We are so excited to finally share our plans with you and what we have been working on for the past few months and what you are going to get and be able to do with Easy Property Listings 3.0 on your WordPress website.

It’s a release we are very proud of in terms of functionality and of what it can do for your real estate listing website. With the new release comes two new significant components to Easy Property Listings 3.0 which are, Reports and Contacts.

On top of these awesome new features are further enhancements to code performance, hundreds of additional filters, improved existing features, the introduction of new API’s to the code base.

This release will be available for download very soon so you can take advantage of what is new for your website or the WordPress website you are building for your customers.

Reports

Reports allow to to quickly create a snapshot KPI report of how your listing business is going over any point of time. You can visually see your listing, sales and rental performance and quickly spot trends where you can make improvements to boost your business. A critical key to long term success.

Contacts

With Contacts we you to be able to either use the Contact system to its full capabilities as a CRM to manage your leads and contacts or connect it with your existing Contact Management System and email marketing systems. We’ve built it to be intuitive, easy to use and its awesome.

You will be able to keep track of listing enquiries, link owners and tenants to listings and better integrate your lead generation in your website.

You’ll be able to track your buyers and tenants easily and build a timeline of events to keep you focused on contacting the most important leads in your system. Contacts will help you grow your website, generate more leads and more sales.

Integrations

The new Contacts system in Easy Property Listings 3.0 allows the creation of third party integration extensions allowing you to plug your website into the other software that you use for email marketing, full CRM and many other possibilities.

Extensions

We are enhancing the existing extensions to take advantage of the Contacts system and they will be released once 3.0 is out.

During the development of EPL 3.0 we have also been working on many free and premium extensions for you to use on your site to further enhance your website. Many are additional listing types which will allow you to use Easy Property Listings for more than just real estate websites, or allow your real estate website to offer more than just property.

We’ve also created a bunch more to further enhance what you can do with your site and we are really excited to release them to you. They will be included in the Developer Bundle and released individually so you can pick and chose what you need.

Grab the Developer Bundle now to help us help you with your real estate listing website.

Let us know what you think!

We’ve done our best to get this release finished and into your hands as quickly as possible and can’t wait to push the official version out to you. Please let us know what you think in the comments, we’d love to hear your feedback!

Easy Property Listings v3.0 Beta 4 is now available via the downloads page.

This is a major feature release that introduces new features and enhancements to Easy Property Listings, the Easy Property Listings API and the Easy Property Listings Add-On Framework.

This release has been a huge undertaking by the team here at Easy Property Listings and we are really excited that we are on the edge of releasing the new version to the WordPress and real estate communities. The plugin has grown by 30% with new code and we have ensured that everything is optimised and even with the new features we have improved the plugin performance through code optimisations.

This release also sets the stage for future add-ons currently in development that will be released in the near future.

Continue reading for a quick rundown of the new features and enhancements and we’d love for you to help us beta test the next feature release of Easy Property Listings!

Beta 4

Beta 4 includes internal documentation adjustments and is release ready

Contact and Lead Management System

Contact management and lead CRM has been added to the Easy Property Listings plugin and we are very excited to finally release this to you to use on your real estate websites.

Lead generation in real estate is a must online and we have created an easy to use CRM that allows you to track and communicate with your prospects as they make enquiries on your listings. If you already are using a CRM in your business then the contact system will allow us to create add-ons which will be able to pass the lead information directly into your real estate CRM provided yours has an API. This will help you streamline your daily lead generation and prospecting activities with your website.

The contact system has been designed to be easy to use and allow you to track and capture contact information on your listings.

Back when I was selling property I would frequently meet the same people at different properties that I had listed for sale and now you will be able to create a story around your potential buyer or seller shopping for an agent.

Simple and easy to use Contact Management System CRM

If you don’t have a Contact Management System or you use your iPhone/Outlook/Excel as your CRM this has been built for you.

Imagine you are at your open for inspection and have your iPad on you, all you need to do is visit the listing on your website while logged in and you will have a “agent only” form where you can add your contacts into your database.

This is especially effective when you are using an email marketing system like MailChimp or our Listing Alerts extension because you can automate your email prospecting and build a lead generation systems to feed your prospecting system and real estate listing business.

Contact Tags

We’ve created a neat tag system with the contact system so you can create tags so you can immediately see who you should be in touch with. Tag them hot, cold, warm, potential seller, add some colour and at a glance you will implement the 80/20 rule in your business and improve your success.

Already have a full featured CRM?

With the contact system you will be able to take advantage of great CRM’s like LockedOn, REX, MyDesktop, MailChimp and many others that have API’s that allow us to pass contact data directly from your website to your CRM. We are really excited with the possibilities of what the contact system can do for Real Estate websites running WordPress and Easy Property Listings. We are working on add-ons for several CRM’s and they will be released soon after the release of Easy Property Listings v3.0

Contact System Beta

The Contact system in Easy Property Listings 3.0 Beta 1 has some additional fine tuning required prior to release but its at a point where you can test it out while we make additional adjustments prior to full release.

Link Contact to Listing

The contact system allows you to link your listings with your seller or landlords so you can quickly get to your listings owners and keep them updated with the progress of their listing.

Reports

This release introduces a reports feature for you to track your listings, sales and rentals so you can visually see how your business is going at a glance.

Graphs are cool and they really can give you a quick picture of how you are going with your real estate business so you can see trends in your business to better prepare your prospecting. Real Estate can be a very seasonal business and when you can see the last 5 years of your listings on a graph you can plan ahead.

If you are running a business and have several sales and property manager staff you will be able to see how your business is going and track the KPI’s of your people.

We have additional enhancements planned for the reports moving forward so you can track commissions so you can see your sales and rental revenue.

Other Upgrades

Along with the new Contacts and Reports features we have been optimising code, adding many new filters and functions to the code base to make your site faster and allow developers to create any type of real estate website that they can imagine.

We’ve fixed some issues and improved the listing edit pages to slim them down a bit… I could all do with a bit of slimming down too

Many more changes have been made which are noted in the Change Log below.

Easy Property Listings Code Docs reference for developers

We’ve created a Docs site to document functions, classes and the code in Easy Property Listings that provides a better understanding of the functions and what they do so you can create your own add-ons or make changes to the websites you are building using Easy Property Listing.

How you can help test the beta

We need your help to test the new version of Easy Property Listings and if you can lend a hand it will help us release the plugin sooner and ensure that when you update your site will be better than ever.

We are continually testing the plugin and are extremely confident that when upgrading an existing site you will have no issues but the perfectionist in me wants to be extra sure.

Testing Procedure: Clone existing site

If you have a real estate website running Easy Property Listings the easiest way to test is to create a clone of the website on a development server. Download the latest beta and manually upload the beta to the plugins folder.

Next rename the folder of the current version /easy-property-listings to /easy-property-listings-2.3.1 and rename the beta version from /easy-property-listings-beta-1 to /easy-property-listings

Using these steps will be just like performing a plugin update. Next visit Dashboard > Plugins and you should see that Easy Property Listings v2.97 is the active version. Check over the site, test imports and compare to your live version.

Testing Procedure: Fresh Install

Create a testing site or use an existing site of yours to use. Download the latest beta and manually upload and activate the plugin from Dashboard > Plugins > Add New. Test out the new features and add some listings manually and/or importing.

How to Report Issues

If you encounter any bugs during your testing with widgets, shortcodes, operation please post the issue on the GitHub Issues tracker and please add the beta version in the issue title. Before posting check that your issue has not already been posted by another user.

Testing Contact System

We are still making some tweaks to the contact system and our primary goal is to make sure that existing features are working before launch.

