the tags in my templates (I’m using this on http://www.rwleehomes.com), and it shows up great in Firefox, but in Internet Explorer there are just blue dots, and I’ve verified this on independent systems, in case it was just me. I’ve got the tags switched back at the moment, but do you have any idea why the tags would not display in IE (ver 6x)?

     
  27. Tommy White Says:

    October 26th, 2007 at 11:12 am
     

    Is it possible to have a tag for Featured Items. That way if an item is featured and it sold it would show it in the featured template?

     
  28. Terry Says:

    October 28th, 2007 at 8:11 am
     

    Vicky and Dan,
    I just saw Vicky’s post and checked my site in IE 7. I not only don’t have stickers, I don’t have thumbnails in the details tab. It works great in Firefox!
    Ideas?
    Thanks

     
  29. Alane Says:

    November 1st, 2007 at 4:53 pm
     

    What an awesome addon! I just installed it and it is working great in FF but in IE6 the thumbnails are simply gone for any listing with images on the search results display. I wonder if it might be something to do with IE and PNGs?

    Thanks for your generous work, I’ll keep an eye out for updates !

     
  30. Dan Imbrogno Says:

    November 1st, 2007 at 4:59 pm
     

    Yes this seems to be an outstanding issue caused by one of the recent updates. I will look into it at my earliest convenience. Although testing on IE 6 is difficult for me since I use a Mac. If anyone else is able to identify the problem before I get a chance to, please leave a comment.

     
  31. Alane Says:

    November 1st, 2007 at 5:22 pm
     

    OK I’ve found it!
    Lines 634 of the addon call a width and height value but if you look at the generated code it is leaving the values blank so alt=”" width=”" height=”"
    FF ignores the blank fields but IE6 is assuming it means width and height equal 0
    My coding ability is too limited to figure out how to get it to get those values but as a temporary fix I altered line 635 to: $listing_image = $fullurl.’fields[’listingsimages_thumb_file_name’]). ‘” alt=”‘ . $caption . ‘”/>’;

     
  32. Dan Imbrogno Says:

    November 1st, 2007 at 5:36 pm
     

    Yes that is precisely the problem. That is a good temporary fix, although it is always best to set a width and height on an image. I am not sure why on your version the width and height values cannot be retrieved. I’ll investigate the issue further, for now I’ll leave the addon as is because on my standard installation of OR it seems to work in IE6. Maybe this has something to do with joomla. Can I ask, in what folder on your server do images get saved to?

     
  33. Alane Says:

    November 1st, 2007 at 6:17 pm
     

    I’m using OR stand-alone. Images are saved to images/listing_photos (OR’s defaults).

     
  34. Terry Says:

    November 2nd, 2007 at 8:39 am
     

    Hi Dan,
    Alane gave me an idea.. I went to the site config page to check the size of my thumbnails and included them in line 635…

    $listing_image = $fullurl.’fields[’listingsimages_thumb_file_name’]). ‘” alt=”‘ . $caption . ‘” width=150″‘.$width.’” height=100″‘.$height.’” />’;

    my thumbnails are showing in both IE7 and Firefox
    Thanks again for a great addon!

     
  35. Vicky Says:

    November 15th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
     

    I made the changes Terry suggested, and mine is also now working in both IE and Firefox.

    I noticed that someone else asked earlier, and I’m also interested, is there a way to mark Featured Homes sold as well?

    Great addon!

     
  36. Dan Imbrogno Says:

    November 27th, 2007 at 8:42 am
     

    Version 1.5 of the addon now checks to ensure that a width/height greater then 0 is set. If not, the width is not included in the html code. It is still best practice to include a width and height so I recommend setting the width and height of your thumbnails in the Open Realty Admin section.

    As for the featured_listings tag. I will try to work on that as soon as I can but I am very busy at the moment. Again, If anyone has a minute to write this function for me and can send me the code that would be great.

     
  37. Canariasdata Says:

    November 30th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
     

    is it possible to use your addon on the featured listing template? Instead of displaying a “Sold” I would like to display a “FEATURED” on the featured_listing_horizontal replacing the {featured_thumb_src} tag.

    Thanks for your time and great work!
    Regards,
    Gregor.

     
  38. Dan Imbrogno Says:

    December 13th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
     

    Version 1.6 now supports a Featured Listings tag. You can place this tag anywhere on your site to display featured listings. These tags cannot be used inside {featured_listing_block} or {featured_img_block}. These tags completely replace the need for {featured_listings_NAME} tag. In other words you don’t need to load the featured_listings_horizontal.html or featured_listings_vertical.html page.

