Stop ‘Osclass Project’ dying

[WEBmods]

Hetzner? No? It's Totohost - https://totohost.hr. The data center is in Germany so it might be connected with them...

ISP: Hetzner Online AG

varazdin.totohost.hr

Germany, Gunzenhausen, Bayern

It IS Hetzner, apparently some reseller you use. The IPs belong to Hetzner datacenters. You should know that a lot of people block IPs from Hetzner, OVH etc because of attacks.

Whatever, no problems at all for 7 years already.

[marius-ciclistu]

All this is happening because the script did not produce enough money. So if any of you want to save it to make money, it's a dead end. If you want to save it to build it so it won't need plugins and to have all the funcionalities in it's core then it will survive, but still, will not produce money for the devs.

[WEBmods]

Undressing is a step that is very easy to perform. I am not concerned with that part much. What I am worried about is the update notification process and such, if the script will have some meaningful life. I mean, it can be stripped from that all-together, of course. Navjot's changes are all good, most of them were known bugs/issues reported here and on official GitHub project, no worries.

Ok then. Also i see that the theme i use (Osclasswizards) is (or will) be moved to github since apparently they left Osclass business also.

That could also replace Bender. After been improved/changed.

What i see is a lot of work and not sure who will do all that. And why.

Anyway, first we must wait to see (if any) response from Osclass team about all that.

Try to be more positive for once. We can do it...

Why? Because we all love Osclass.

[Dimal]

Try to be more positive for once. We can do it...

Why? Because we all love Osclass.

It is not a matter of positive or negative or pure love. Marius posted above his view.

Anyway, we will se how it goes.

[Saint Michael]

WordPress has massive support, that's true. However, out of the box regarding classifieds you really have to pull a lot mods to get what Osclass has out of the box. And then, for everything you need another plugin, since WP is virtually blank slate out of the box. Yes, there are tons of them (and many that you see, are not really free, because advanced features are payed - and for any pro service you need them), but there are compatibility issues sometimes, so you need more time to waste what works with what and so on. And, security related, many of those critical plugins are often hacked and exposed (granted, they eventually get updated, if not abandoned). As in every software, maintenance is the huge part of the deal, whether you'll hire someone, or rely on 3rd parties, that's up to you. I'm not saying WP is a bad idea, just that it has inverted counterpoints when compared to Osclass in many areas. Also, in Osclass you can really do some mods easy with functions etc. In WP not always you can pull it that way, solutions feel 'hacky' at best.

The problem is not what you mention above, the problem is that you CAN'T exactly replicate Osclass in WP. You can't. Maybe it is a plugin thing, maybe something else, i dunno. The existing WP plugins just can't. I have even tried some "directory" plugins to turn them to classifieds, the result is poor.

The results are visually great but not good for structure and ads etc etc.

I did it. Just matter of planing and thinking. For examples, Contact form plugin is just that. Use it for classified reporting, contact seller, after registration or not, contact owner od fite, etc. Why not ?
Custom fields, use it for prices, all classified attributes, photos, seller´s map adress, seller´s video(s), etc. Why not ? Unlimited possibilities. Contact seller via integrated comments.
Not everything is of course done with plugins. Plenty of custom functions code, as example code to limit what seller can see and access.

But enough about that. It is not time and place for it. Just mentioned it as own experience that it is possible. It is hard of course, specially first time. Needs pencil and paper, or PC note, and writing all down and planning, to save (first) time.
Just saying it is a bit safer approach, to not end in few years with the same topic as this one, and complaining about Osclass fork gone.

[WEBmods]

Try to be more positive for once. We can do it...

Why? Because we all love Osclass.

It is not a matter of positive or negative or pure love. Marius posted above his view.

Anyway, we will se how it goes.

I agree with that and with Marius, but there is no script like Osclass. Yes, you have Wordpress and Joomla, etc, but they're nowhere close to Osclass.
I want to improve it and I want it to last for years to go...

Regards.

[nightfly13]

Money is important....

Charge for the script... 25 to 50 Euros it's a reasonable price, Rebuild osclass site and add adsense in all the pages, with a rank of 68,717 for sure will get some ggod revenue from adsense , Get partnership between hosting's company's and osclass, Place on the market just plugins and themes developed by osclass… I saw some developers, continuously producing very nice themes and plugins, and get some revenue from them... Listen the users, improve the script.... If the peoples have a profitable sites using osClass for sure they will by osclass script


Best Regards

[Saint Michael]

Maybe I was not clear enough. I made it not from some classifieds plugin (did not even look at them). Took different plugins for whole different purposes, than directly classifieds, and tweaked and adapted them to Osclass replica. And tried not to touch core code of plugins and WP, except for one old, abandoned plugin for valuta conversions directly on site.

