This one has been in the oven for a good few months and teased numerous times on the blog, but today we can finally introduce you to Listings – a directory based theme with an advanced content builder.
Ever since we released Estate in July of this year we had the intention of taking it’s advanced niche functionality and making a more generic, yet equally powerful version of it that could be used for any type of niche whether you be a book publisher, a recruitment agency, a car dealer, an art gallery, a photographer’s portfolio site, the list is endless.
When I first conceptualized the design and layout in Photoshop I had no idea ultimately how cool it would turn out thanks to some serious development time on it by Jeff and Matty, with Kirstin taking care of the HTML / CSS and initial WooFramework integration. As you can see it’s been a collective effort by the team.
The Content Builder
At the core of Listings is it’s most impressive feature – the content builder. The content builder allows you to create custom post types, then taxonomies for those post types and custom fields for the posts within those taxonomies. This all thanks to WordPress 3.1. To say this theme is cutting edge would be an understatement. I’d go out on a limb and say it is one of the most advanced content-building themes on the market today.
Hopefully that has excited you as to the theme’s capabilities. If not have a look over the home page modular design and start thinking how you can use this theme on your next project.
Other noteworthy features
Listings comes with an advanced search module whereby you select exactly what custom post types to search, what taxonomies to filter by and what custom fields to use. You can specify 3 drop-down boxes or text fields. Your search can be tailor made according to what you think your visitors will navigate by. Even better you can change the search formula at any point changing the search field theme options in the backend.
Listings also comes with a “Upload a Listing” page template. This template once assigned to a WordPress page presents your site visitors with a form whereby they can add a listing directly to your WordPress backend, from the website front end. If you have more than one custom post type you can specify what listings you want your visitors to submit to. All listings submitted using this form will be “pending review” by a WordPress editor/administrator so you have quality assurance. You also have the option to allow anyone to submit listings or only registered WordPress users. Nifty hey?
Our Listings demo – A car dealership site
On our Listings demo we’ve used the theme to build a car dealership site, we’ve got a custom post type called vehicles, with a custom taxonomy of vehicle makes and vehicle features, all of which you can drill down through by clicking on the tags/links to find your dream car.
The Possibilities
We’ve only touched on the surface of it’s capabilities and will be releasing a blog post in the coming weeks with a case study as to how I’ve used it for an online project called www.africancartel.com that should go live in early January. Combine this theme with an e-commerce plugin like PHPurchase or WP Commerce, or hopefully soon with our plugin in development WooCommerce and you have a fully functioning directory theme with e-commerce facilities.
In the mean time check out the comprehensive theme listing to see the full feature set and browse the demo.
Listings is sold as an enterprise theme given it’s content builder and advanced search module, but is included in the club subscription offer. It is also 20% off until 31st December 2010 as part of our Christmas special offer. Making it only $160 if you opt to buy it individually!
About
Thanks for this but I can’t download it under my club subscription yet?!?
Fixed now; sorry about that! 🙂
Check the download zip. Looks like wrong files are in the download. Posted more info in forums.
Fixed and responded in forum. Apologies about that.
Should be available for all club members now.
Wow outstanding!
Just a couple of questions. Can you create time and date fields. Can a listing expire after a certain amount of time.
Thanks Muzza!
Expiration isn’t something that has been included out-of-box, but yes, you can create a custom time & date field on a listing and would then just need to custom develop a script to set to expired once that has been exceeded.
Wow, I don’t even know where to begin…
This is absolutely brilliant! This engine would have saved me countless hours on the dozen or so prior projects I worked on. I seriously can’t wait to dig into this one. Best Christmas present I could ever have hoped for.
Thank you so much.
Hi!
Does Listings require WP 3.1?
Ricardo
Nope, it works with 3.0.x and will be updated to support post formats as soon as 3.1 is officially out.
This might be a little dangerous, but could you set this up to allow someone (anyone) to register and publish a listing?
The theme allows for either anyone to upload a listing, or only a registered user. The choice is yours 🙂
Didn’t see an option for upload listings, for only registered users/non-registered users. Is there a different UI from the Front-End, or is it strictly through the WordPress Admin Panel?
The possibilities are endless 🙂
Going to have a sit down this afternoon and have a play with the features.
Just a question how does the “Listings ID” work, I cant seem to see any of the ID’s on the post?
Cheers
Each listing has it’s own unique web ref as can be seen in this screenshot – http://cl.ly/0s280K1f2y1o0T3U1z2Z
We’ve set our permalink structure to show post titles not post IDs.
Looks great, but price is so hot to touch.
Happy Christmas
Why would you guys do this!!! Its so awesome I want it so bad… but that means I can’t buy Christmas presents! Decisions decisions decisions!