    The code output is entirely semantic, in other words, it looks ugly until you apply your own CSS rules to it. Hope you find this useful, if you have any questions or comments please let me know.

    By the way, I have uploaded old versions of the addon, so if a new version isn’t working you can always revert to an older one.

    Take care,

     
  39. aly Says:

    December 31st, 2007 at 2:44 am
     

    Wonderful addon, congratulations for your work !

    Though, i have a problem
    - it works only on my local windows platform (i have uploaded the same files on my linux box, tried lots of rights to apply on the directories, nothing works so far…)

    Absolutely nothing happens on the linux box, the i checked generated html with or without the {addon_imgsold_thumb} (instead of image_thumb_1 in the template page search_result_box.html) and i have exactly same page. Which suggest the addon is not taken into account by the system ?

    Did someone had same problem ?

    Meanwhile, during my investigations I have noticed 2 useless characters (one ‘\’ and one ‘”‘) in the code, line 657 (at the end) :
    $listing_image = $fullurl.’fields[’listingsimages_thumb_file_name’]). ‘” alt=”‘ . $caption . ‘\” ‘;

    should be :

    $listing_image = $fullurl.’fields[’listingsimages_thumb_file_name’]). ‘” alt=”‘ . $caption . ‘” ‘;

    and line 661 :
    $listing_image .= ‘” />’;

    should be :
    $listing_image .= ‘ />’;

     
  40. aly Says:

    December 31st, 2007 at 6:01 am
     

    well, it actually does take into account the addon (i changed some code into addon.inc.php to see if something happens) but i still don’t know where something’s wrong…

     
  41. aly Says:

    December 31st, 2007 at 6:25 am
     

    Ok ! i finally found what was happening…

    Very simple actually : linux is case sensitive whereas windows php file functions are not… and i named the *.png pictures with case letters

    i only had to rename the three *.png files to lower case and it worked

    you just have to put this into your readme file :

    “!!! naming of overlay png file MUST be in lower case !!!”

    Thanks for all & best wishes all for new year 2008 !

     
  42. CBrown Says:

    January 9th, 2008 at 6:36 am
     

    I’ve been messing around with this for a while now and can not get the featured listings to work anywhere. What should the code look like I place in my site?

     
  43. Dan Imbrogno Says:

    January 9th, 2008 at 10:53 am
     

    First make sure you have removed all previous versions and installed the most recent one.
    Wherever on your site you want the featured listings to appear you simply place the tag {addon_imgsold_featured} be sure not to nest this tag within any others. This tag replaces the need to have the {featured_listing_vertical} (or horizontal tag).

     
  44. CBrown Says:

    January 10th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
     

    Thats what I thought and that is just not working at all. I have even placed it on a blank page and all that comes up is just {addon_imgsold_featured} as text on my page.

     
  45. coco Says:

    February 2nd, 2008 at 2:33 am
     

    Hi,

    I have installed the addon but I am new to this so can some one tell be which files (default OR files) needs to be changed and Please please give us an example of the tags replacement. When I do a search I can not find ‘featured_listing_vertical’ as suggested earlier on this page.

     
  46. Martin Says:

    February 19th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
     

    Hi

    Great addon . One thing , agents cannot change the status of their property. Or at least , they can change it but the image doesnt update the overlay .. How can I achieve this ?

    many thanks
    Martin

     
  47. pete Says:

    March 13th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
     

    hi

    how do i add the price to the featured listing as it just shows the title i was wanting to add the price to it aswell thanks

     
  48. pete Says:

    March 15th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
     

    don’t worry about it i sorted it i just pulled them from the database

     
  49. Germ Says:

    May 5th, 2008 at 2:46 am
     

    Dan,

    I am using you great addon for some time now and really love it.
    i do have a remark.

    If I use a status (and additionally a png with the same name) of more than one word (ie. sold under restrictions) the addon is working but gives the following error on the search reslut page:
    Warning: getimagesize(http://www.germwijnia.nl/open-realty/images/listing_photos/thumb_68_dsc00809(large)_Verkocht onder voorbehoud.jpg) [function.getimagesize]: failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request in /home/germwijnia.nl/public_html/open-realty/addons/imgsold/addon.inc.php on line 656

    As said, the addon is working and the status is displayed correctly, but the error on the top of the search result page points to an error in the imagesize.

    Any idea what this could be?

    Thanks for your assistance.