Full Change Log

• New: Every epl_action present in the $_GET or $_POST is called using WordPress do_action function in init.
• Tweak: Radio options when adding listings converted to checkboxes to slim down the admin pages.
• Fix: Ducted Heating additional features now displays in feature list.
• Fix: Fully fenced option now displays in feature list.
• Tweak: Optimise Admin Listing queries.
• Tweak: Removed double display of Under Offer in admin listing list.
• Tweak: Leased rental listings now display the weekly rent amount in admin.
• Tweak: Commercial Lease listing details improved in admin list.
• Tweak: Sold price displays in admin.
• Fix: Date Available fix for year.
• New: epl_get_property_available filter allows customising date format.
• Tweak: External links function improved.
• Tweak: Added additional plugn file security access to prevent file reading outside of WordPress.
• Fix: Number Formatting function PHP warning fixed.
• Fix: is_epl_post function to prevent error when no posts are activated.
• Tweak: Commercial auction listing support.
• New: Contacts and form system for managing listing leads and history of contact.
• New: contact_capture shortcode // Needs Author id of page and URL.
• New: Contact System for Lead Generation and Capture.
• New: Form API supports editor.
• New: Dashboard Widget Listing and Contact Activity Feed.
• New: Date Picker updated JS for improved usage and improved compatibility with themes and plugins.
• Tweak: Code Docblocks created for http://docs.easypropertylistings.com.au code reference.
• New: Link a contact with a listing and display details and quick access to contact.
• New: Error tracking and debug logging helper functions.
• New: Form API supports sections breaks.
• New: Contextual help tab added to Add/Edit Listin page.
• New: Inspection date format now customisable from settings.
• Tweak: Extension license updater updated.
• Tweak Added additional map CSS classes to improve Google Map output with some themes.
• New: Adjustable Map pin when editing a listing and setting coordinates. Drag the map pin to adust the position.
• Tweak: Imported values of 0 no longer display on commercial listings.
• Tweak: epl_render_html_fields allows for css class set in the field array of meta-boxes.
• Tweak: Commercial authority default type is now For Sale instead of Auction.
• Tweak: Converted Radio options to tick boxes to reduce space.
• Tweak: Commercial auction listing support.
• Tweak: Bedrooms allow studio option.
• Tweak: Applied thousands separator to land sizes using settings.
• Tweak: Allow for .00 and .0 when adding listing prices.
• Tweak: Toilet supports decimal.
• Tweak: Additional Features increased to three columns to minimise space with single checkboxes.
• Tweak: Listing price, sale, and rental price now supports decimal values when saving.
• Tweak: Bond supports decimal figures.
• Tweak: Translation strings fixed.
• Tweak: m2 html character added.
• Tweak: Listings with prices set to 0 like bond no longer display in admin.
• Fix: Rental listing when using price text the rental period no longer displays in admin.
• Tweak: Pagination loading globally for use in admin.
• New: Pagination enhanced to enable adjustment of output.
• Fix: Old function in metaboxes removed as it inadvertently caused additional unnecessary queries.
• New: Generate visual reports on your listing KPI status so you can track your listings and sales.
• Tweak: [listing_search] shortcode using new API and allows for custom templates. Place the template in themes/your_theme/easypropertylistings/templates/ folder.
• Tweak: Enhanced Search Object thanks to codewp allows widget template override.
• New: Search Widget and [listing_search] shortcode allows for property status option.
• New: Search template now editable using epl_get_template_part.
• New: Search widget and [listing_search] shortcode order option added to allow adjusting of field order.
• New: Second agent field allows for searching users.
• New: Search upgraded to object thanks to codewp.
• New: Search for second listing author on listings.
• New: Search widget and [listing_search] shortcode status search option added.
• New: Search widget and [listing_search] shortcode support any registered post types.
• New: Search widget and [listing_search] shortcode support single drop down selection for price, land, building.
• Fix: Session start less likely to cause issues with certain server configurations.
• Fix: listing_open shortcode no longer displays sold or leased listings.
• New: Additional customisation of shortcode-listing.php template part.
• Tweak: Listing Shortcode adjusted for better processing of options
• New: [listing_auction] shortcode
• New: Contact shortcode. [epl_contact_form]
• New: Contact Form Widget.
• New: Sort by location A-Z added to front end listing filter.
• Tweak: iThemes Builder archive-listing.php and single-listing.php templates updated to improve render_content theme function.
• New: Allow extensions to use core templates for output.
• Fix: Added translation string for P.A. label
• Fix: Translation of land size unit.
• Tweak: LinkedIn will use full URL or fallback.
• New: Default embedded video width adjustable from settings.
• New: Video links now support additional formats like Vimeo using the WordPress wp_oembed.
• New: Listing widget now loadable using epl_get_template_part thanks to codewp.
• Tweak: Widget descriptions added to widget management.
• Fix: Stray ul tag with search widget tabbing.
• Tweak: Improved get_additional_features_html function for additional features and added epl_get_additional_features_html filter
• New: Contact tags taxonomy added for creating your own contact tags.
• Tweak: Listing heading function enhanced for other post types.
• New: epl_get_property_feature_taxonomy filter allowing adjustment of listing features.
• New: epl_get_property_auction filter allows adjustment of auction date format.
• New: epl_get_property_auction_label filter to adjust the Auction label.
• New: epl_get_property_price_display Filter
• New: epl_get_property_price_sold_display Filter
• New: epl_get_property_price_sold_date Filter
• New: epl_get_property_rent Filter
• New: epl_get_property_bond Filter
• New: epl_get_property_land_category Filter
• New: epl_commercial_auction_label Filter
• New: epl_get_price_plain_value Filter
• New: epl_get_price Filter
• New: epl_get_price_sticker Filter
• New: epl_get_price_in_list Filter
• New: epl_get_property_commercial_category Filter
• New: epl_get_property_year_built_label Filter
• New: epl_get_property_year_built Filter
• New: epl_get_property_bath_label Filter
• New: epl_get_property_bathrooms_label Filter
• New: epl_get_property_bath Filter
• New: epl_get_property_bed_label Filter
• New: epl_get_property_bedrooms_label Filter
• New: epl_get_property_bed Filter
• New: epl_get_property_rooms_label Filter
• New: epl_get_property_rooms Filter
• New: epl_get_parking_spaces_label Filter
• New: epl_get_property_parking Filter
• New: epl_get_property_garage_label Filter
• New: epl_get_property_garage Filter
• New: epl_get_property_carport_label Filter
• New: epl_get_property_carport Filter
• New: epl_get_property_air_conditioning_label Filter
• New: epl_get_property_air_conditioning Filter
• New: epl_get_property_pool_label Filter
• New: epl_get_property_pool Filter
• New: epl_get_property_security_system_label Filter
• New: epl_get_property_security_system Filter
• New: epl_get_property_land_area_label Filter
• New: epl_get_property_land_value Filter
• New: epl_get_property_building_area_label Filter
• New: epl_get_property_building_area_value Filter
• New: epl_get_property_new_construction_label Filter
• New: epl_get_property_new_construction Filter
• New: epl_get_property_com_car_spaces_label Filter
• New: Dynamic filter for addiitonal features epl_get_{meta_key}_label
• New: epl_get_additional_features_html Filter
• New: epl_get_additional_rural_features_html Filter
• New: epl_get_additional_commerical_features_html Filter
• New: epl_get_features_from_taxonomy Filter
• New: epl_checkbox_single_check_options Filter
• New: epl_property_sub_title_plus_outgoings_label.
• New: epl_property_sub_title_available_from_label.
• New: epl_get_formatted_property_address filter.
• New: epl_get_property_category filter.
• New: epl_get_property_tax.
• New: epl_property_sub_title_property_features filter for Property Features label.
• New: epl_property_sub_title_plus_outgoings filter for Plus Outgoings label.
• New: epl_property_sub_title_commercial_features filter for Commercial Features label.
• New: epl_property_sub_title_rural_features filter for Rural Features label.
• New: epl_switch_views_sorting_title_sort filter for Sort label.
• New: epl_switch_views_sorting_title_list filter for List label.
• New: epl_switch_views_sorting_title_grid filter for Grid label.
• New: epl_pagination_before_page_numbers filter.
• New: epl_pagination_after_page_numbers filter.
• New: epl_pagination_single_content_text Filter
• New: epl_pagination_single_tag Filter.
• New: epl_pagination_single Filter.
• New: epl_pagination_single_dot_tag Filter
• New: epl_pagination_single_dot_content Filter
• New: epl_pagination_single_dot_attributes Filter
• New: epl_pagination_single_dot Filter

Easy Property Listings 3.0 is full of enhancements that you’ll appreciate every day. You will be able to track and manage Contacts with ease. New Reports features make you even more productive and you can instantly see how your real estate listings and sales are going over any period of time. Listings are easier to manage with easily adjustable map location for those listings that need a map tweak. And improvements at the foundation of the plugin enhance website performance, page loads, which make adding listings a cinch. The more you do with 3.0, the more you’ll wonder how you ever did without it.

Version 3.0 of Easy Property Listings has been in development for over 6 months and is finally approaching its final release date. Today we are happy to announce that we have performed extensive testing since releasing Beta 1.

Release Candidate 1 (RC-1) is ready for testing and we need your help as users for that.

This major release has been focused on new features along with refining the plugin listings management screens and internal help plus a lot more.

This release provides the framework that will allow us to realise our vision for Real Estate website development with WordPress.

Testing from Beta 1 to RC-1

So far we have tested everything from WordPress 3.3 to the soon to be released 4.5. We have made the decision that the minimum recommend version is WordPress 3.8 which came out at the end of 2013.

Beta 1, and 2 and added support for the older PHP version 5.3 issues that were discovered by users have been fixed.

Beta’s 3 and 4 added some last minute enhancements to the new Contact Form Widget and shortcode and we managed to add some last minute filters.

Beta 5 was focused on translation support for the new WordPress.org plugin and theme translation initiative that will allow the WordPress community to contribute to translating Easy Property Listings into many more languages for use around the world.

Download Release Candidate 1, test and give us feedback

We are looking for any issues you have with this version, please let us know if you experience any with your site. Either post an issue on GitHub or Open a support ticket. We are confident that this version is ready for use on production sites. Provide details about your WordPress version, active theme and error log with your ticket.

