Today we launched Collection Factory, concluding three years of researching the market, developing, testing, improvements, etc.

Collection Factory allows collectors to create and maintain a user-friendly database of their collected items, organizing them in unlimited categories and subcategories (nested model) and including various statistical and financial reports, helping to keep evidence of owned items, but also keeping record of the missing ones.

For e-Commerce purposes, the collector has only to enable the built-in cart feature of component, then Collection Factory will offer also a full Shopping-Cart solution, with ordering system, payment gateways and invoices. Main component features are:

unlimited category levels, personalized fields for collecting purposes, extended search and filtering options, Shopping cart with payment gateways Paypal, Moneybookers and bank wire, categories module, search module, multiple module for user criteria, random module bulk upload supporting CSV files export as XLS, statistical and financial reports, backup/restore, customizable language and CSS files.

Photo Battle Factory provides an easy voting system, requiring only a single click action for a speedy process. The component can be used to rate different images like landscapes, art, etc. or if the genre mode is enabled, more particular for male and female images. The upload is very easy, allowing also multiple upload. For each picture a sharelink and the number of hits will be visible and if admin enabled the description, comments and tags. To allow the administrator content control on the site, each picture and comment can be reported.

for Joomla Powered Websites Only!

Before we get down to the business how to part, let us first get you familiar with the live chat component that will accomplish the above task.

Chat Factory is a powerful Ajax based live chat extension for Joomla (1.5 and 1.6) that will integrate Facebook & Gmail like chat into Joomla Websites. Think of it like having an instant messenger only for your website.

Partial features list: Online and Offline messages Message History Avatar management Community Builder integration Chat application is available on every page of your website without having to enable a special module Changeable User status Possibility of staying invisible allowing users to chat REGARDLESS of the page they are on. Friends list and Blocked users list Guests can Chat with registered users (option to set it off) Community Builder Integration Possibility of running advertisements in the Chat window and through advertisement messages users can enable/disable the chat system and many more ...

After you install Chat Factory on your website, here are the ways you can put it to use:

1. Increase Your Sales using it As a Live Help Support Tool. A website without live support is like an empty brick and motor store (with no one to guide you. With Chat Factory, you can interact with your website visitors through a real time chat communication providing a higher level customer and sales support. Doing this not only improves upfront sales and customer satisfaction but also increases referral rate and improves brand image (thus affecting the overall bottom line of your business).
2. With the above said, think about this “How much is such a software worth to my business?” I’m sure you will discover that overtime, it’s worth 50 to 100 times more than what you are invest to grab the software.

Chat Factory is the special Joomla 1.5 extension which allows site users to chat.

The main front-end features of Chat Factory are: users can enable/disable the chat system no need to register: users can chat as guests (if enabled by administrator) show/hide offline users from users list (only for registered users) registered users can block chat messages from guests user avatars: users can upload their own avatar, use Community's Builder avatar (if enabled), or use no avatar at all (only for registered users) ignore list: block messages from individual users (only for registered users) friends list (only for registered users) possibility to share a message (only for registered users) possibility to change status: available, busy, invisible (only for registered users) implemented emoticons, buzz minimize chat windows and preserve position when navigating through the site (only for registered users) quick search (only for registered users) advertisement area

On the back-end the chat extension for Joomla has the following main features:

• emoticons management: administrators can add as many emoticons as they want
• advertisements management
• IM ads: on login or on specific interval
• allowed groups: select the groups that are allowed to chat
• Community Builder integration (enable/disable)
• set refresh interval of user list, new messages and new friendship requests to reduce server load
• spam protection: set the maximum number of messages users can send per minute.

Requirements:

• Joomla 1.5.x

Demo-Server:

• http://chatfactory.thefactory.ro/index.php

What is Deluxe Blog Factory?