    Germ

     
  50. TheBazaMan Says:

    May 14th, 2008 at 11:44 am
     

    Hi,
    I am getting same problem as Germ above. Had to take off site as it gets too many hits daily to leave it on. Any ideas as I would like to use this addon.
    Many Thanks

    TheBazaMan

     
  51. dan.imbrogno Says:

    May 14th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
     

    Hi there,
    as a quick fix, if everything is working properly you can place an “@”
    symbol at the beginning of line 656 in imgsold/addon.inc.php in order
    to surpress the warning.

    I think the reason you have an error is because php is trying to
    determine the size of the image using a url with spaces in it, which
    it does not like. perhaps wrapping the url on line 656 in url_encode()
    would solve the problem, i’ll look into the issue hwen i have a minute.

     
  52. TheBazaMan Says:

    May 15th, 2008 at 2:05 am
     

    Placed the “@” symbol at the beginning of line 656 and that solved the problem for now. I will look at the url with spaces issue and let you know what I find.

    Many thanks

    TheBazaMan

     
  53. Keystrokes Says:

    June 21st, 2008 at 8:12 am
     

    I like this addon very much but it wil not display well in IE7, fine in firefox.

    I have simply replaced in search_result_default.html the tag {image_thumb_1} with {addon_imgsold_thumb}

    The problem is in IE7 the town also beocomes an additional hyperlink and throws the rest of the columns out.

    In FireFox it is absoluty fine, it is also fine in Safari (both Mac and Windows) and fine in Opera.

    I am using your version of 1.6 and 2.4.3

    go to www.croftsales.co.uk and click on Browse on the top menu.

    Any ideas?

     
  54. Keystrokes Says:

    June 21st, 2008 at 8:17 am
     

    Further to my last post I notice it does not dsplay the field item correctly in FireFox either. The town is not hyperlink like IE7, but the town (field_2) is also repeating in the coumn for where field_3 should be which then moves the rest of the field across.

    If I simply replace the original tag, everything appears fine again.

     
  55. LoclynGrey Says:

    June 24th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
     

    I have the same problem that Germ had, so trying the @ with line 656.
    My OR is inside of Joomla.

    The @ worked

     
  56. Pranesh Says:

    July 7th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
     

    Hi Dan,

    Thank you sooo much for such nice addon.

    I am having a typical problem.
    See here http://www.homefast.ca/index.php?action=listingview&listingID=3

    I was using this tag {listing_images_java}

    and then I use this tag

    {addon_imgsold_listing_images_java}

    and started getting vertical buletted thumb nail picture.

    How can I get a Horizontal ow pictures?

    Please help me!

    Thanks & regards,
    Pranesh Biswas
    Calgary, Alberta, Canada

     
  57. Fabio Says:

    August 14th, 2008 at 4:22 am
     

    Fantastic addon - works straight out the box for me!

     
  58. Terry Says:

    August 27th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
     

    Hi Dan,
    Greetings from Atenas… again. It’s been a while.
    I have been using your addon since last Oct. and it has been working great in both languages, I have been very happy with it.
    I just had to change my host server and now I am getting some error messages whenever the overlay is displayed:

    Warning: imagejpeg() [function.imagejpeg]: Unable to open ‘/home/trymry2/public_html/property2/images/listing_photos/thumb_187_1_Sold.jpg’ for writing: Permission denied in /home/trymry2/public_html/property2/addons/imgsold/addon.inc.php on line 729

    The overlay displays properly but I still get the message.
    I am probably not running the latest version, but am afraid to upgrade and lose the changes we made to get it switching languages.
    Any ideas?
    Thanks!

     
  59. stuart Says:

    September 6th, 2008 at 4:02 am
     

    ok great addon by the way. it works on my localhost perfectly. Ive got it running on my host but it gives me the following errors: can you help?

    Warning: getimagesize() [function.getimagesize]: URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in /home/www/be-beautiful.org/addons/imgsold/addon.inc.php on line 656

    Warning: getimagesize(http://www.be-beautiful.org/images/listing_photos/thumb_3_house.jpg) [function.getimagesize]: failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /home/www/be-beautiful.org/addons/imgsold/addon.inc.php on line 656

    any help will be appreciated.

    regards
    stuart

     
  60. Nick Says:

    September 30th, 2008 at 11:01 am
     

    Sorry noob here! I just tried this addon and still can’t get it to work.

    I have uploaded the imgsold directory to the addons directory, clicked on the Sold icon on the Admin page, set the “status” field, but I’m having trouble understanding what to do with the template tag.

    Also do I have to copy the png files into the images directory?

    Thanks in advance
    Nick

     
  61. Rick Says:

    October 16th, 2008 at 8:25 am
     

    I am also a noob, same question as previous person:

    ” I have uploaded the imgsold directory to the addons directory, clicked on the Sold icon on the Admin page, set the “status” field, but I’m having trouble understanding what to do with the template tag.

