Directory

Start your own online directory site, powered by WordPress, with integrated payment gateways, powerful theme integration and infinite customizability.

Download Directory

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Screenshots

Individual Listing
Listings
Sign Up Page
Default Theme
Customizing your Directory colors
Customizing your Directory template backround
Setting up your directory payment terms
Adding categories to a listing
Example of custom fields you can use with your Directory
Example of the imported taxonomies in the Taxonomy tab in Directory > Content Types
The custom post type page in Directory > Content Types
The Add New Listing admin interface
Adding an ad to your Directory page
Detail

WordPress Directory Plugin

The Directory Plugin is a powerful plugin that can turn your WordPress Blog into a Fully-Featured Online Directory Site. The Directory plugin comes bundled with all the tools and Payment Gateways you need to create a Yellow Pages like online Directory where you can accept payments for listing of brands and services.

Want even more? The plugin seamlessly integrates with our Affiliates plugin so that you can have affiliates promote your directory by giving them a share of your profits!

Theme Optional

The new Directory Plugin comes with a gorgeous theme (checkout the screenshots!) which allows you to quickly and easily get an entire directory website running in a matter of minutes. The theme comes with a variety of color styles to choose from and any detail can be easily customized further through the use of a child theme.

But what if you already have a gorgeous site and you simply want to add a directory component? Directory has you covered here as well. Through the use of shortcodes you can easily embed Directory components anywhere in your site. Elements such as:

  • List of all Directory categories – can also output as a grid!
  • “View Listings” Button
  • “Add Listings” Button
  • Profile Button
  • Signin Button
  • Signup Button
  • Logout Button

What the Directory Plugin Can Do For You

As with most of our plugins, the things you could do with the Directory Plugin is limited only by what you can come up with. The plugin is designed with an average user in mind. Its simple to configure and with our detailed installation guide, you can get it up and running within under 30 minutes.

  • Create a fully featured Online Directory using WordPress.
  • Accept Payments for Listings in the Directory.
  • Bill your customers every Day/Month/Year on a recurring cycle, or give them a one time up-front payment option. All handled automatically!
  • Create Custom Categories and Tags, all for your Directory.
  • Use simple short codes to integrate with your existing WordPress Theme.
  • User reviews and ratings for listings included within the plugin, no extra plugin needed!
  • Integrate with our Affiliates Plugin and pay your affiliates for referring customers. All handled by the plugin.
  • Add any number of custom fields into your plugin taking advantage of our CustomPress plugin upon which directory is built.
Usage

The plugin is compatible with both WordPress standard installation and WordPress Multisite. Just like any other WordPress plugin, installation is simple.

  • Download the plugin to your Computer.
  • Go to your WordPress Dashboard. Navigate to Plugins > Add New. If you are using WordPress Multisite you have to go to your Network Admin. Navigate to Plugins > Add New
  • Switch to the “Upload” Tab on the Add New plugin page.
  • Click Browse and find the file you downloaded. Open it and Click “Install Now”.
  • When the installation is complete, click “Activate Plugin” (for standard WordPress install) or “Network Activate” (for Multisite, if you want to activate the plugin across all sites on the network. If not you can go to the Plugins section under each site and activate individually).

Setting-Up the Directory Plugin

When you Activate the plugin, you will be taken to the plugin page automatically. If not, Click on “Listings” from the side bar on your WordPress Dashboard.

Click on “Configure Your Settings” to setup the plugin. If you are on WordPress 3.3.1 and beyond, the plugin will be able to use its step-by-step Set-up tutorial that will guide you through the process. Yes! We are that awesome!

The Settings that need to be set are categorized neatly. Lets go through all of them:

The General Tab

This is where you set-up some basic settings for the plugin.

  • Redirect URL (sign in): Set the URL where you want the user to be redirected to when they login. By default the user is taken to your homepage, but using the link to your listings page (YourSite.com/listings/) is a good idea, if your site is mainly a directory.
  • Redirect URL (logout): Like the sign-in redirect, but this time you get to decide where to send the user when they Log out. A thank you page? Not a bad idea!
  • Display Custom Fields as: The Directory Plugin actually includes a copy of the CustomPress plugin with which allows you to Custom Fields to work with your listings. This setting decides on how the Custom Fields should be listed on the Site. This is discussed in detail towards the end of this documentation.
  • Count of category: Set the number of categories that you want to list when you list the categories using short code.
  • Count of sub-category: Set the number of sub-categories that you want to list when you list the categories using short code.
  • Empty sub-category: Tick this if you don’t want the empty sub-categories to show up in the list. Quite Handy.
  • Getting Started Page: If you wish to see the “Getting Started Page” again, this is how you do that. It is usually shown only during the first run after the plugin install.

Capabilities Tab

This is where you set the capabilities of each user. By default, the admin has all capabilities.

To assign capabilities, just select each role, the plugin will load the previously set settings for each role. Set the ones you want and click “Save Changes”. Repeat this for each role.