Deluxe Blog Factory is an user friendly, webmaster friendly blogging extension for Joomla 1.5, with a native and fresh MVC codebase. Full of features, it is a well thought alternative to Wordpress blogging, allowing you to use Joomla versatility and well known blogging conventions - like RSS Syndication, Bookmarking Sites (like Digg, Twitter, Facebook, etc). Featuring a Web 2.0 Dashboard with draggable panes and all-in-reach controls, your blogging experience is truly comfortable and in a luxuriant environment. With its integrated commenting and following system, Deluxe Blog Factory does not need additional extensions in order to function at full potential. No need to get support from 2 different extension providers that keep pointing fingers at each others program.

User Avatars, Pingbacks, TinyMCE extensions, Youtube and per user settable Media Upload capacities add to the Extension an amazing set of features and possibilities.

What do you get with Deluxe Blog Factory?

• A well designed and user friendly Dashboard where you can see the most important information and have access to the most important functions.
• SEF URLs - native Joomla 1.5 router. Well formed URLs that help your website to gain more relevance.
• Per user Media Management; users can upload Media files up to a certain Quota (admin settable). Your website users will have the possibility to upload images and media from the frontend without overcrowding your hosting.
• Multi-Blogger: You can allow all users to create blogs, or just specific user groups.
• Import Blog Posts into Joomla content. Now the gap between the blogs you host and the content of your site will be bridged.
• Avatars: users can upload their own avatar or use their community builder avatar.
• Fully customizable template based on smarty tags; there is NO php knowledge needed at all.
• Backend Blog administration: you can edit or unpublish any blog entry or any comment from the administrative backend.
• Follow and be followed by other users.
• customizable eMail notifications for the significant events in your site (new post, new comment, reported post, etc).
• Customizable bookmark sites (digg, facebook, twitter, etc).
• CAPTCHA for comments.
• Tag Clouds. Tag filtering, tagging search.
• a lot of free modules to get on your site.
• Integrated Search Plugin.
• Deluxe Blog Factory comes also toghether with seven modules: Random Blogs mod, Tag Cloud mod, Latest posts mod, Top Active blogs mod, Top Rated blogs mod, Top Rated posts mod, Search mod.

Check NOW, what bloggers need and Deluxe Blog provides:

• Frontpage with all posts listed, paged and sorted.
• Individual per blog listings - every user gets his own blog front page.
• Possibility to import Blog posts into regular joomla content sections and categories.
• A lot of Bookmarking sites to choose from and an easy way to add new ones.
• RSS feeds and syndication.
• Pings and Tags, pingback and bookmarking.
• SEF urls.
• Avatars with Community Builder integration.
• Templating System / Easy to change templates.
• Built in Commenting system.
• Built in Media uploader with per user Disk Quota.

How to use the DEMO site of Deluxe Blog Factory?

You can use the login buttons on the left in order to login into the site as different users and test the features of this extension. You can approve comments, leave comments, add posts, and even login into the administrative backend to see all the management features.

For those of you who are developing WordPress templates or you just want to modify existing ones, the following commands sheet should be helpful.

The Loop

<?php if(have_posts());?>
<?php while(have_posts()); the_post();?>
// Custom HTML and PHP Code
<?php else;?>
<?php endif;?>

The Category Based Loop

<?php query_posts('category_name=
Category&showposts=10'); ?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
// Custom HTML and PHP Code
<?php endwhile;?> 

Theme Definition

/*
Theme Name: Wordpress
Theme URI: http://wordpress.org/
Description: Factory Blog
Version: 2.0
Author: the Factory
Author URI: http://www.thefactory.ro
Tags: wordpress, drupal, joomla, cms
*/

Template Include Tags

< ?php get_header(); ?>
< ?php get_sidebar(); ?>
< ?php get_footer(); ?>
< ?php comments_template(); ?>