    Also do I have to copy the png files into the images directory? ”

    Thank You

     
  62. Rick Says:

    October 16th, 2008 at 11:46 am
     

    UPdate,

    I have the addon working but my horizontal display feature listings only show vertically?

    Any thought to how I can maintain the horizontal display:

    Code as Follows:

    {featured_listing_block_row repeat=”4″}

    {addon_imgsold_featured_random}


    {featured_img_block}{/addon_imgsold_featured}
    {listing_title}

    {/addon_imgsold_featured_random}

    {/featured_listing_block_row}

    Thank You,

    Rick

     
  63. Alex Says:

    October 19th, 2008 at 3:37 am
     

    Dan your addon is beutifull!!!
    Thank you

    Just something:

    I see your addon work with this tags:
    SOLD||LEASE||PENDING

    But what about if I neeed the tags in spanish?
    VENDIDO||RENTADO||APARTADO

    Thank you

     
  64. jez Says:

    October 28th, 2008 at 4:59 am
     

    hi
    installed this addon which was exactly what i was looking for . works fine when i change the listing detail tag.
    with the search tag, i used the box default search result and although it does work on there it takes a good 60 seconds for the page to load.
    as for the featured listings i cannot get this tag in the right place for the life of me , i added the tag to the page1_main

    Featured Listings
    {addon_awdsmultfeat_show3}{addon_imgsold_featured_random} 

    but that didnt work at all

    any advuce would be appreciated

    thankyou

     
  65. Rob Says:

    November 14th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
     

    I installed your addon. Thank you.

    Only problem I am having, is with listings which have no image. The system displays the “noimage.gif” file in its place. But no sold banner is placed over it. I though this was because of the file format, so I created a “noimage.jpg” file, and changed all the references from the gif to jpg in the source codes. My new jpg file shows, but no banner is placed over it. I assume this is because it is getting the file from the OR/IMAGES directory, instead of the uploaded images directory. Is there a way to have the sold banner show over the “noimage” photo?

     
  66. Paul C Says:

    November 18th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
     

    Hi, Great addon, thanks.

    Is there any way to remove the watermark image from the {addon_imgsold_listing_images_java} tag, as this is not really required as long as the main image has one?

    Have tried reverting back to the OR original java_row tag but this will not work with the img_sold_main_image_java tag.

    So it seems that we are all in or all out with reagrd to the sold images, can you help with a pointer please?

    Many thanks again,

    Paul

     
 

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Open Realty Addon: Ads

Posted on Friday June 22nd, 2007. Get the Feed or Leave a Trackback
Open Realty Ads Logo

Finally I am able to give back to the Open Source community that has given me so much over the years! Here is a free Open Source addon for Open Realty that enables you to insert “advertisements” into your Open Realty site. An advertisement is essentially a JPG, GIF or PNG image that contains a hyperlink to another URL. The admin section allows you to dynamically add / edit / delete advertisements. Images uploaded are dynamically resized to fit the user specified dimensions. The plugin generates valid HTML 4.01 code, displaying the ads as an unordered list of links assigned a class name of “addon_ads”. Some additional CSS is required to make the ads appear in a visually appealing manner.

Installation

  1. Download the Open Realty Ads Addon
  2. Unzip to your Open Realty Installation folder in the “addons” folder
  3. Insert template tag {addon_ads_displayads} anywhere on your site. (Can be used multiple times per page)
  4. Access the admin page for the addons through the Open Realty admin system and create your advertisements.
  5. Add CSS rules for the class “addon_ads” to style the appearance of the ads.

Sample CSS

Here is some sample CSS for styling the ads

Sample Vertical Ad List CSS

.addon_ads {
 	list-style:none;
        }	 

.addon_ads li {
 	margin-bottom:20px;
        }

.addon_ads li a img {
 	border:none;
        }

Sample Horizontal Ad List CSS

.addon_ads {
 	list-style:none;
        }	 

.addon_ads li {
 	margin-right:20px;
 	display:inline;
        }

.addon_ads li a img {
 	border:none;
        }

Comments and suggestions are welcome. I plan on releasing more Open Realty addons in the months to come.