We’re sorry!? 🙂
Hello
How come when I search for “Ford” the results include a VW polo?
http://awesomescreenshot.com/00f4z7lff
thanks
Dan
My guess is there is only one Ford listing (Ford Focus). So instead of returning that single listing… it included others with “4 airbags.”
Thats the only commonality I can see.
Correct Israel. You can set the search module to return only exact matches, or similar listings. We have it set to similar listings.
Ok thanks for clearing that up guys. I shall have to make a purchase!
I really like this theme. I just have one question.
Is it possible to have a listing post with no pictures? Kind of like a full width page. I just want to put text on it…
Is that what the “Books” post type is?
Very nice theme, but it is lacking a very important feature: the possibility to charge for listings, with different packages.
Look at geoplaces from templatic, probably their most popular theme because of this feature, unfortunatly this theme is buggy as hell. Others like appthemes also include integrated payment systems in their themes.
I can only wish you will consider eventually adding this feature to some of your themes because I didn’t find any plugin that can do this.
I hear you here Pierre. Out of the box payment integration would be interesting. Gravity forms is working on an interesting form that integrates with paypal…It’s been in beta for a while and might be fully available now. I am not sure if the Gravity forms could be worked into the custom post types though.
A work around – until or if WooThemes gets it integrated (i’m wondering if it may come as the wooCommerce is finalized) – is to set up a separate section for premium listings?
I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the listings theme so far and it’s really interesting. It’s been one I waited for more than wooCommerce because a few of my ideas have sat idle.
Already thinking about ways to pimp the listings!
I agree with this 100%. I need to be able to charge for premium listings.
Likewise. This is an “enterprise” theme with an enterprise cost that is 3 times more expensive than some of the other themes such as Templatic and App Thmes, both of which offer functionality to charge for lisitngs (and to manage those listings).
That said, I would rather use Woo over the others so I’ll just wait and watch.
This almost makes up for losing the third test to the Aussies… 🙂
Nice one guys. Have lots of use for this!
not working with a developer license? I cannot see this theme in my backend. Wanted to test ist. Did I missunderstand my contract?
Thanks for quick help.
(Developer account since ages)
Hi,
Sorry about that, I’ve fixed it so it shows up on a developer subscription now 🙂
Is there any way to adapt this for a review listing directory site? ie, ratings, reviews of the listings etc?
Or are that plugins that will work with it to create this?
For the ratings you can just integrate any ratings plugins and for the reviews, just use comments on the listings. 🙂
A complete reviews child theme might be neat to see. A JReviews competitor for WordPress?
What would you include in such a theme?
I’ve made or hoped to make several review and I didn’t find any real polished turn-key solutions other than JReviews (http://demo.reviewsforjoomla.com/) for Joomla. It’s not so easy to configure though. And it’s not WordPress! Some core features might be:
* Multi-criteria star ratings
* Allow review submission w/out registration
* Optional fields: Pros, Cons, Recommend Yes/No
* Review moderation (duh)
* Community Featueres: Top Reviews and other charts/scores
* Top Rated Listings, Popular and Latest Reviews, etc.
What I envision is to make it possible for people to make their own sites for web hosting reviews, restaurant reviews (mapping features), product reviews, Epinion-style sites, etc.
Maybe some users will accomplish this with a mishmash of plugins but I think a complete turn-key solution would be more elegant and appealing to many.
I mean “several review SITES and…”
simply stunning.
Well done guys! I can’t wait to see how these kind of themes evolve in 2011.
Ed
I have waited for this and finally it is here! I have a few websites that I’ve been wanting to convert over to WordPress for months, now with this theme, all looks possible!
Excellent work!
Hi ,
I have developer club edition but when i log in to download listings, it’s not listed in my downloads? Actually most of my downloads have dissappeared.
pls advise
tks
james
Hi James, I’ve just looked into your account and fixed the glitch. The themes should be accessible again.
This is a brilliant piece of work.
I may need to use this application. However, after months of owning the Citi Guide, I decided to use it for an old website [homemate.com.au] and I can’t believe the functionality of this theme/application.
Also the site has since gone from nowhere to 15500 ranking in AU [1.8m globally] on Alexa. So the SEO of the content structure is tremendous. And I haven’t even added much content yet! Which brings me to my question.
I notice that it was earlier mentioned that elements of the Listing application may be put into Canvas, and someone mentioned Citi Guide could also be a candidate. Is this likely in the near future?
I was going to use a Custom Post Type and Custom Taxonomy plugins to classify land and house and land packages, and custom fields for lot nos . If Citi Guide will have that part of the listings applications, I may wait for it.
Canvas + Listings would be perfect for a project I’m working on. Is this a real possibility?
It is possible but it will require a lot of coding
That’s OK I will get those plugins for custom posts and taxonomies and fields, and use them to get the functionality I need.