Payment Settings

If you plan to charge people for listings, this is where you set your price. The Directory plugin has everything you need to create a paid listing portal!

You can receive Recurring Daily/Semi-Monthly/Monthly/Yearly Payments for your service, or a one time up-front payment. The options are pretty straight forward.

You can also type in a Terms of Service, in this page. When you are done, click “Save Changes” before proceeding to the next tab.

Payments Type Tab

Now this is where you actually decide whether you want to enable paid listings or not.

Clicking “Free Listings” will just save the page. But when you click “Paypal”, a whole lot of settings open up:

  • PayPal API Calls URL: Choose Sandbox while you are testing your set-up. The sandbox mode will let you actually test out if the payment system would work, without making actual payments. When you are ready and all set, come back and choose Live to start marking money!
  • PayPal Business Email: This is the email of the account to which you wish to receive payments to. Your account should be either a Business account or a Premier account for the gateway to work.
  • PayPal API Credentials: You will need some information from PayPal so that the plugin can integrate with your account and work for you. You will need ““, “” and ““. Note that, these are NOT your account login username, or password. Instructions to how to get these information can be found here.
  • Currency: Choose your currency from the list.

Having completed this, you are all set to make some money. Way to go!

Affiliate settings Tab

  • Note: The Affiliate Tab will only display if you also have our Affiliates plugin installed and activated.

You can grow your directory site faster by using our Affiliates Plugin. The latest release of the affiliate plugin has an add-on for the directory plugin. Go to the “Manage Addons” Tab in the affiliate plugin and activate the Directory Add-on

Once enabled, you can choose the following options:

  • Affiliate payment credited for signed member (recurring payments): The amount that you wish to pay your affiliate promoter for recurring billings. Lets assume, Mr. Mark is your affiliate. And he sends a user, one Mr. Tony to your listing site. And Tony signs-up for a recurring plan (the one we set in the Payment Settings tab). Mark gets paid the first time Tony pays you with the amount you set in here. Note that the affiliate is NOT paid every month, only the first time, so make sure you reward him well for all the money he is bringing in! Cool, huh?
  • Affiliate payment credited for permanent member (one-time payments): This is the amount that your affiliate gets paid for the one time payment plan that you have set.

Hit “Save Changes” before proceeding to the next!

Shortcodes Tab

Shortcodes are the easiest way to integrate your plugin to your theme. Add them to a normal Post/Page in the HTML view and the shortcode will be replaced by really cool stuff when you look at the page. Like magic!

The shortcodes you have for the Directory plugin:

[dr_list_categories] : Displays a list of Categories and Sub-Categories on a Post/Page. This shortcode has the optional attributes to display as a list or in a grid format.

Tip: To make this shortcode working on your sidebar, insert add_filter(‘widget_text’, ‘do_shortcode’); into the functions.php of your theme. Now insert the shortcode into a text widget and add it to your sidebar widget. It should work!

Final Steps

The plugin creates the following pages for you to use:

  • The Sign-up Page at: YourSite.com/signup/
  • The Sign-in Page at: YourSite.com/signin/
  • Listings Page at: YourSite.com/listings/
  • And when you have paid for the listings: An “Add New Listing” Page (as a drop down to the Listings page)

Once the plugin is configured well, you can get the signup page to work. When you are in the sandbox mode, with a developer Paypal account, you can test out the working of the plugin. When you are happy and all set, Go to Listings > Payments Type and change PayPal API Calls URL to “Live”.

You are ready to roll!

Creating a Listing

A new listing can be created via Listings > “Add New”. The plugin doesn’t have a front-end editor at the moment, so every user that has the capability to create a new listing will be able to access that page.

While creating a new listing, the following details can be added:

  • Title.
  • The content of the Listing.
  • Tags and Categories.
  • Custom Fields created with included version of CustomPress. Do not activate CustomPress separately.

Creating User Defined Custom Fields

The Directory plugin uses our CustomPress plugin. You can create your own custom fields and add them to your listings.

IMPORTANT: Please do not activate CustomPress along with Directory.  Doing so will cause issues and is unnecessary as the Directory plugin already has everything you need.

  • Navigate to CustomPress > Content Types > Custom Fields Tab
  • Click “Add Custom Field”
  • Enter “Field Title”, “Field Type”, “Field Description” and select the “Post Type” as directory_listing
  • Click “Add Custom Field”

The custom field you just created will show up in the post editor for the Directory Plugin. Enter the value for the field there. You can create as many custom fields as you want.

Custom Fields you create are automatically integrated to the listings. You can set the style in which they show up on the Display Custom Fields as setting in the General Settings Tab of the Directory Plugin. The “table” layout (as shown in the screenshot) will look elegant, but its up to you!

Hope you make the most of the Directory Plugin. We would love to hear from you. Discuss your suggestions, questions or feature requests in the Forum.

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