Change Log

  • Version 1.1: Addon now only accessible to Admins.
  1. anthony Says:

    July 29th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
     

    hi dan,
    I just added your Ads add-on. It works fine but there is one thing that concerns me. When someone signs up as an Agent, when logging in, he can delete/modify the ads on the website. I think only the admin can do this. I checked in the configuration, the agent was not assigned as an admin by default. I wonder if you can help me out with this. Thank you

     
  2. Dan Imbrogno Says:

    July 31st, 2007 at 8:25 am
     

    Hi Anthony, in my install of Open Realty I don’t allow Agents to sign up so I did not consider this possibility. If I get a moment I will look into the OR security information and try and disable this feature for agents. It might take me a few weeks to get around to this though, so If you have the time to program this before then I would appreciate if you could send me the code so I could update the addon for everyone else. Thanks for your comments take care!

     
  3. Dan Imbrogno Says:

    August 17th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
     

    Version 1.1 makes Ads only accessible to Admins.

     
  4. serkan Says:

    August 22nd, 2007 at 5:31 am
     

    Hi Dan,
    This looks like it could be a very useful addon. I tried it on my localhost and it seems to display only 2 ads even though I have 3 active ads, is that a limitation or is there something I am missing?

     
  5. serkan Says:

    August 22nd, 2007 at 7:04 am
     

    Ok, I figured out the problem, I used the same url for 2 addresses (was lazy to type a new one while trying out), and that is why it did not work. One question, is there a way to display the title above or below the pic and not inline? Do you have your music online somewhere by the way? (another guitarist here, playing classical for 15 years, learning a bit about jazz in the last 2)

     
  6. Dan Imbrogno Says:

    August 22nd, 2007 at 8:07 am
     

    Hi Serkan,

    As of now the title of the ad is only being used for the ALT text of the advertisement. This is a quick change though. Go to line 518 in the addon.inc.php file and replace it with this:

    $display .= "<li><div class='addon_ads_title'>" . $recordSet->fields['title'] . "</div><a href='http://" . $recordSet->fields['link'] . "'><img src='" . $config['baseurl'] . "/addons/ads/croppedThumb.php?id=" . $recordSet->fields['id'] . "&amp;db=" . $config['table_prefix_no_lang'] . "advertisements" . "' alt='" . $recordSet->fields['title'] . "' /></a></li>";

    This will place the title above your ad inside a div called “addon_ads_title” that you can then style using CSS. Hopefully this helps!

    By the way you can find my music at http://www.purevolume.com/danimbrogno

    Do you record at all?

     
  7. serkan Says:

    August 22nd, 2007 at 10:00 am
     

    Hi again Dan,
    I am listening to your music, pretty nice. I liked the ending of “loves to laugh”, r u playing both guitars? I hardly have time to play lately, but I will record couple tracks for fun soon. I will let you know when that happens. What kind of recording equipment do u use? I have a friend who has a studio but I rather buy a decent mic and record home.

    There seems to be a small problem with the following part (I narrowed it down):
    rel=”nofollow”>
    Parse error: parse error, unexpected ‘=’ in C:\wamp\www\or241jsxml-final\addons\ads\addon.inc.php on line 519
    I think it is something basic, but do not remember seeing “-” and “>” separated in $recordSet-> before, so not exactly sure what would be the solution.

     
  8. Dan Imbrogno Says:

    August 22nd, 2007 at 10:24 am
     

    Ah yes, sorry wordpress messed up my formatting when I pasted the code in. If you just erase the rel=”nofollow”> bit it should work. I’ve edited the code in the previous comment to be correct now.

    I use a PreSonus Firebox hooked up to my Mac for recording. It’s a very inexpensive unit and does everything I need it to. You can also daisy chain the units to get more channels. I think my microphone is M-Audio… I got it used at a music store. The whole set up probably cost about $350 dollars. If you’re just looking to have some fun doing some home recording I’d recommend the Firebox.

    If you’re looking for cool software to pound out some cool drum beats and synth check out Reason.

     
  9. serkan Says:

    August 22nd, 2007 at 11:07 am
     

    Yep, works nicely now, thanks a lot.
    I remember trying out Reason a while ago, but not that much into electronic beats, etc. More of an acoustic guy as a result of years of playing classical. I will send some samples of my crossover experiments sometime today to your email.

     
  10. kg Says:

    September 1st, 2007 at 12:13 pm
     

    I’m crashing when trying to run this add-on:
    Fatal error: Call to a member function on a non-object in /home/thefirst/public_html/lbisite/or/addons/ads/addon.inc.php on line 515

    it looks like it is trying to select from the advertisements table before it is created…

    thanks

    kg

     
  11. Doug Green Says:

    September 4th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
     

    I get the following error:

    Warning: imagecopyresampled(): supplied argument is not a valid Image resource in /home/fsbosite/public_html/addons/ads/addon.inc.php on line 579

    Don’t know how to react to this?