Download RC1

The Real Estate tools I wish were around when my day to day job was listing and selling homes

These are the tools that I wished I had when I was listing and selling property on a daily basis here in Perth WA for over 11 years. You can now have a nifty easy to use CRM (Contact Management System) to create lead generation opportunities and excellent Reports that you can use to monitor your success in Real Estate.

Already have a full featured CRM? The new contacts system is very cool as you won’t have to double enter contacts. In fact, your visitors will do if for you and their details can be sent directly into your other CRM or email marketing system directly from your site!

Huge time saver that will help you manage your online leads easier than ever.

I don’t personally sell property anymore, but we work with thousands of agents and WordPress developers all over the world and the feedback, feature requests and support we receive is mind blowing and keeps us on the cutting edge of real estate website development. We are here to help you succeed online with Easy Property Listings.

Primary Plugin Goals

Our targets and goals have remained unchanged as we strive to create a listing platform that is easy to get started with and use yet provides extensibility so those who’s developers love to tweak and personalise any aspect of the plugin can do so without having to edit the plugin which is a critical need in the WordPress plugin world. “what exactly is extensible code?”. The answer is quite simple:

Extensible, or modular code, is code that can be modified, interacted with, added to, or manipulated . . . all without ever modifying the core code base.

Two years of full time development has gone into our advanced plugins so when you activate Easy Property Listings on your website, the value you get is incredible… easily exceeding six figures in development costs and over 140,000 development hours.

It has been built to scale from a single agent site with a few hundred listings up to an advanced listing portal supporting hundreds of thousands of listings.

WordPress Developers can build amazing websites with Easy Property Listings

The major cornerstone features; Contact CRM and Reporting along with hundreds of new filters, hooks and functions allows you to create amazing WordPress websites for your customers.

Most importantly, when you help them increase their real estate leads, make more sales and secure more property managements they will love you for it and our hope is they keep investing in your WordPress development success.

We’ll make the tools for you to continually offer upgrades that will help them. Win win!

The plugin has grown a huge amount since the official release

What started out as an idea and then our first release which was created by me with my very average PHP coding experience allowed me to grow and thankfully found a young, dedicated developer to help evolve the plugins to what they are today. We love what we do!

Here are some crazy facts about the development of Easy Property Listings and a summary of the growth of the 32 versions:

• Easy Property Listings v1.1 Officially released in June 2014 with 12,447 lines of code.
• v2.0 released in January 2015 and grew to 16,184 lines.
• v2.3 grew to 22,264 lines of code and released in October 2015.
• v3.0 has grown to a staggering 30,410 clean, optimised and feature rich lines of PHP code.
• FYI: PHP is the coding language with WordPress websites.

We will be adding extensive documentation of 3.0 to the codex on how to get the most out of the plugins with more video tutorials and posts to the blog, so make sure you subscribe to keep informed.

We have a “yet to tidy up” library of code snippets that adjusts the default behaviour of Easy Property Listings which saves you a heap of time and you can re-use again and again on your other websites. Just copy and paste into a custom plugin like the epl-filters.zip one you can download here.

A lot of time has gone into 3.0 to add function documentation and we released a special docs site with documented functions, and what they do. And as always, Easy Property Listings is hosted on GitHub so you can browse the code in 3.0 RC-1 which has 292, commits, 193 changed files and 10,261 additions…

3.0 is bigger, better and faster than ever!

What’s next…

Shortly following the official release of Easy Property Listings 3.0 on the WordPress.org plugin directory we will be releasing a number of new extensions and upgrading existing extensions to take advantage of the new features.

All new extensions created by the Easy Property Listings team will be included in the Developer Bundle for the next 30 days so for the next 13 months you will get access to every new extension we create at an unbelievable price, but don’t wait till its too late…

We will be making adjustments to pricing and the contents of the bundles in the future, so now is the best time for you to Future proof your WordPress website before we make these necessary adjustments.

Help us help you succeed online, purchase the developer bundle today.

We have invested a considerable amount of time and financial resources into the development of Easy Property Listings and are really excited to be ready to press the go button on v3.0.

You’ll get even more enhancements to your site when you purchase the developer bundle or extensions on the store al-la-cart. We put everything back into the WordPress plugins and with the release of 3.0 each existing extension is getting enhanced as well as the 20+ new extensions you can use.

Your purchase of plugins, priority support and advanced development hours lets us focus on creating new tools for you, so you can focus on listing, property management, selling and WordPress developers can focus on designing beautiful WordPress real estate websites for your customers.

We want you to build awesome real estate websites for yourself or your WordPress customers. Don’t forget to submit your site to the Showcase along with your details. It’s getting an upgrade soon and will showcase your WordPress development business details too.

We are very proud to announce that Easy Property Listings 3.0 is out and ready for you to use on your real estate website. We took great care with this major feature release with extensive beta testing to ensure that updating to the new version would just work. Thankfully it did!

Post release we did encounter a few minor issues that we have corrected and released bug fix updates in version 3.0.1 and 3.0.2. I’m really proud of the team and the community of testers helping make this possible.

Thank you.

It’s a release that adds a whole lot more to an already feature packed WordPress plugin. Our goal is to help you list more listings, make sales and increase your property management portfolio.

To facilitate our focus on lead generation we have added to major features to help you do this.

Contact CRM

Simple intuitive clutter free way to manage your real estate contacts which helps you keep in touch with leads who are most likely to list. Track of listing enquiries, make call notes which will help you maximise your lead generation.

It’s intuitive and easy to use.

• Track and manage contact activity with ease.
• When calling your contacts, quickly add notes for next time.
• Link owners to listings so their details are instantly available to you.
• Contact tags boosts your productivity by making the most important contacts stand out.
• Activities keeps you focused on contacting the most important leads.
• Click a tag to filter your contacts.
• Add a Contact form to your listings to help grow your database.
• Assign multiple listings to contacts.

Reports

Generate reports to track how your listings, managements and sales in your business are going over any point in time, instantly.

Visually see your listing results which will drive you to improve your listings and sales each month. Nothing like a visual graph to light your internal drive for success!

Other Changes

You’ll find significant improvements to listing management screens, map locations and internal help that explain how to add a listing or if you are a WordPress developer, will help your customers and reduce your support requests.

On top of these awesome new features are further enhancements to code performance, hundreds of additional filters and hooks, improved existing features, and introduction of new powerful API’s.

Take advantage of what is new in Easy Property Listings 3.0, download it today.

Expanded Developer Documentation

With the release of 3.0.2 we have been able to generate an API Documentation site that explains all the functions and documents the hundreds of available hooks and filters.

Hooks and filters allow you to extend and modify the default behaviour of EPL using a custom plugin or theme. Using a custom settings plugin like epl-filters allows you to really specialise in the real estate websites in your market wherever you are in the world.

A huge time saver when building real estate websites with WordPress.

3.0.2 Change Log

• Fix: Featured Listing removed redundant no option.

3.0.1 Change Log

• Tweak: Versioning to all CSS and JS.
• New: Arabic translation.
• Tweak: Updated German Translation.
• Tweak: Updated French Translation.
• Tweak: Updated Dutch Translation.
• Fix: Search by Address and Property ID correctly searches the listing Title. In order to search by property ID, add the property ID to the listing title.
• New: Customise the EPL – Contact Form Widget Submit Label.
• Tweak: Added Form styling to contact form.
• Tweak: Corrected additional translation strings with contact form labels.
• Tweak: Corrected spacing in extension plugin updates.
• Tweak: Renamed EPL – Contact Form Subscribe label to Submit.

Full 3.0 Change Log

• Its huge, check out the full list of changes here.

Extension Updates

We have been working on updates to the released extensions and they will be out over the next few days. First to be released are the most popular: Advanced Mapping, Sliders, Brochures, FeedSync, Staff Directory, Listing Alerts and Location Profiles. Once they are released we have several new ones coming out, some are listed below. (The list is not in any particular order)

New Extensions In the Pipeline

We’ve been working on dozens of new extensions that will let you further enhance your real estate website. Now that EPL 3.0 is out, you can expect a whole lot of new extensions for you to get your hands on.

In the pipeline:

• AWeber
• Constant Contact
• MailChimp
• LockedOn
• REX
• Gravity Forms
• MyDesktop
• Currency Converter
• Bookings
• IDX/MLS
• Carousel
• Listing Payments
• Commission Tracking
• Related Listings
• Rent Payment Tracking
• Walk Score
• Custom Listing RSS Filters
• Compare Listings
• Holiday Rentals
• FeedSync for WordPress
• Display Homes
• Buildings
• Offices
• Widgets and Shortcodes Pack
• Layout Engine
• Advanced Search and Map Filters
• FAQ
• Stamp Duty Calculator

Let us know in the comments below which extensions you are most looking forward to.

Many will be included in the Developer Bundle and released individually so you can pick and chose what you need.

Let us know what you think!

