This version adds some improvements to classifieds script for adding new posts and navigating inside ad categories. Also fiexed some bugs and combined javascript and css files to improve site speed. Lets look to these updates in detail.
Added multiupload and client side resizing for images with dropzone.js
As you know most of classifieds website visitors come from mobile devices. They shoot photo of item they want to sell and add listing to the classifieds website from their mobile. Generally mobile visitors are around 80% (statistics displayed below) in classifieds website. It is because mobile phones are always with users, and it is more convenient to use it instead of waiting until you get home or office to open a computer. Also it is easy to take photo of item and post it to the website.
We added dropsone.js which makes adding images to the ad much easier with less number of steps. These are the main features of new image upload:
- Ability to select multiple images at once. Previously if you want to add 10 images you have to perform 4 actions to select each image which makes 40 actions in total. Now to add 10 images you perform only 13 actions, 10 of which is clicking on image to select.
- Client side resize of large images. Images taken with mobile phone usually has 2-4 MB file size. To upload such big file takes more time, more mobile data and processed on server using more server resources. With new client side resize feature images are resized before uploaded and on average 2MB file will be resized to 100Kb. Which will be very fast to upload and use less mobile data. If you have a huge classified ads website you can read our detailed guide about server optimization.
- Instant uploads before submitting form. All images will be uploaded while you continue adding information to the rest of the form. This feature will reduce user time spent waiting while form submits.
- Preserve uploaded images in case there is some error in form fields like not complete captcha or empty required field. In any error all uploaded images related to your add will remain on server. So user will not have to select those images again when completing missing data for current ad.
- Display existing images when editing ad in same way as it looks when adding new ad.
These features make adding images to ad more easy and quick. It will increase number of ads posted with images and page views of your classifieds website will increase because visitors will see more ads with images.
Mobile user statistics of Classifieds website
Statistics show percentage of users visited Classifieds website using mobile phones for last 12 month, between 2017 May and 2018 May dates. Data based on 413K users and recorded using google analytics. It shows that 79.1% of users visit website using mobile device, 16.5% using PC, 4.4% using tablets. Most popular mobile brands are Samsung 53% and Apple 21.6%.
Related posts prefer posts with photo
With addition of ad view statistics in our previous update in version 1.8 users saw that ads with images viewed more than ads without images. Knowing it motivated us to display related ads preferable with images. This will bring even more visitors to ads with images and possibility to find buyer for accurate and complete ads.
Added chain select to ad edit page
Previously chain select was shown only when adding new add. Now we added same feature to ad editing page. It is useful if you have multilevel categories and locations. Navigating through 1k items in dropdown is difficult so chain select breaks that list to 3 or 4 select boxes with approximately 10 items which is much easier, especially on mobile phones.
Added custom field drill down to category widget
Classibase allows you to have website structure with categories and custom fields. You can choose to have every detail as category or use custom fields for ad details. With custom field drilldown radio and dropdown custom fields will be displayed as links, similar to category links in widget, to narrow down your search results. Custom field drill down navigation with ad count is also used in popular Russian classifieds website Avito.ru.
For example you have category Cars, and car make, engine type, engine volume are dropdown for that category. When you navigate to cars category you will see first dropdown custom field values as links to choose. In our example ith will be list of car makes with number of ads in them. When you click on any make for example BMW you will see engine type as links, clicking on type you will see engine volume. With each level down your results will reduce leaving only listings that you are interested in. Custom field drill down works well with search, by preserving search term inside drill down links.
Custom field drill down can be enabled in category widgets, separately for each widget. Preferred location for such drill down is before content with one level category items, with showing number of ads feature. It will guide users to the listings they are interested with.
Combined some javascript and CSS files
Combined commonly used javascript functions into one file for frontend and backend. This will reduce code duplication and reduces number of requests to server. Combined CSS of dropbox and colorbox into main CSS file for each theme and admin panel. This will reduce number of requests to the server.
Full list of changes can be found in change log here.