I think WooCommerce is bright example. Relatively rich company behind it, it means you can monetize time input. And WooCommerce needs good performance too, so it means WP can deliver it.

Ok, now it is more clear. Without mentioning names and urls, can you give us an example ? What kind of plugins ?

Some of them:

- SyncFields
- Stream
- ACF
- CF7
- Ajax Pagination and Infinite Scroll
- Canvas Image Resize
- Edit Post Expire
- GDPR Plugin
- QR Codes
- Currency Converter (customized core code by me, not original anymore)
- Plugin Organizer, some Minify and cache plugin to give it max performance.
- Regenerate images/thumbnails
- Search & Filter (this one and AFC Pro need paid licences if something more is needed. But so is (was) that with many Osclass good addons)
- Some plugin for User´s Avatars, profile photos.
- WP-PostViews (as help for admins)
- Post Expirator
- Own custom plugin with different code snippets
- Email & Social networks login (any would work)
- Auto Prune Posts
- Some Database cleaner
- Some Google maps plugin that works with custom fields
- Post Meta Revisions (limited to 3 last, to be able to show publicly seller´s last 3 price (mind) changes
- Relevanssi (search index)
- Manual code for custom post types, but there is Pods plugin to make it easier. (Osclass classifieds categories)
This one is really not needed as it is nothing seller is aware of. But makes life of website developer so easy and makes it unlimited with possibilities to extend things in the future without disturbing website and users. Custom attributes per category, User permissions, custom set of custom fields per category, all...

It was before the Gutenberg era. Maybe will have some time in the future to try it with Gutenberg. I am still skinny with Gutenberg coding, have to spend some time learning first.

[nightfly13]

I think osclass team focus since the beginning in selling Plugins and themes from other developpers… With this only get the 10% of margin... Why not develop your own, and only your own... Why I will buy a plugin or theme from a developer in osclass market if I can buy it cheaper, I never saw a message system made by osclass team, I never saw a newsletter system build by osClass team....


Best Regards

[Dimal]

I think osclass team focus since the beginning in selling Plugins and themes from other developpers… With this only get the 10% of margin... Why not develop your own, and only your own... Why I will buy a plugin or theme from a developer in osclass market if I can buy it cheaper, I never saw a message system made by osclass team, I never saw a newsletter system build by osClass team....


Best Regards

Well clearly, Osclass team were/are great for programming and developing but not for business.

[WEBmods]

I think osclass team focus since the beginning in selling Plugins and themes from other developpers… With this only get the 10% of margin... Why not develop your own, and only your own... Why I will buy a plugin or theme from a developer in osclass market if I can buy it cheaper, I never saw a message system made by osclass team, I never saw a newsletter system build by osClass team....


Best Regards

They actually get 30% of the plugin price.

[WEBmods]

I have an idea about how the update system would work.

Latest Osclass is available at a certain GitHub repository. Every time a bigger change is made, we update a file called e.g. "last-version.txt".
In Osclass admin, we check the Osclass version and then connect to repo and check it's "last-version.txt".
If "last-version" > "current-version" we perform an update by fetching changes from GitHub.

"How will you do that with PHP?"
Well, I came to this idea when I found git-php, a Git library for PHP: https://github.com/czproject/git-php
Some Git code (can be adapted to PHP with git-php): https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53163258/how-to-compare-and-update-local-repo-with-remote-github-repo

Regards.

[WEBmods]

I have an idea about how the update system would work.

Latest Osclass is available at a certain GitHub repository. Every time a bigger change is made, we update a file called e.g. "last-version.txt".
In Osclass admin, we check the Osclass version and then connect to repo and check it's "last-version.txt".
If "last-version" > "current-version" we perform an update by fetching changes from GitHub.

"How will you do that with PHP?"
Well, I came to this idea when I found git-php, a Git library for PHP: https://github.com/czproject/git-php
Some Git code (can be adapted to PHP with git-php): https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53163258/how-to-compare-and-update-local-repo-with-remote-github-repo

Regards.

Same can be made with free plugins and themes. I don't know about paid ones though. If they have a private repo, can a password be sent to access it?

[dev101]

For premium ones a simple notification can be enough for start, because there will be no centralized system of a sort.

[WEBmods]

For premium ones a simple notification can be enough for start, because there will be no centralized system of a sort.

Yes, that would be okay.

I just send a mail to Osclass, asking if they will post an official announcement on Forums. I doubt they'll see it, but I tried...