WordPress Template Tags

• <?php the_title() ?> - displays the posts/pages title
• <?php the_content() ?> - displays the content of the post/page
• <?php the_excerpt() ?> - displays the excerpt of the current post/page
• <?php the_time() ?> - displays the time of the current post/page
• <?php the_date() ?> - displays the date of a post or set of post/page
• <?php the_permalink() ?> - displays the URL for the permalink
• <?php the_category() ?> - displays the category of a post
• <?php the_author(); ?> - displays the author of the post
• <?php the_ID(); ?> - displays the numeric ID of the current post
• <?php wp_list_pages(); ?> - displays all the pages
• <?php wp_tag_cloud(); ?> - displays a tag cloud
• <?php wp_list_cats(); ?> - displays the categories
• <?php get_calendar(); ?> - displays the calendar
• <?php wp_get_archives() ?> - displays a date-based archives list
• <?php posts_nav_link(); ?> - displays Previous page and Next Page links
• <?php next_post_link() ?> - displays Newer Posts link
• <?php previous_post_link() ?> - displays previous link
• <?php edit_post_link(__('Edit Post')); ?> - displays the edit link
• <?php the_search_query();?> - value for search form
• <?php wp_register();?> - displays the register link
• <?php wp_loginout();?> - displays the log in/out link
• <?php wp_meta();?> - Meta for administrators
• <?php timer_stop(1);?> - time to load the page
• <?php echo c2c_custom('test');?> - displays the custom field1
• <?php get_links_list(); ?> - display links from Blogroll
• <?php get_calendar(); ?> - displays the built-in calendar
• <?php comments_popup_link(); ?> - link of the posts comments

BlogInfo Tags

• <?php bloginfo('name'); ?> - Title of the blog
• <?php bloginfo('charset'); ?> - the character set
• <?php bloginfo('description'); ?> - the description of the blog
• <?php bloginfo('url'); ?> - the address of the blog
• <?php bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?> - the RSS URL
• <?php bloginfo('template_url'); ?> - the URL of the template
• <?php bloginfo('pingback_url'); ?> - the pingback URL
• <?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); ?> - the URL for the template's CSS file
• <?php bloginfo('wpurl'); ?> - URL for WordPress installation
• <?php bloginfo('version'); ?> - Version of the WordPress installation
• <?php bloginfo('html_type'); ?> - HTML version of the site

BlogInfo Tags

• is_home() - when the user is on the blog home page
• is_front_page() - when the user is on the home page
• is_single() - when the single post displayed
• is_sticky() - check if a post is sticky
• is_page() - when a page is displayed
• is_category() - when a category is displayed
  

Category based menu navigation

<ul id="menu">
<li <?php if(is_home()) { ?> class="current-cat"< ?php } ?>>
<a href="<?php bloginfo('home'); ?>">Home</a></li>
< ?php wp_list_categories('title_li=&orderby=id'); ?>
</ul>

Pages based menu navigation

<ul id="menu">
<li <?php if(is_home()) { ?> class="current_page_item"< ?php } ?>>
<a href="<?php bloginfo('home'); ?>">home</a></li>
< ?php wp_list_pages('sort_column=menu_order&depth=1&title_li='); ?>
</ul>

Love Factory is dating and matching Joomla Extension, with fully editable member pages and configurable fields which can be setted by the administrator. Native Joomla 1.5.x MVC code; no legacy plugin needed. 100% open source allowing you to perform special tweaks for a better site integrations and according to personalized needs. Multilanguage support is also offered for the Love Factory Joomla Extension through the language files and Joomfish Integration.

The Main Features of the component are:

• Member Pages with fully configurable fields!
• Photo Gallery (users can specify the images order)
• Comment System (page owner can delete any comment on his page or report them to the admin)
• Messaging System (users can create, send and receive personal messages)
• Interaction System (sending kisses between user)
• Rating System
• Friends List (including pending requests; user can set the page status visible only for friends)
• Ignore List (to avoid spamming or any unwanted contact)
• Advanced Search (to find friends or matches after certain criteria like gender, age, etc., criteria which are fully configurable by the administrator from the existing page fields.
• Membership Plans with integrated Payment Gateways: Paypal and Moneybookers (support for one till four membership-level, so that users can upgrade their account in order to receive a higher number of allowed photo and friends. For each level, differentiated prices can be set, depending on the time period. The membership plans feature can be enable or disabled by the administrator.)
• Smarty-based Templating System (can be enabled or disabled by the administrator.)
  