We’ve done our best to get this release finished and into your hands as quickly as possible and can’t wait to push the official version out to you. Please let us know what you think in the comments below; we’d love to hear your feedback!

Easy Property Listings registers custom post types based on your settings and extensions. These are registered using the epl_register_post_type function or the register_post_type function.

Issue often caused by how the theme uses the add_theme_support Function

When your theme registers featured image support using the add_theme_support(); function and there are post type names specified it the options array.

add_theme_support( 'post-thumbnails' );
add_theme_support( 'post-thumbnails', array( 'post' ) );          // Posts only
add_theme_support( 'post-thumbnails', array( 'page' ) );          // Pages only
add_theme_support( 'post-thumbnails', array( 'post', 'listing' ) ); // Posts and Listing

WordPress will disable featured images in plugins if the registered custom post type name is not included in the function array.

How to fix your missing featured image

You’ll likely find this function is in the themes functions.php file but may be located elsewhere.

Search the web for: Your_Theme_name featured image custom post types. You may find a solution in a few seconds on where to look for the function.

The solution is to edit the theme with FTP and use a text editor to remove the array of specified post types.

Remove the array of specified post types and change the function to just:

add_theme_support();

Check your changes when editing your regular posts and custom post types to see if the Featured Widget box is displayed.

Let The Theme Developer Know

If the fix works let the theme developer know via a support ticket because they are most likely as passionate about their theme as we are about Easy Property Listings, add-on extensions and providing support.

Be sure to check the changelog of the theme when an update is released that it included this tweak.

If the change is not made and you update your theme, your changes will be lost.

You may be able to use a child theme to modify the add_theme_support function.

Time poor and need help?

Especially if coding is not your thing, we can help. All you do is purchase a support plan and submit the theme or provide your website FTP/WordPress details. We will solve your Easy Property Listing integration befor you know it.

The team at Yoast are the creators of the Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress websites which is a must install if you are serious about SEO on your WordPress website.

You will learn a bunch from reading the Yoast SEO blog jam packed with top tips and strategies that ensures your site ranks highly on Google and other search engines.

Make sure you read the post by the team at Yoast SEO on How to optimise your real estate site and why you should keep your leased and sold listings online… forever.

If you have been in real estate for a few years and have lots of sales or managed properties. Those hundreds of hours that you have spent writing property descriptions over the years will be indexed by search engines and will improve your website rankings.

How to maximise your local SEO one Location Profile at a time

Make sure you install the Location Profiles extension that has been built for local SEO optimisation and integrates with the Yoast SEO plugin for maximum effect.

Location Profiles are what will show your visitors that you know your stuff about the area they live or want to buy in.

How many times have you lost a listing to the “area expert”? Create a cool location profile packed with informative info, and you will automatically become the “area expert” and your competitors will be losing listings to you.

Each location profile you create will automatically be added to your listings in that location creating a very sticky site packed with information that your visitors will love.

NOTE: Make sure you create interesting profiles and add photos.

Boring and bland does not cut it, and please do not copy and paste from Wikipedia… Do it yourself or hire a professional writer on Fiverr or Upwork, use Wikipedia for research and update your profiles as changes happen in your prospecting patch.

Invest regularly into your Location Profiles, start with one and grow them. Your location profiles will separate you from your competitors, make you the area expert and they will become a powerful lead generation tool that drives your business to new heights.

If you have ever made the fatal mistake of not using a child theme with your WordPress website like I have, it can be a very expensive mistake to make and one to avoid at all costs.

Some Theme frameworks or premium themes like iThemes Builder automatically create a child theme for you when activated, but others will need to be manually created, thankfully a few minutes creating one will save you a lot of time down the road.

Why a child theme is so important

Once you invest time and or money into the development of your website, there will come a time where you want to modify the theme beyond what it offers out of the box. Custom post types always need some sort of customisation or perhaps you want to take advantage of the custom page templates and finally adjusting or adding some custom CSS to change the look and feel of your website to match your brand.

Let me tell you, if you do not have a child theme in use and you update your theme all the customisations you have made are completely wiped as during the theme update it is completely replaced with the new version.

I hope you keep regular backups.

This process also takes place when updating WordPress plugins. This is why Easy Property Listings contains hundreds of action hooks and filters that allow you, like a child theme, create a “custom settings child plugin” to modify the default behaviour of EPL.

These customisable hooks and filters allows you to update to the newest version without losing any of your customisations. Plus you can re-use this customised plugin on future real estate websites you have powered by Easy Property Listings.

Child themes allow custom customisation while maintaining automatic updates

• Child themes allow you to modify or add custom template files and css to override the default parent theme.
• WordPress looks for files in the child theme directory before using files in the parent theme allowing endless customisations.
• Most importantly you can keep the parent theme up-to-date with new features, bug fixes and security updates.

How to create a child theme

Before you start, search the internet for: YOUR_THEME_NAME child theme wordpress. Also log into your premium theme sellers site as they may already have a ready to go child theme you can start using from the start.

Creating a child theme is a very easy process as WordPress has been built to automatically support a child > parent theme relationship.

The theme doesn’t need any special code to make a child theme work.

Starting your site with a child theme will allow you to make anything work with your site in the future, enhancements you may not have considered yet.

You may read this and dismiss it as not that big a deal especially with a new site. But trust me, I’ve lost dozens of hours especially when starting out many years ago and this initial error is very costly mistake to make especially on an established site.

When you activate your new child theme any widgets you have places around your website will be moved to the inactive area. Not too much trouble if you are only using a handful, but after you have been tweaking and optimising conversion on your website where you may have hundreds of different widgets like you can with iThemes Builder, you are in for a major headache.

Remember, a real estate website should be designed as a lead generation machine that is constantly evolving, changing and improving each month to convert more leads to new business. This machine should be able to adapt at minimal costs… and trust me; a child theme will allow your site to adapt faster.

Do yourself a huge favour and ALWAYS use a child theme, because if you don’t you will regret it. You will only make this mistake once.

Further reading on how to and why use a child theme with WordPress

• Child Themes – WordPress Codex
• How To Create A Child Theme, And Why You Should Be Using One – Elegant Themes
• Creating Child Themes – Themify
• How to Create a WordPress Child Theme (Video) – WPBeginner

We are pleased to announce the release of FeedSync 2.2 with improved coordinate generation, listing filtering capabilities and improved listing processing. After a battery of tests using over 29,000 REAXML from 20 different providers, FeedSync processes listing files faster than ever.

This application is a robust workhorse that just works and can truly handle any number of files thrown at it. It quickly processed 29,000 files in 76 minutes.

A massive test like this is not even close to real world usage but proves that FeedSync can be used for any size site. Use FeedSync for small sites with hundreds of listings all the way to large real estate portals accepting thousands of listings from multiple providers every hour.

Notable changes to FeedSync 2.2

Latitude and Longitude coordinate generation and re-processing

We’ve improved the location coordinate generation code in FeedSync and corrected the process for certain providers. We’ve also added a way to re-process all the coordinates to correct them in a few minutes. Set the FORCE_GEOCODE option to yes, re-process your listings and set the setting back to no when done.

New Days Back Filter allows you to import listings for the last number of specified days

Adding this function allows you to only import the latest listings into your website. Set the number of days back that you want to import into your website.

Enhanced file checking

We’ve discovered occasional file encoding errors that can happen when copying and pasting from Word. Some hidden characters can cause import issues so we implemented additional checks to allow these files to process.

Some providers have sent through empty XML files and FeedSync will handle these irregularities and keep on processing.

How to install FeedSync 2.2 the REAXML pre-processor on your server

How to update from a previous 2.0+ version

All you need to do is download your new version of FeedSync from your account and save it on your computer.  Unzip the file and replace the feedsync/core folder on your server with the core folder included in the zip file.

To take advantage of the new settings, open up the config.php file and copy over any new settings you want to use, if needed.

How to import REAXML listings from FeedSync into WordPress

Once you have processed your REAXML listing files with FeedSync you can easily import them into WordPress with the Easy Property Listings Importer Add-On for WP-All Import Pro.

We released an update to it that further improved import performance and created a new video showing you the exact steps to install and import your listings.

Pressed for time and just want it done?

If pressed for time and just need your website importing listings take advantage of our FeedSync Installation Service and before you know it your site will be filled with listings, indexed by search engines and ready to go!

All you need to do is purchase the installation service and fill in a form; we take care of the rest.

Full Change Log of FeedSync 2.2

• New: Filter listings using days_back allows you to output listings restricted by the number of days.
• New: Automatic skipping of empty xml files.
• New: Correctly process XML files with incorrect encoding.
• New: Added a FORCE_GEOCODE Constant to the config file, which will enable re-processing of all coordinates if they are incorrect.
• New: Processing Missing Coordinates button will highlight orange when FORCE_GEOCODE is enabled.
• New: Automatic Skipping of incorrect Rockend REST format. Use RealEstate.com.au format when configuring the Web Advertising in Rockend REST.
• New: Improvements to licensing system to better display new available version and change log.
• Tweak: Improvements to date filter and timezone.
• Tweak: Correct coordinate generation of street address corrected for some REAXML formats.
• Tweak: Improved geocode request of full address.
• Tweak: Added additional help and adjusted links to documentation.
• Tweak: Updated help page link to correct http://codex.easypropertylistings.com.au/ pages.
• Tweak: Improved help page documentation.
• Fix: Undefined variable when no files are located in the processed folder.