     
  12. Daniel Says:

    September 17th, 2007 at 7:40 am
     

    I get the same following error:

    Warning: imagecopyresampled(): supplied argument is not a valid Image resource in /home/fsbosite/public_html/addons/ads/addon.inc.php on line 579

    any ideas on this yet anyone?

     
  13. Franky Says:

    November 26th, 2007 at 11:43 am
     

    Yeah i have same problem, and the trick is that’s it showing up only in IE! In firefox it works ok!

     
  14. Albert Says:

    February 16th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
     

    Hi Dan

    very good addon. Works fine for me OR2.4.4 :) it would help if you can see which Advertisement in admin is Active or not.

    Al

     
  15. Serdas Says:

    May 5th, 2008 at 6:16 am
     

    hi,
    i just added the addon. but i only see a black block no image
    can you please help me what i did wrong. also can there be anyother file extension used for this addon? like for flash and etc.

     
  16. Serdas Says:

    May 5th, 2008 at 6:25 am
     

    also what about ads rotation? is that possible?
    thank you

     
  17. Brian James Says:

    May 21st, 2008 at 3:15 pm
     

    Hi,
    Forgive me, but the last step “Add CSS rules for the class “addon_ads” to style the appearance of the ads.” doen’t help me. Perhaps if you could tell me what file to change in my template or in the open-realty default pages I would know what to change. I’m a noob, but with a little instruction can figure most of this out. I have everything installed (see: http://www.brianjamesnyc.com/listings/index.php) but I just dont know what file to edit…as described in your last step.

    Please help

     
  18. Dan Imbrogno Says:

    May 21st, 2008 at 4:02 pm
     

    Hi Brian,

    The last step is only necessary in order to have the advertisements fit into the style of your website. By default there are no styles applied, so when the advertisements are rendered you will see an annoying little list bullet in front of each banner, which is probably not what you want. Have you gotten the plugin setup so that the advertisements are displayed on your site?

    CSS (or cascading style sheets) are used to style HTML elements. You can read up about it by doing a google search for CSS. If you send me the link to your website, I can tell you exactly what styles you need to add to your open realty .css file in order to get the ads to display nicely. As for the work you would like done on your website, can you please send me a bulleted list of exactly what needs to be changed / added. If I think I can do these changes within a reasonable time frame I’d be more then happy to.

    The email address you previously provided does not seem to be working so I am unable to contact you. Please post another comment using a functioning email address. (I received this message: Hi. This is the qmail-send program at stevehultgren.com.
    I’m afraid I wasn’t able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
    This is a permanent error; I’ve given up. Sorry it didn’t work out.)

    Cheers,

    Dan Imbrogno

     
  19. Jack Says:

    July 4th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
     

    Hi,

    The Ads add-on installation was very easy and styling it was a breeze. Unfortunately I am having a bit of trouble with the “Ads” button location in the Admin panel. Right now it appears alone at the top right, above all of the other buttons. Could you briefly describe how I might move it elsewhere on the page? I am not clear how the placement is determined…

    Thanks for a great addon!

    Jack

     
  20. name Says:

    July 27th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
     

    hmmm…mb its true ,

     
  21. fraN Says:

    October 30th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
     

    Hi Dan, is it possible to adjust this beautiful addon to do exact the same but without the images? i know that is a important part of the plugin but as i´m not a programmer it´s difficult to me to figure how :S

    Thanks in advance and sorry for my english (supongo que cómo vivís en Costa Rica sabrás español, pero preferí escribir en inglés ;))

    Cheers Mae!

    fraN

     
 

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Playa Nosara

Posted on Tuesday June 19th, 2007. Get the Feed or Leave a Trackback

Another weekend, another adventure. This weekend we decided to venture out a little bit further to get our fill of surf and sand. My friend Natalie who has a car offered to take Greg and I to Playa Nosara with her.

The road trip involved about four and a half hours of driving through some pretty sketchy Costa Rican roads, full of deep pot holes and random speed bumps. Our transportation took the form of an old Toyota pickup truck that seats two people comfortably. The third person suffers the discomfort of having the gear selector planted precariously between their legs. Greg and I shared this experience, me on the way there and him on the way back.

We drove southeast towards Canas, then west over the bridge that spans the Gulf of Nicoya (this is the largest bridge in Costa Rica), through Nicoya then to Nosara. The truck started to act up on us along the final stretch to Nosara, and we had to stop every fifteen minutes or so to tinker with the fuses.

