Affiliate Site Generator

This plug-in offers instant categorized pagination and category navigation widgets from nearly any datafeed right inside Wordpress. Oh, yeah…

All created pages have correct/unique title and description tags, and all the other basic SEO Automatic goodness you would expect.

Use just one of your feeds, or choose to use multiple vendors – There’s never been anything quite like this…

Version: 1.8 b

This plug-in has potential for adding many options and features, but is currently in testing status.

== Current Status ==
Backend testing has been very successful. Most issues that pop up involve hosting issues on file writing and chmod permissions. This plugin is customized to be as fully automated as possible with simple customization options, but depending on your hosting company, some automations require manual uploading and chmod settings.

== Bug Reporting ==
If you have been chosen as a beta tester for this plugin, the most important need right now is feedback and notes as clear as possible on bugs. Second important thing is clear feedback on ease of use. Please note pages, items, any part of this plugin that needs help or FAQ defined better. (Remember, the programmer needs your input where help, information, or easier ways to use could be implemented.) Good details on features that you feel would work well on this plugin are very welcome.

== Completed Feature List ==

Additions in Version 1.6b

1. Corrected importing issues.
2. Overhauled the look and style in the admin area.
3. Added proper image resizing.
4. Added rel=”nofollow” to the next and previous links.
5. Extended the filtering capabilities to use more than one keyword or phrase.

Additions in Version 1.5b

1. Fixed subdomain installation issues to work with 2.7 version of Wordpress.
2. Added product image sizing options to appearance page.
3. Incorporated SEO Auto branding.
4. More details – now have nofollow tags.

Additions in Version 1.4b

1. Using sub category widget displays them separately, not using it – the sub-categories will now display under the main category they are in.
2. Sub-categories stay visible while in them.
3. Built-in search feature of store is functioning properly.

Additions in Version 1.3b

1. Revamped the url usage to use the permalink structure of wordpress.
2. Breadcrumbs now show in the correct order.
3. Category titles were interfering with the recent post titles. This has been corrected and an auto edit of the header.php theme file has been added. (This requires at least a chmod permission of 766 on your theme files.)
4. Menu tips and tricks has been added to the appearance page. Plugin usage and hard-coding notes are added there to help you stop the Items and Buy pages from appearing on the menu at your site.

Additions in Version 1.2b

1. THIS UPGRADE WILL ERASE THE DATABASE TABLES CREATED BY THE AFFILIATE PLUGIN. TO RETAIN THEM, YOU WILL HAVE TO DO A DATABASE BACKUP AND THEN RESTORE AFTER THE UPGRADE. THE DATAFEED FILES THEMSELVES WILL NOT BE DISTURBED. IF YOU ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH EXPORT/IMPORT IN THE PHPMYADMIN, THERE ARE DATABASE MANAGEMENT PLUGINS AVAILABLE BY SEARCHING THE WEB. THE RE-IMPORTING OF THIS DATA HAS NOT YET BEEN TESTED. IF YOU CHOOSE TO TRY THIS METHOD, PLEASE SEND AN EMAIL TO dzynit@searchcommander.com WITH THE OUTCOME AND HOW YOU DID THE EXPORT/IMPORT SO THAT THIS SECTION CAN BE UPDATED ACCORDINGLY.
2. When in a category, names now appear in the title.
3. Table formatting has been removed from the display pages. Div tags and stylesheet are added. Need to add instructions and stylesheet editor to the appearance page.
4. Added appearance menu to start building on.
5. Added Buy Now button upload option. If button is uploaded a preview is shown and the individual product pages will now show the buy now button in place of the buy now words. The product list page will show the same if the style is edited to display. This can be done in the stylesheet in the plugin’s files/styles/stylesheet.css by removing the #sc-aff_buynow-list style or by adding #sc-aff-buynow-list {disply: block !important; } in your theme’s stylesheet.
6. Added ability to filter feed import by a single keyword or phrase.

Prior to 1.2b:

1. Installation does everything for you (On some servers, there can be a couple manual steps, but are clearly instructed on.)
2. Import of feeds
3. Import almost any file type (if anyone finds a feed format that does not import, please send a notation on it with a sample of the feed and what happened that the import did not work.)
4. Delimiter determination
5. Set maximum import time
6. Choose your own folder name for the data feed files
7. Set how many products to display on a page
8. Set a batch delay for importing large feeds
9. Set how many products to import per batch
10. Shows a sample feed and let’s you choose the fields to display the products
11. Cloaked links
12. No preset style – will take on the settings from your theme’s style sheet
13. Products are shown in a flexible table layout enclosed in a single div tag to allow controlling detailed style from your theme’s style sheet
14. Removed unecessary hooking in base affiliate.php. (added 01/16/09)
15. Added description tag for items – recommend disabling seo / meta plugins for the items page. (added 01/16/09)
16. Item name is being used as the H1 and page title. (Requires that your theme is using the_title() in the <title></title> and the <h1><h2> tags. – Which is most commonly the default in themes. (added 01/16/09)
17. Error debugging is in place for detailed error messaging. When seen, please copy, report, and try to give the steps leading to the error. (added 01/16/09)
18. Increased maximum file upload size on datafeed files. (added 01/16/09)
19. Added auto detect trailing slash on the blog url set in the wp-admin general settings. (added 02/5/09)
20. Added navigation of affiliates and categories. (added 02/5/09)
21. Added search of items. (added 02/5/09)
22. Fine-tuned the categories and sub categories. (added 02/9/09)
23. Added the affiliate feed name to the bread crumbs and set them to display on all the product pages. (added 02/9/09)
24. Added navigation, category, and sub-category sidebar widgets. (added 02/11/09)

== Pending Feature List ==

1. Featured item page (This feature will eventually be implemented offering a selection from the database of products. Currently, it requires exact entry of a particular product’s title to work and is just not user-friendly enough to offer. It is set to unavailable at this time.)
2. Products are listed horizontally (This feature has already been started. The styles and div tags implemented will now allow for this, but additional pre-made styles have not been created. Currently, you have the option of customizing your own WordPress theme stylesheet to create the effect that you like. This would be a welcomed submission from users to add to a pre-made layout choice option in the admin area. In an effect, a theme section here at SEO Automatic for different product layouts would nice.)
3. Create option for selecting just certain categories of the feed for import. – currently working on now. A keyword/phrase filter has already been added for filtering the items imported to the database from your feeds.

== Using ==

1. Recommend disabling seo / meta plugins for all 3 pages created by the plugin. Items, Buy, and Store (or other name if you have renamed it.)
2. The admin control panel is located in the main menu as Affiliate
3. Under Affiliate:
   1. Import page – for uploading, defining for import, and deleting the data feed files.
   2. Settings page – for products per page and import options for the data feeds
   3. Appearance – Right now allows the addition or removal of a buy now image button. Planned addition for editing the layout stylesheet or choosing from layout options directly from here.
   4. A help screen
   5. Featured items (please see pending features list above)

== Installation ==

1. Unzip the download
2. Upload the entire folder: `affiliate` to the `/wp-content/plugins/` directory
3. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
4. Set options in Affiliate > Settings
5. Import from the main Affiliate menu screen – after importing your first feed, choose define from the file list below it. From that point, there will be steps to follow. Step one has been 100% accurate to date at choosing the settings for you. Step 2: the first record of your feed is displayed at the bottom as a guide to set the fields at the top according to field number or heading title for importing the entire feed into the correct fields for display.