If you haven’t yet encountered any website issues, you may soon due to inodes limits and/or running out of space usage on your hosting.

We made importing listings into your WordPress website using a process that was good but not as easy as I wanted to make it. What worked for a while has become a ticking time bomb waiting to blow up your site.

Perhaps not that dramatic…

Why it’s critical you implement the import add-on, ASAP

Before we created the import add-on, each time a listing was changed it was re-imported into your website as a new entry along with all the images even if they were not changed. This was okay to a point, but each listing can have up to 25 images.

You see when an image is added to WordPress, your theme and plugins create several versions of that image to optimise speed. This can lead you to having 5-15 files for each imported image.

There are limits you need to be aware of that hosting companies today implement, two that can cause your site to stop working.

• Gigabytes of storage.
• Inodes limits.

It’s easy to increase your storage gigabytes but often they will increase your GB but not your inodes limit.

Inodes Explained

Hosting companies implement inode limits to prevent server abuse and each file on your hosting server can count for at lease one inode toward your limit. And because real estate websites can have a lot of listings and images you can quickly reach your hosting inode limit. Once your limit is reached you will no longer be able to add more files to your website and boom, someone is not going to be very happy.

For example:

• 300 listings x 15 images per listing x 6 image sizes = 270,000 inodes.

To make matters worse, as listings are updated and changed several times during a sales or rental campaign, you can easily reach this limit in a few months resulting.

When you hit your hosting limit it will result in a broken website, missing listings and angry agents.

Not good.

We had to improve the listing import process to support any format, minimise server usage and most of all only update images if they actually change

Around August 2015 we made the decision to create an importer add-on that would maximise import speed, minimise image processing and allow users to import any CSV, XML and Excel format into Easy Property Listings.

Importing data is extremely complex and a huge challenge for us to create because of the actual complexity of real estate formats like the Australian REAXML and the WP All Import Pro plugin needed some changes for this to work.

Our goals were to implement image skipping when unchanged yet be able to still update listing details and maintain the WordPress post ID.

We reached out to Soflyy the team who created WP All Import Pro and asked them to add some code to their plugin to make ours work.

After 8 weeks and several challenged we finally solved the problems and released the advanced importer Add-on for WP All Import Pro for free to the WordPress plugin directory and the WP All Import team gave us some feedback:

I have been following along on GitHub – this add-on is by far the most advanced and comprehensive third party add-on that anyone has made for WP All Import.

Joe Guilmette – Soflyy

Happy days!

How to check if you already have the importer add-on installed

Login to your website and visit your plugins page and look for the Easy Property Listings Import CSV, XML WP All Import Add On plugin.

If its installed and activated you are site is good to go. Just keep listing more properties to sell and lease!

However if you do not have the importer add-on installed you must upgrade to the new importer ASAP. The last thing you want is to hit your space or inode limit when you lease expect it and your website stops working.

This is even more critical if you are a WordPress developer creating websites for customers.

How to upgrade and use the importer add-on

Due to the old process using the listing UniqueID + the modified date, the easiest way to upgrade is to delete all your listings and re-import them from scratch.

Save time, let us upgrade the importer for you

What we can do is take care of the upgrade process for you.

This upgrade can take a few hours depending on how many listings you have and old images that need to be removed and we want to make this as easy as possible for you.

We’ve put together upgrade packages that you can order and we will take care of everything for you. All you need to do is click here and select the Upgrade to Importer for your number of listings and we will upgrade your imports and remove unused images that minimise server usage, increase import speed and make your site performance better than ever.

Easy Property Listings 3.0.3 has been released! This is a maintenance release that fixes some bugs, cleans up the new Dashboard widget for WordPress 4.5.1 and adds some new features.

Normally our point releases do not include new features, but these map features are important. After all, maps and location are an important part of real estate websites.

Let’s take a look at what is new.

Google Maps API Settings

NEW: Disable Adding Google Maps API Key

You can now completely disable the Google Maps API that EPL loads. Your other plugins or themes may already include the Google Maps API key which results in the following warning message:

You have included the Google Maps API multiple times on this page

There has been a documented filter on how to disable the Google Maps API key in the codex, but this is a much simpler way to disable the warning.

NEW: Set a Google Maps API Key

You can now set a Google Maps API key which will clear the NoApiKeys warning message. Get your own Google Maps JavaScript API key here. Once you have a key, add your unique key to the Advanced Settings > Google Maps API Key.

Tell us what you think

Leave a comment below and let us know what you think about the new Contacts, Reports and Google Maps API key settings work for your real estate website.

Full Change Log

• New: Setting to disable Google Maps API if already added by theme or other plugin.
• New: Ability to set a Google Maps API Key.
• Fix: Renamed misspelled Property on linked contact.
• Fix: Trailing ul tag on search widget.
• Fix: Implemented better time zone support for open for inspection. Requires WordPress 3.9.
• Tweak: Tighter spacing on dropdown contact list.
• Tweak: Updated translations file.
• Tweak: Capital c for contact post type.
• Tweak: Dashboard activity widget improved CSS display.
• Tweak: Dashboard activity comments better labeled.
• Tweak: Internal links to documentation corrected.

Thus far EPL has been a huge investment now well over $180 $240k and are expanding the team as planned but have hit several recent and massive roadblocks on the way. We are doing our absolute best to deliver the best real estate software for WordPress for you to use.

This week we are a team member down as Avneet’s mother is facing an operation and to me family is most important. The team here at Easy Property Listings wish her mum all the best facing this challenge and needs the support of her wonderful daughter and this short break will help her be there for her mum.

I’d drop everything to be there for my mum too and value the team like my own family, we will get through the bumps and continue on our planned path.

To make the challenge even more difficult, the woman in my life is also facing a surgery on the 1st of August. After the lazy hospital system decided to let us know last minute the true cost of what we are facing.

We have private health insurance to assist with however the total cost/worst case scenario is bonkers… So Tuesday I will be seeking alternative solutions to find a way to cover this out of the blue costs that we had no time to prepare for.

There is no way we are putting this off as she has been waiting since Feb 2016 with referrals, scans, appointments… the list goes on and on.

Shit happens, bring it on Merv is here and my family is #1, team #2 and you are customers number #3. Long and late nights ahead, but we will get through this and do our best to not disappoint you, however may have to.

Growing the team with a manager dedicated to support and software development

Before these last minute oh poo things, we have been interviewing our next full time team member here and have found the right man for the job. He will be starting with us in the next 4-6 weeks and he will be dedicated to support and making sure that we grow the team before the shit hits the fan… again.

We realised this about 12 days ago and issued a blanket notice to all active support tickets in the system as we want to make sure that you know what is going on.

The last time we pressed the emergency button was 20th November 2015 so growing pains in business are also expected but we want you to know that you, a valued customer are very, very important to us and where we are going.

The notice issued on July 15th was:

Really sorry for not getting to your support request yet.

Recent accelerated growth we have experienced here at Easy Property Listings you have experienced a less that optimal resolution of your support ticket request.

We are now able to add another member to the team who will be dedicated to ensuring that we can keep providing superior support services to resolve your ticket.

So we can efficiently get through the huge number of recent requests and if you have a time critical project and need a solution within the next 7 days please complete this form if you are in a hurry.

Indicate support ticket priority

If you can wait, take no action we anticipate solving your issue in the 7-12 days.

Thanks for your patience during this period

Now if you have a support issue, make sure you still submit your issue as usual as we have worked very hard to clear as many tickets as we could and thankfully are back to a manageable level now. Whew

Help Scout has been an amazing improvement over the old support forum and allowed us to provide better ticket resolutions and service.

Extension update and new exciting partnership

Over the past few months we have not only been working on 3.1 of Easy Property Listings but we have made significant updates to all the extensions and have a dozen more ready for beta testing.

With this new partnership in place we will be able to laser focus our support and upgrade all software at a faster pace. Really excited to have them help us deliver even better products.

Beta testing program in the works so you can help

This has also made me realise that beta testing updates and new extensions takes time and with so many different themes to test with and various plugins you use we feel the time is just about right to ask you for a bit of help.

We aren’t quite ready to execute this as we want to make it easy for you to help, provide feedback and let you get your hands on the coolest tools first.

Make sure you subscribe and get a heads up about this direction.

Big thanks to our friends over at Soflyy the creators of WP All Import Pro

As busy as we are we are 100% sure the Soflyy team are in as deep as we are and am so very proud that they have featured the Easy Property Listings Import Add-on on their site. I had tears of joy when they let me know they published it.