Waterfall in the pool at Blew Dog’s

We arrived quite hungry and went straight to the restaurant that some of our friends from Bagaces recommended. The place was called Blew Dog’s and was a restaurant and hostel combined. We were getting pretty tired so we decided to stay at the hostel. This place turned out to be one of my favorite locations I’ve been to in Costa Rica so far. The food we had at the restaurant was absolutely delicious. They even had home-made soy burgers! The rooms were spacious and comfortable and the pool was clean and gorgeous. We were only a few hundred meters away from the beach too, which was very convenient.

I found Nosara very difficult to surf, as a novice. The waves crashed incessantly sending tons of white wash to the shore. It was very hard to swim out past the white wash, and the waves beyond it were out of my skill level anyways. I spent the weekend looking for a board to buy for myself and found an awesome used board at the Nosara Surf Shop. Unfortunately I couldn’t get the money I needed out of my Canadian bank account without going to Samara (another beach town about thirty minutes away). So I’ll have to wait a little while longer before I can score the board of my dreams.

Dan relaxing in Nosara

The beach itself was very nice, this whole area was very rustic and unspoiled. Ninety percent of the people we met here were either locals, or people who were traveling for an extended period of time. This was a refreshing change from the massive groups of random tourists we’d meet at other beach towns.

On Saturday night while we walked back from an Italian restaurant we stopped to hang out with some stray kittens. One followed us back to the hostel and Natalie decided to bring him home to Bagaces with us. I named him “Count Chocula” or “the Count” for short.

I’m back in Bagaces now, it’s going to be a little tough to make the remainder of my money stretch until next payday. I’ll probably spend next weekend in town working on my music, working on the website I’m building for my parents company and practicing my Spanish. Until then, Buenos Dias!

  1. Natasha Says:

    June 21st, 2007 at 8:05 pm
     

    I hope you don’t start writing your blogs in Spanish without translating them too.
    What’s Natalie going to do with Count Chocula?!

     
  2. admin Says:

    June 21st, 2007 at 8:11 pm
     

    He’s got worms, so she brought him to the vet. He’s doing much better now. Natalie is heading back to the states in a month or two and I think she’s bring “the count” back with her. It’s a little expensive, but I think she’s pretty attached to the cat now. The cat will still be small enough that she can bring him on board.

     
  3. Tim Says:

    July 28th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
     

    I happened upon your website looking for some add on’s for Open Realty. Thanks for these valuable tools. I’ll look into them in a few weeks.

    The real reason I’m writing is because I saw you are in Costa Rica and I have vacationed there. I recently found a website from a place near our vacation spot. We vacationed in Samara. But see you went to Nosara. Take a look at this website if you are interested.
    http://www.surfingnosara.com/

    I won’t bother you again but it would be nice if you continued to write more about Costa Rica. I miss the place.

     
  4. admin Says:

    July 31st, 2007 at 9:01 am
     

    Hi Tim, thanks for your comments! Never a bother I assure you. Nosara is absolutely amazing. Unfortunately I didn’t get a check to visit Samara, but I’ll be here for another 5 months so hopefully I’ll get the opportunity to go back. Thanks for the website link I will definitely check it out. I am planning on blogging the entire time I am here so please check back! Take care.

     
 

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How to Test in IE 6 from a Mac (Or, How to Waste an Afternoon)

Posted on Thursday June 14th, 2007. Get the Feed or Leave a Trackback

So this has been one thing that has stumped me since I made the switch to Mac about 5 months ago. As a web developer it is important to test your websites in all the most common web browsers out there, and unfortunately for me the most common web browser right now is Internet Explorer 6. (If you’re using that browser right now please consider getting Firefox, or at least upgrading to Internet Explorer 7). As a rule I try to design for 95% of my target demographic, which means I don’t bother testing my site on user configurations that occur in less then 5% of the target demographic. I use the website w3counter as my source for internet user statistics. So when developing on a Mac, testing a website in Internet Explorer 6 (49.5% of all users) means walking back and forth between a friend or co-worker’s PC and stealing their computer for a few minutes. Fortunately there is a solution to this problem.

Your first option is to use a pay service such as browsercam which returns screen captures of a requested URL. A better option is to use the service browserpool which lets you start a remote desktop connection with a Mac, PC, or Linux computer that is loaded with multiple internet browsers, this service is free to try but you can be kicked out at any time if a paying customer requires a connection. I prefer browser pool because it offers a free trial service and it will allow you to check for cross-browser issues that can’t be captured in a screen shot, (Javascript errors, scrolling issues etc…).