The Administrator of the system has the following features enabled:

• Dashboard. The dashboard displays different statistics, user count and levels, latest users, latest payments, latest reports.
• User List. Configurable member level, ban option and user details including Reports & Payments.
• Reports List. Administrator can see reports, act (ban, send warning, delete) and set their status.
• Payments. List of existing payments where the administrator can edit the status in case they require manual approval (for payments with IPN, but as pending, processing, etc.)
• Page Fields. The administrator can create custom fields, define there type (text area, dropdown, checkbox, radiobox, etc.), set them as required and specify the parameters. Another very important feature is that the administrator can set what custom fields are visible on certain pages. Also to easy the work, a drag&drop method is available here.
• Pricing. Membership levels (up to four) can be created, where different prices on each level can be set, for certain time periods.

Various settings for the Love Factory extension are also available on the component backend under the Settings Page.

• General settings (enable/disable user comments, user messages, user rating, user email notifies, number of search results shown per page, allow guests to view user pages, send membership notification, terms and conditions acceptance and Smarty templates usage)
  
• Photo settings (set images size for photo maximum width and height, thumbnail maximum width and height)
  
• Membership settings (enable each level, set title, set maximum allowed number of photos and friends)
• Payment Gateways (set current currency, enable/disable each existing payment gateway, Paypal and Moneybookers e-mail address configuration)
  
• Notifications (edit email content of warning messages and notifications)
• Terms&Conditions (edit)

The component comes also with the followings Modules:

• Latest Member
  
• Random Member

Demo: The demo-server for Love Factory is available under http://lovefactory.thefactory.ro - to login for the frontend or backend, just click the login buttons available on the page. Feel free to test as you please; the server resets itself each hour.

With the last released versions, the Reverse Auction Factory solution is consolidating one of its main goals, serving as a freelancing platform. Among other new features, the new version comes with a special new template, which can be also seen on the new updated demoserver available under http://reverse-auctions.thefactory.ro/

Other noticable features are:

• New feature: Gallery Plugin, Gallery settings in backend.
• New feature: New Gallery Mootool.
• New feature: Differentiated Comissions for Powersellers, verified users and regular users.
• Improved quicker and lighter coding; rbidsVersionCheck replaced with JOOMLA_RV_VERSION.
• Improved SEF.
• Fixed several issues including Short Open tags, watch category, tags filter with spaces search when trimmed and display results (twice), search after country and city without CB, quickButton (in J!1.0) finding JOOMLA_RV_VERSION, including file Router.php, CB date format my auctions & my watchlist, installer CB plugin Google map, etc.

Also for the payments towards the site, Multiple Payment Gateways with integrated payment methods like Paypal and Moneybookers are now availble, with the possibility through API documentation for each webmaster to implement new one.

Toghether with the new features, the Reverse Auction Factory Solution stands for a professional e-commerce platform, providing the possibilty for its users to obtain a good price or a good deal and also last but not least o good income for the webmaster, through the available commissioning systems.

Why use Reverse Auctions? Reverse auctions do assure the lowest price for buyers, discouraging imprudent bidding practices (closed auctions conducted by invitation only) and allowing the fairest live and consistent auctioning system through the Open Bidding System. The two round bidding ensures that the winning bidder is qualified and prescreened complying with federal and certain state procurement laws.

Buyers Benefits?

• Save Money On Every Single Purchase
• Save Time without Comparing Store Prices
• Posting an Order for wanted item is free: No Bids, No Fees. Risk Free!
• Quick Turnover, Get IMMEDIATE Results. Just start asking for what you want to buy.
• Reverse auctions eliminate the possibility of corruption (in procurement), etc.