Very happy, over the moon as having quality back-links from awesome websites like WP All Import Pro is like gold.

We so admire the team there as they modified WP All Import Pro to make our Importer Add-On possible to be the fastest importer able to handle massive listing imports with ease.

In closing

We have an extra busy week ahead and am looking forward to facing new challenges and am staying focused on our goals. Not sure which road we are going to take but know exactly where we are going.

Last Thursday I personally faced my own challenge and stepped so far out of my comfort zone I can’t see it and decided to try this vlogging on YouTube. So far its not only been fun but personally rewarding to get the ideas out of my head and my hope is to help others.

I’m still figuring out how to best do this and my most recent video was more focused on a specific topic. With a bit of time and practice I hope to help you in your business, startup, marketing, real estate, WordPress and a wide range of topics beyond the usual screen capture videos i’ve done.

We’ve also landed in our new offices right smack in the middle of the Perth CBD at 191 St Georges Terrace, Perth and am so excited despite the recent setbacks.

Expect setbacks, they are part of life, stay true to your goals as they help keep you focused no matter the crap that life gives you.

We have been through some troubles lately which started a few months ago when my partner Toni went under an operation and as she needed to be looked after brought the beginning of our support and product development delays.

Being the rock that I am tend to keep my emotions internalised in order to giver her the necessary strength and confidence that all would be okay left me deeply effected with her operation and set me mentally back and in the wrong head space.

Broken hand and mentally drained

This ended with me having a broken right hand which made typing impossible, even using a mouse was terribly difficult and frustrating to not be able to support our customers as we have done since launch with Easy Property Listings in 2014.

Troubles escalated with me mentally drained plus support pressures along with a hand in a cast combined with some lengthly projects, the work just kept piling on.

First time attending WordCamp Sydney 2016

Months prior to Toni’s operation we had booked a business trip and much needed holiday to Sydney where we were excited to attend our first ever WordCamp Sydney 2016 which was needed especially with me the business leader in a negative mental state.

We pressed onto Sydney and are grateful to have participated in such a fantastic event and met so many great WordPress people from all over the country are privileged to be part of this fantastic community of supportive people.

Taking part in a once in a lifetime experience with Microsoft Xbox

Thankfully as we were in Sydney and my evening mental exercise is often booting up my Xbox One console ended up being in the right place at the right time to have a once in a lifetime chance to attend #XboxFanFest 2016 with the Microsoft Xbox team.

This greatly helped me bring positiveness into what we are doing with Easy Property Listings and allowed me to remove a lot of the negatives that have been so prominent after a very busy year filled with difficult personal and business challenges.

We were lucky enough to have attended this wonderful Xbox event and met some very big people like Phil Spencer the head of Xbox, Chris Munson the organiser of #XboxFanFest world wide and the man in charge of The Coalition who worked on making sure Gears of War 4 was going to be a continued success.

Feeling refreshed and planning Easy Property Listings future

After exploring the beautiful city of Sydney, meeting our business partners in Parramatta, attending WordCamp Sydney 2016 and shuttled everywhere with Microsoft Xbox my mind was clear and planning the Easy Property Listings future firmly implanted in my head, we returned to Perth.

Moving home is challenging even when prepared

One last mess to sort out before the new beginning was to move our house which we pre packed before we left as we headed to East Perth to be closer to the CBD and offices. Moving is more difficult than planned even with a pre packed house…

Also on our arrival had an appointment with the Plastics Clinic at Royal Perth Hospital for a checkup on my casted hand.

Finally my fingers are free to type and code!

This is the first time I’ve had a major fracture in my body and let me tell you, it’s terrible especially with my dominant right hand in an unused state. Not recommended at all at my age of 38. You live and learn from mistakes and this is one that I will not wish on another to happen.

Now back we have been catching up and re-structuring the team, adding an operations manager in Toni and working to leave the difficult past behind us.

Challenges come from any direction and when least expected

We have stumbled and our customers have been the unfortunate casualty during this time and we are deeply sorry for what has happened. We are now working on correcting this massive mishap and doing what we can to ensure that we don’t get knocked back so hard and leave you without prompt and efficient support.

Life always finds a way to hit us when we least expect it to, and I’m thankful for the difficult experiences as it has taught me how to grow and hope for the best, and always plan for the worst.

Thanks for your continued support and using Easy Property Listings.

We have been hard at work on the next major release of Easy Property Listings and have tackled some major issues and structural CSS changes to ensure that your listings look great on your real estate website.

Major changes like this are great for new sites however can be challenges to existing website prompting fear to update. Don’t worry we always consider backward compatibility to ensure that you can upgrade to the latest release. We did this by adding an additional setting to enable Legacy Styles from Easy Property Listings settings.

Note: When updating from 3.0.4 will enable Legacy Styles by default.

New Grid Styles

When the grid/list option was added in a previous version last year we did so without adding an internal container so that the grid could neatly format at 33.3% to maintain an even effect.

We have now implemented an internal container on the listing element and moved the styling options to this new CSS class. So when you decide to use the new styles you’ll have to update your styling to this new class called epl-property-blog-entry-wrapper.

Put simply you should be able to disable legacy styles and insert the new class on your existing styles. For Example:

.epl-property-blog .epl-property-blog-entry-wrapper {
/* Your custom styles */
}

With the new grid styling we are able to provide a nice even grid which looks great on all screen sizes.

Load Custom CSS from Your Theme

In 3.1 we have also added the ability to load custom stylesheets from your_theme/easypropertylistings/style.css which allows you to quickly style your listings and keep the stylesheets separate from your main theme stylesheets. This allows you to quickly take your custom created templates and use them on other real estate sites.

Improved Javascript and Re-built Search

After a lot of coding we have re-built the search into a class based coding structure which will provide greater flexibility and allow us to make further changes and improve listing searching capabilities.

Many more changes and filters have been added

There has been a lot of other changes which you will find in detail below in the change log and we are looking forward to bringing even more to you in the months ahead.

Moving Forward

Once we have released 3.1 we will be releasing our new and updated extensions which have a lot of new features and enhancements for your real estate website. We have been working around the clock to bring new features out and this major release is the first step to do that.

Full Change Log

• New: Rebuilt templates including additional wrapper for better grid layout.
• New: Added legacy CSS option to prevent using new stylesheets when updating to 3.1 ensuring your listing display remains consistent.
• New: Enhanced grid wrapper CSS to better display listings in a grid format and improved CSS by splitting global style.css with style-structure.css allowing for better compatibility with themes.
• New: Class based front JS scripts for enhanced compatibility.
• New: Implemented cron checking in extension license handler and updated license updater EDD code.
• New: Added filter for epl_get_contacts_args to enable contact form field changes.
• New: Added epl_get_next_contact_link_query filter to adjust contact query.
• New: Added epl_contact_access filter to adjust contact system access by user level.
• New: Contextual help tab on listing pages.
• New: Added epl_author_description_html filter to adjust the author description.
• New: Cron added to handle scheduled events like license checking and updating.
• New: Auction epl_auction_feed_format date format filter added.
• New: Added epl_get_property_com_rent to allow commercial rent price formatting.
• New: Search radio option and checkbox added.
• New: Refactored search into class based code.
• New: Commercial search added (beta) disabled by default.
• New: Conditional post types added for checking on enabled listing types.
• New: Support for DIVI theme framework.
• New: Added epl_meta_commercial_category_value to adjust commercial category.
• New: Parse EPL shortcodes for meta queries.
• New: Widget template no image added.
• New: Sorting order function added.
• New: Pagination option added to all listing shortcodes pagination = ‘on’ default.
• New: [listing_category] shortcode added compare option. category_compare = ‘IN’ usage is based on SQL query options. ‘IN’,’NOT IN’,’BETWEEN’,’NOT BETWEEN’
• New: Wrapper added to templates to improve display and provide even grid spacing.
• New: Added search address to separate from ID search.
• New: No image icon for listing attachments.
• New: Display lease price if nothing selected.
• New: Added epl_get_property_price_lease_display filter to control lease price display.
• New: License checker for updates set to daily and constant added to improve plugin page performance and reduce the update checker frequency.
• New: Load custom stylesheet from active_theme/easypropertylistings/style.css
• New: Added Pet Friendly options.
• New: Search frontend radio option epl_frontend_search_field_radio.
• New: Search frontend multiple checkbox option epl_frontend_search_field_checkbox_multiple.
• New: Search placeholders added to text fields.
• New: Correctly wrap epl_the_excerpt.
• New: Divi theme support.
• New: Select multiple added as custom field ability.
• New: Custom field option checkbox_option.
• New: Pet Friendly option added to rentals.
• New: Open Parking spaces added to listings.
• New: Prefixed additional css in templates for better styling.
• Tweak: License handler using https.
• Tweak: Improvements to contact actions.
• Tweak: License styling improved for better WordPRess UX.
• Tweak: LinkedIn link adjusted for worldwide usage.
• Tweak: get_property_meta improved.
• Tweak: Commercial leased sticker corrected.
• Tweak: property_land_area adjustment for numerical value.
• Tweak: Commercial and land category correctly displaying.
• Tweak: On activation the Property post type is enabled by default.
• Tweak: Improvements to listing widget.
• Tweak: Inspection time and date format improved.
• Tweak: File option added to external links for floorplans.
• Tweak: Template wrappers prefixed for details, property meta, icons, address, content.
• Tweak: Languages moved for better compatibility with translation plugins.
• Tweak: Listing search widget status label.
• Tweak: Reset page sorting when performing a search on a sub page with a widget or shortcode.
• Tweak: Adjusted price and rental search ranges.
• Tweak: Translation fix for rent period.
• Tweak: Numerous changes to CSS to improve listing display and responsiveness.
• Tweak: Settings checkbox options display correctly.
• Tweak: Improvements to author box functions for multi-author.
• Tweak: LinkedIn author link adjusted.
• Fix: Conditional tags when lo listing types are activated.
• Fix: Improved onclick links in external, web links to conform with new JS class.
• Fix: Commercial car spaces displaying incorrectly.
• Fix: Conditional tags improved.