Hi Mark, love it! Been looking for this.. Whats the WP Bundle then? Is this with you guys as well?
Am interested in how I can adapt Listings to an all singing, all dancing jobsite function. eg cv load, job alerts, job matching, photo upload, searchable cv database etc…
Any additional info on this would be helpful.
Also have a friend from Kommetjie now living in London where I live who will be interested in the directory version and his clients!!
Keep these great themes coming!
Is this going to be your only recruitment theme or are you able to work with someone like me to help develop it for jobsite use?
I have various sites I want to link using this? eg 5 sites and one database powering all 5.
Thanks from an ex Fish Hoek High student!
I am really having a great time with this theme!!
Thank you guys so so so so so so so so so sooooooooo MUCH!!!!!!
Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Brilliant. Worth it for the custom post function alone.
How do you add taxonomys to the nav bar like you have with ‘makes’ in your demo, i cant select them from the wp custom menu. Thanks
all sorted. Rocking theme guys! Please press on with a front end payment system to clean up the others! x
I’ve been waiting for this! I’m very excited to dig in.
My main question is whether “members” can log in after they submit a listing to edit their existing listing (s). This feature could make or break my immediate use for the theme.
Yes? No?
Thanks for another great theme, guys!
Levi
would also like to know this!
At the moment, unfortunately not. But the feature request has been duly noted and we’ll figure something out further along Listings’ roadmap.
This theme looks excellent and it would make my short list for a new project I am working on if only it had support for paid listings and mass uploads of listings to the site.
To get an idea of some of the functionality others have take a look at one of the current themes on my short list http://www.directorypress.net.
This theme would be excellent for a free classifieds type of site but not for a commercial directory. At least not yet from what I can tell.
Any kind of road map you can share about future functionality to be added?
What would *you* like to have added? 🙂
1. Paid listings with at least 4 levels of service (Basic/Free, Bronze, Silver, Gold)
2. Ability of members to edit their listings, upgrade/downgrade their membership, add deals, etc.)
3. Ability for a company to claim their basic/free listing
4. Import tool for mass import of listings (via a CSV file for example)
Those are just a few things. I must admit the look and feel of the theme is excellent, it is just missing the tools neccessary for a professional directory service.
Excellent list Mark. I agree wholeheartedly that the four items you listed are “MUST HAVE” features for any directory.
I love the look and flexibility of Listings but it needs at minimum these features or plugins giving it this type of functionality.
As I am in the design phase of my directory site I still have some time before picking my theme but lack of these features really hobbles this theme in my books.
Solidly support Marks list here. Items 1-3 would be the priority. Without this functionality Listings is a fancy gallery with search, good for some things for sure, but not for making money. Will the ecommerce integration add the membership functionality? Password gated memberships to sponsors, selling ads and premium listing capabilities ( extra pictures, ability to run coupons …) Even a paid plugin for this capability …make it worth the effort @ Woothemes? But listings probably not worth $200 – if not capable of getting to this level of functionality.
I love this concept, but without an integrated payment option, the theme is useless to me. Additionally, I don’t see where a listing publisher can edit his own listing…another deal breaker.
I’m floored that Woo would omit the payment feature from such an otherwise impressive theme. It’s like having an awesome race car without a gas tank. What am I supposed to do besides just tinker with it?
Payment integration is coming as soon as we finalize WooCommerce. 🙂
Fantastic. Any definite timeline on that?
Wow, this will be just awsome!
Well done guys! This theme looks awesome.
I have a feeling I will be making good use of it in the new year 😉
Hi-
I am looking to integrate a grocery list for a small grocery store. Many categories with subcategories, price, weight etc…I was looking at ecwid, but this could maybe do the trick. Any insight
Drop us a mail and we’d be happy to help you figure out whether Listings can work for you. 🙂
This is a great theme!
I’m testing it right now, and it seems to open up many niche possibilities.
While testing the theme on the woothemes playground, I can’t seem to allow for comments on my listings. I want to add reviews to my listings. I have checked “allow comments on pages and posts” Is this a restriction that is turned off in the playground or will it require more to add comments and reviews on listings and custom listings?
One more question, now that I’m here. given the special nature of this theme, are there any special considerations I’d need to know if I intend to customize it to work with buddypress?
If anyone reading this is using this theme already, it would be great to see some examples of how you are using it (as well as info on making it more social)
And now, back to playing with it some more! great work! I’ve never bought a theme before, but this certainly may be what makes me change my mind 🙂
I really like this theme but when I was visiting the demo site I cannot access it. The Listing category section of HOME page.
One of the URL is : http://demo.woothemes.com/listings/make/ford/
Please correct and let me know.
Thanks, it’s been fixed now 🙂
Can the slider be automated to cycle through 5 feature listings?
Never mind. I see that it does.