Now as far as I can tell these are your only options. I originally started this blog post to instruct people on how to get IE 6 working on a Mac using Parallels. Obviously you can test IE 6 if you install XP using Parallels, but I wanted to install Vista and test IE 6. Windows has developed a free virtual machine called the Internet Explorer Application Compatibility VPC Image that allows Vista users to access IE 6, but I received an error stating that the Virtual Machine was incompatible with my processor and that I required at least a Pentium II or equivalent processor to use the Virtual Machine. Seeing as I have a Core II Duo Mac Book Pro, I’m chalking this error up to the fact that I’m trying to run a Virtual Machine from inside a Virtual Machine. So back to the drawing board for me. Does anyone else have any solutions to this conundrum?

Update

Do a little snooping around www.tredosoft.com. They are working on an alpha release of ie6 for vista, you may have to contact them directly to get the link to the install file, as they have asked not to have it distributed as of yet. But it works very well for me on vista running in parallels 3

  1. Blaise Alleyne Says:

    June 28th, 2007 at 2:50 am
     

    Hey man! Just came across this and I thought you might be interested in checking it out: IEs 4 Linux

    It is supposedly a way to run IE with wine (I believe you can run wine on OS X?). Haven’t tried it out myself (yet), but it seems like it may be useful.

     
  2. admin Says:

    July 9th, 2007 at 10:24 am
     

    Hey dude, that Is actually what I ended up doing! I haven’t had a chance to blog about it yet, but I ended up installing linux on another Virtual Machine, and then using IEs 4 Linux to test my websites. Works like a charm.

     
  3. AD Says:

    December 3rd, 2007 at 2:50 pm
     

    Hey mate,

    Just came across your conundrum and completely agree with you as Im in the same situation. Although it seems like I have fewer ‘programming’ skills as I wouldn’t have the faintest idea of how to install ‘wine’ or use the other methods mentioned!!

    I am also using a MacBook Pro (1 week old) with Leopard. I have recently switched from PC and this is the ONLY issue I have - testing web sites for my clients in IE6…

    Is this Wine’ solution worth me checking out - even though I am not technically minded? (particularly as Im used to Windows, not OSX)…

    All the best, AD.

     
  4. Dan Imbrogno Says:

    December 8th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
     

    Hey there. If you have the money / hard disk space i’d recommend checking out parallels. It’s really the best / most hassle free way to do this. In addition you can set up windows with boot camp in leopard, which will let you boot into windows vista/ xp and get full 3d accelleration support for gaming etc. Apparantly the macbook pro is also one of the best vista laptops out there.

    So thats my advice! If you can’t shell out the money or can’t get a copy of vista / xp then yeah check out wine. But it is going to be a little buggy and perhaps frustratingly slow when you’re trying to work out those annoying IE bugs.

    Take care, let me know how it goes!

     
  5. Todd Says:

    January 27th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
     

    How ’bout Crossover Mac? It allows you to install and run Windows programs with out Windows being installed. And it’s only about $70…seems like the best answer to me.

     
  6. AD Says:

    February 28th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
     

    Cheers Dan, I will likely do Parallels - but my only issue really is the fact that I have so little hard drive space left (despite being 3 months old!!).. I have about 14GB of 250GB so I guess it’s still ok. I also heard about something called VMWare Fusion, too - any info/advice on this??

    Many thanks,

     
 

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The Bagaces Waterfall

Posted on Thursday June 14th, 2007. Get the Feed or Leave a Trackback

So it has been a little while since I’ve posted, but I’ve been very busy with my Spanish lessons. They are going very well, and although I have quite a bit more to learn before I’m confident in my ability to converse, usually I can get my point across fairly effectively.

Two weekends ago we ran to the Bagaces waterfall that is just 6 kilometers outside of town. We got these amazing pictures there.

Greg and Asaph at Bagaces Waterfall
A Cricket at the Bagaces Waterfall

On the way back we stopped at El Recreo, an awesome restaurant for some beers and food. We hitched a ride back to town with the monkey girls who were driving back from the waterfall.

The weekend after we went back to Tamarindo and surfed some more. Well… I surfed, Greg’s board which he bought last time we were in Tamarindo buckled after about an hour of surfing so he was S.O.L. We are heading to a different beach this weekend near Nosara. I’m going to look for a board to buy because I am absolutely hooked on this surfing business. I got much better in the four hours I surfed last weekend.

Greg and I have decided to use his camera to collect video clips from our trips here in Costa Rica and splice it into a movie. I think this is going to be a really fun project to work on and it’ll be a nice souvenir of our time here. Anyways, just a quick update today. Work has been very busy lately but I’m loving every minute of it. Take care!

 

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