We are pleased to announce the latest update to Advanced Map extension which has several improvements to tab specifications along with integration with Snazzy Maps that allow you to style your maps with ease.

Styling your maps can really enhance your website design branding and its really easy, select the style you want, copy the code from Snazzy Maps and save. All your maps will have the new style applied.

Along with this update to maps we have added integration with the Google Maps API key settings in the core of Easy Property Listings. This means your Google Maps Key will work with Advanced Maps.

Read here How to set your Google Maps Key as the mapping giant requires a key to use their mapping services.

Full Change Log

• New: Custom maps styling with Snazzy Maps. https://snazzymaps.com
• New: Better coordinate generation for listings missing lat/long.
• New: Adjustable map tab labels.
• New: Adjustable zoom levels for each map tab.
• New: Improvements to street view positioning.
• New: Now uses Google Maps API from Easy Property Listings settings.
• Tweak: Improvements to coordinates on some listings.
• Tweak: CSS adjustments to map wrapper container.
• Tweak: Only remove plugin settings if set to uninstall in core settings.
• Fix: Compatibility for JS map loading.

This is a major release of listing templates packed with new templates and improved masonry effects along with many other requested upgrades. With this extension you can create websites with a huge number of variations with a few clicks.

Included in this update is full compatibility with Easy Property Listings 3.1 supporting the new grid format providing better layouts and more flexibility for your real estate listings.

This extension will adapt to your WordPress theme. We’ve also added the ability to easily disable the grid list view option for users who want to provide a consistent experience to their visitors.

We’ve removed redundant code to improve the overall speed of the extension so your site remains fast for your users.

New Template Browser

We’ve added a new template browser to give you a quick look at what your listings will look like, just select the template and view the preview.

Archive Templates

Select from a wide variety of templates for your listings providing a unique experience.

Single Templates

Choose from a variety of single listing templates.

Full Change Log

• New: Major release with compatibility with Easy Property Listings 3.1
• * New: Ability to disable the grid list view great for card style templates.
• * New: Template previews for single and archive templates so you know what your listings will look like.
• * New: Rebuilt template selection system to allow faster creation of additional templates by the EPL team.
• * New: Split the single and archive css files to allow for easier navigation of CSS.
• * New: Reorganised CSS files and grouped classes by templates.
• * New: Enabled masonry usage with shortcodes.
• * New: Automatically disable masonry under 500px browser width for mobile devices.
• * New: Added customisable read more button label present on some templates.
• New: Loop Template: Big Images.
• New: Loop Template: Nifty.
• New: Loop Template: Card Alternate.
• New: Loop Template: Feature.
• New: Loop Template: Flexbox Icons.
• New: Loop Template: Card JP.
• New: Loop Template: Circle Author.
• New: Single Template: Split.
• New: Single Template: Circle Author.
• New: Single Template: Text Two Columns.
• Tweak: Performance improvements with masonry grid.
• Tweak: Improved all CSS classes for each template providing better integration with different WordPress themes.
• Tweak: Added additional container classes to 2 column templates.
• Tweak: Added container classes to loop templates for new grid format in EPL 3.1
• Tweak: Textdomain adjustments for translations.
• Fix: Removed and optimised several functions and scripts.

Since the release of 3.1 we have been working on several improvements and updates and this latest version brings some requested features to you.

Shortcode Offset

We are just about to release another update to Easy Property Listings 3.1.4 adding a much requested offset feature to the listing shortcodes. Currently offset is possible using widgets however a number of users work with themes that do not provide the ability to easily add widgets where they want them.

Using the offset option will allow you to place multiple shortcodes on your pages that can act like widgets where you would stagger the offset for each shortcode.

For example
[listing limit=1 offset=0]
[listing limit=1 offset=1] // Skip one
[listing limit=1 offset=2] // Skip two

Available with the following shortcodes
[listing]
[listing_feature]
[listing_location]
[listing_category]

This should make it really easy for you to place several listings on a page like found with many composer plugins and themes. Go shortcode crazy!

Shortcode pagination

We have updated the shortcode documentation to reflect the new pagination option allowing you to disable pagination on your listing shortcodes. There is a tools_bottom option which was intended for the pagination but as it occurs in the loop it wasn’t possible.

Pagination is on by default

To disable pagination use [listing pagination=off]

View the updated shortcode documentation in the codex.

Extension License updater and notifications

Along with this update we have implemented a much faster license updater system that will notify you of expired licenses so you can keep your sites updated with the latest features and security updates included in your extension purchases.

Full Change Log

• New: Added offset option to the following shortcodes that allows you to place multiple shortcodes on a single page and prevent displaying duplicate listings. Added to the following shortcodes: [listing] , [listing_category], [listing_feature], [listing_location]
• Tweak: Optimisations to secondary author display by removing duplicate code.
• Tweak: Improvements to extension license updater and notifications on license status.
• Tweak: Performance improvements to admin functions.
• Tweak: Translations adjustment to load textdomain after all plugins initialised.

We’ve been hard at work on new features and major extension updates to the Easy Property Listings suite of plugins.

This adventure has been rewarding and taking the challenge to create the best real estate plugin for WordPress websites has been a huge learning experience.

Easy Property Listings is now used on over 5,000 websites world wide and is the highest rated real estate plugin on the WordPress.org plugin directory.

We are really proud to provide such feature rich plugins that are easy to use by developers and real estate staff.

Just visit your account to renew your licenses to get the latest updates.

New Extensions and major updates

There are a number of updates and new extensions in the pipeline and we need some help from our community of supporters.

The best way to help us is to renew your licenses as this provides the financial fuel we need to deliver the best WordPress software for you.

Help us help you make better real estate websites faster with a wide range of features you love.

Listing Templates

Just last week we released a major update to the listing templates extension with more templates, vastly improved extension speed and a major update to the masonry effect.

Brochures

Update pending with new inspection calendar with print option, making it really easy to create an ordered inspection list.

See it in action here.

Advanced Maps

Due to how Google now require an API Key, the Advanced Mapping update is a critical update to ensure your listings maps display correctly. Also Google have now disabled map scrolling on mobile devices by default, giving your mobile users a great experience when scrolling pages.

Also in this update is a great way to style your maps using Snazzy Maps, its so easy, just select your map style, copy and paste the code and bam your maps will look beautiful and unique on your site.

Custom Icons

We are working on a really easy way to replace the default property icons with your own custom icons and others that we include in the extension.

Slider Carousel

Creating a beautiful slider for the home page or main sections of your site should be simple and easy, plus display the listing details to your visitors.

We are making some final adjustments to the new Carousel Slider to do just this.

Many more in the pipeline

To get early beta access purchase the Core Bundle as your crowd funded purchases makes sure we get them out faster.

We use a great WordPress plugin called Easy Digital Downloads and they have just released a great update to the software licensing plugin we use that will allow us to push beta versions of extensions to you!

Help us by renewing your licenses

Each time you purchase an extension or renew your existing purchases this keeps the team here at Easy Property Listings committed to continue working on the core plugin and creating updates to plugins that you are using.

We need your help and support through renewing your purchases, making donations, subscribing to support.

All we do is work on these great products that allow you to deliver fantastic websites for your customers.

Just visit your account to renew your licenses to get the latest updates.

If you ever need any support with Easy Property Listings on your website, we are here to help!

Sliders is one of our essential extensions that truly sets Easy Property Listings apart. It is what makes it possible for so many great real estate websites to quickly and easily display listing galleries that show off the best pictures of your properties.

Today, we’re thrilled to announce the release of version 2.0 of Sliders, an update that makes dramatic improvements throughout the entire plugin.

Settings Reconfiguration

We’ve totally reconfigured the Sliders settings to make it easier for you to adjust the settings you need quickly and easily.

New Effects and Transitions

This release adds an additional 40 slider transitions and effects so you can get the desired result you are looking for.

Improvements across the entire plugin

We’ve added additional enhancements to image cropping and resizing and ordering your images. Along with navigation arrow previews and an image upload button to add new images to your listings even easier.

Example Sliders

Full Change Log

• New: Implemented versioning in CSS and JS files.
• New: 40 additional slider transition effects added.
• New: Ability to disable images from displaying in sliders when editing a listing.
• New: Added image upload button to slider management window on listings.
• New: Ability to set single images for mobile devices with separate image size settings.
• New: Previews for arrow styles.
• New: Better structure to slider settings.
• New: Improvements to image cropping and resize.
• Fix: Adding additional images to a listing correctly works.
• Fix: Prevent slideshow from starting with slideshow disabled and image pop-out enabled.
• Tweak: Improved settings descriptions.
• Tweak: Moved mobile settings to own tab.
• Tweak: Only remove slider settings during deactivation if selected from core.

How to get the update

Version 2.0 of Sliders can be downloaded from your account page or through one-click updates inside of your WordPress install. If you’re new to Sliders, the extension can be purchased from the product page.

We are pleased to announce that we have just released major updates to the Staff Directory, Location Profiles and Testimonial Manager extensions.

Each extension has been updated to integrate with features in Easy Property Listings 3.1 tempting system and new CSS minimising your time to implement the extensions on your website as they are all now using the core template files.

These updates will allow you to use the many popular WordPress theme templates we have pre created.

See the change log for each extension.

Location Profiles Change Log

• New: Extension now uses core EPL template files, minimising setup.
• New: Translation ready. Text domain set to epl-location-profiles
• New: Internal documentation added to all files and functions.
• New: Responsive CSS improvements to admin pages.
• Tweak: Removed redundant location fields.
• Tweak: Translation strings added.
• Tweak: Admin Functions optimised.
• Tweak: Renamed Admin columns.
• Tweak: Deactivating extension will no longer remove settings.
• Tweak: Meta fields now using EPL Core functions.

Staff Directory Change Log

• New: Details column added listing staff member contact details in admin manage staff page.
• New: Search listings by agents using EPL – Listing Search widget.
• New: Extension now uses core EPL template files, minimising setup.
• New: [epl_directory] shortcode enhanced with additional options.
• New: Responsive CSS improvements to admin pages.
• New: Internal documentation added to all files and functions.
• New: Setting a staff member to a section heading adds additional CSS class.
• New: Filters added to adjust labels.
• New: Read more labels adjustable.
• New: Additional column sorting available for order, location, department.
• New: Customise the /directory/ page slug. Change Directory to Staff or agents or anything. Once adjusted, visit Dashboard > Settings > Permalinks.
• New: Translation ready. Text domain set to epl-staff-directory
• New: Responsive formatting of staff pages in admin.
• New: Suburb column will now use custom location label.
• Tweak: Renamed Admin columns.
• Tweak: Admin Functions optimised. * Tweak: Translation strings added.
• Tweak: Deactivating extension will no longer remove settings.

Testimonial Manager Change Log

• New: Extension now uses core EPL template files, minimising setup.
• New: [epl_testimonials] shortcode enhanced with additional options.
• New: Responsive CSS improvements to admin pages.
• New: Translation ready. Text domain set to epl-testimonial-manager.
• New: Customise the /testimonial/ page slug. Change Directory to Reviews, Success Stories or anything. Once adjusted, visit Dashboard > Settings > Permalinks.
• New: Internal documentation added to all files and functions.
• Tweak: Admin Functions optimised.
• Tweak: Translation strings added.
• Tweak: Deactivating extension will no longer remove settings. * Fix: No longer displaying empty titles.

Over the past few months we have been pushing out mini updates to Easy Property Listings adding a lot of under the hood changes and features since releasing 3.1 on November 2016.

These improvements have been from our community of users and we can’t thank you enough for letting us know what needs adjusting to suit your real estate market. With now over 5,000 active WordPress websites using Easy Property Listings to display property and rentals around the world, the feedback has been fantastic and helps us make changes to the plugin and extensions that you are looking for.

A lot of improvements have come from working on Advanced Development projects (our per hour service) that we offer to developers and users to make Easy Property Listings work for you. Perhaps you love design, need something customised, or are strapped for time, we can help.

If you need something done, hop over to the Advanced Development to order custom work or contact us and supply details of what you need so we can help. * Special wholesale rates are available to the WordPress website developers. 

Read on to see the full change log.

Full Change Log since Easy Property Listings 3.1 release

3.1.12 April 27, 2017

• New: Filter epl_property_land_area_unit_label for Land Unit Label Filter.
• New: Filter epl_property_building_area_unit_label for Building Unit Label Filter.
• New: Filter epl_the_property_feature_list_before before the features list.
• New: Filter epl_the_property_feature_list_before_common_features before the common features list.
• New: Filter epl_the_property_feature_list_before_additional_features before the additional features list.
• New: Filter epl_the_property_feature_list_after for after the output of the features list.
• Tweak: Property, Rural, Commercial Category output to secondary heading.
• Tweak: Altered land sqm output to m2.
• Tweak: Shortcode [listing_auction] now only displays auction listings.
• Fix: Property Category now outputs to feature list.
• Fix: Rural Category now outputs to feature list.
• Fix: Commercial Category now outputs to feature list.
• Fix: Empty Commercial Features heading no longer outputs heading if values are empty.
• Fix: Empty Rural Features heading no longer outputs heading if values are empty.

3.1.11 April 6, 2017

• Fix: Property ID search in admin.
• New: Brazilian Portuguese Translation thanks to Dijo.
• New: Added epl_button_target_floorplan filter.

3.1.10 March 27, 2017

• New: Filter added epl_ical_args for iCal output.
• Tweak: Ability to search by property ID when managing listings from the Dashboard.
• Tweak: Added Sortable column Unique ID.

3.1.9 March 23, 2017

• Tweak: Allowed Authors and Contributors to access help screens.

3.1.8 March 22, 2017

• Fix: Corrected Listing not found filters used in archive templates with a new epl_property_search_not_found hook.
• Tweak: Translations updated.

3.1.7 March 22, 2017

• New: Added epl_template_class to templates and added its context for Listing Templates extension.
• New: Auction Date processing function for import scripts.
• New: REAXML convert date/time to adjust for timezone for import scripts.
• Tweak: Wording for delete settings adjusted to reflect radio option.
• Fix: Corrected missing Property Features title and filter.

3.1.6 March 10, 2017

• New: Hierarchical Features Taxonomy EPL_FEATURES_HIERARCHICAL Constant.
• New: Filter for Commercial For Sale and Lease label epl_commercial_for_sale_and_lease_label when both option selected.
• New: Added filters for shortcodes to adjust no results messages. Filters epl_shortcode_results_message_title_open for [listing_open] shortcode and epl_shortcode_results_message_title for all other shortcodes.
• Tweak: Additional case values for importing additional features now accepts YES, yes, Y, y, on, NO, no, N, n, off.
• New: Common features filter epl_property_common_features_list added.
• Tweak: Corrected spelling of meta box group ids for commercial_features and files_n_links.
• Tweak: Author widget will no longer display if hide author box on a listing is ticked.
• Tweak: Filter for epl template class.
• Fix: Commercial listing lease price text display when both option selected.
• Fix: Property Features title filter epl_property_sub_title_property_features enabling title modification.
• Fix: Post type archive called incorrectly in some cases.
• Fix: PHP 7.1 support.
• Fix: Class adjustment for taxonomy search.

3.1.5 January 18, 2017

• New: Added a Google Maps API key notification to Easy Property Listings > Settings when no key is set.
• Tweak: Internal shortcode option documentation.
• Fix: Shortcode offset feature breaking pagination. Note when using offset, pagination is disabled: [listing] , [listing_category], [listing_feature], [listing_location]
• Fix: Corrected the default option when using select fields.

3.1.4 January 16, 2017

• New: Added offset option to the following shortcodes that allows you to place multiple shortcodes on a single page and prevent displaying duplicate listings. Added to the following shortcodes: [listing] , [listing_category], [listing_feature], [listing_location]
• Tweak: Optimisations to secondary author display by removing duplicate code.
• Tweak: Improvements to extension license updater and notifications on license status.
• Tweak: Performance improvements to admin functions.
• Tweak: Translations adjustment to load textdomain after all plugins initialised.

3.1.3 January 3, 2017

• Fix: Contact linking when editing listings with invalid contact ID.
• Fix: Shortcode sorting for Current/Sold.
• Fix: Commercial Lease price display.
• Tweak: Output Ensuite to features list.

3.1.2 December 13, 2016

• Fix: Corrected the address display of the Commercial and Business listing types.
• Fix: Extension updater class to provide automatic updates.
• Tweak: Visiting the plugins page now caches plugin updates.

3.1.1 December 6, 2016

• Fix: [listing] shortcode with author option correctly filters by username.
• Fix: Listing search undefined result when using custom search options.