General CSV 2 POST Questions...

[Ryan Bayne]

This plugin looks like exactly what I want. I just had a quick question about the "Post Content Layout". I have a classified ad site built with a custom wp template. It has a lot of custom fields, and the categories are already created. I need it to be able to post the data items to those custom fields within my existing template. Can it do that?

Thanks.

[Ryan Bayne]

Hey thanks for a comment on a fairly new forum. I'm going to start sending people here because the email inbox is getting busy and I'm repeating myself daily sometimes hourly

In short the answer is yes the plugin will setup your custom fields for you in every post.

CSV 2 POST Free Edition allows it but is slightly restricted. It is however worth trying out to see the interface and get a preview. I've not found a plugin like it yet that avoids you having to mess about too much with your csv file. I just released version 2.0 minutes ago for the free version and 0.5 for paid version which I believe is better than one I found for $100 so any feedback if you buy this is appreciated.

Fingers crossed there is no bugs I've missed during testing.

The thing about the free version is that it is all manual.

CSV 2 POST Plus the paid edition has "Automated" settings which allow you to both automatically create categories based on a selected column of data AND you can select an automated setting so that it will automatically create custom fields. If you go automatic then every column of data is used in custom fields. The identifier or key is the name of that column so think ahead!

In most cases you will name a column of data by what the data is and your custom fields are the same however custom fields might require something very unique with underlines or whatever. If your data is still to be exported then try to name the columns to match the existing custom field identifiers used by your theme.

Or if you have the choice of setting up custom fields manually and you write in your existing identifiers then assign a column to them. This may suit you if your theme is very complex in using them.

It's possible to go auto and code the theme to look out for two different identifiers for each piece of data but thats really pushing it I think. I'm sure another the other approaches will be more suitable. One issue right now is the custom fields page has only 4 you can setup for unique values per post. If you felt you would like to do it manually but need fields then I'll code more in for you.

All that I just wrote covers Stage 4 of the new campaign process. You mentioned "Post Content Layout" which is totally different area of the plugin and is the file that styles your posts as in the information visitors see rather than the hidden data. I create these on request for free.

More Information
Other info I should put in is that the plugin is more suited to none shared servers with less restrictions e.g. free hosting or reseller hosting. Full processing (the entire csv file) is not allowed on low cost hosting because it is too powerful. Even staggered with the paid version, depending on your settings, can upset low cost hosting. Alternative can be to use it localhost with a local blog and develope there before moving online.

Won't go on about that stuff as you may know already.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

Ryan

[jakesterz]

Thanks a lot for the response. I'll play around with the free version. It sounds like exactly what I need though, so I'm sure I'll be buying.

[Ryan Bayne]

no probs.

If there is not enough custom fields on stage 4 let me know and I'll provide another update with more boxes asap.

Can I ask you a question? Well that's one but people have said to me that they would pay $250 for a plugin that gets mass data into wordpress very easiliy and with complete accuracy. I'm not suggesting my plugin is there yet there is still plenty cool things that can be added to it but I wondered what you would pay?

The price is now £29.99 and will be increasing as I did today with every major upgrade. I'm competing against services that seem to charge around $100 which is close to £60. I would charge no more than £49.99 so thats my target, slowly increase price to that with each major upgrade which happens every couple of weeks right now.

You think £49.99 would put you off or is reasonable? Would you like a plugin that not only puts data into a blog but can take it out and do things with it in order to put it back in different?

Thanks for anytime you spend on this.
Ryan

[jakesterz]

How much is that, like $75? I think that's a good price point. But now I wish I'd gone ahead and bought it the other day at the lower price instead of posting here.

[Ryan Bayne]

lol

Did you try CSV 2 POST Free Edition? If you did you probably would have seen a lot of errors to do with other plugins. I went and left some error reporting in my scripts and had no idea it effected everything else in wordpress so I've just uploaded version 2.1 for that. Thought I best let you know and if you find a bug in that and report the exact error to me then I'll give the paid edition to you at £19.99! I don't know of any but there are so many settings it's possible and it must be with the plugin not caused by type of data. i.e. only comma delimited and properly formated etc.

£29.99 is still not bad however.

I'm just about to work on a member only area so that once it is purchased and downloaded you can come back to download new versions without going through me. So for the current price your investing in all releases and I'm far from finished with this plugin I think it will get upgrades for 6 months. A local host version will be bundled with the plugin so you can import from your pc to online blog, I'm going to make it an export tool for backing up wordpress posts along with all require data like comments, meta, tags etc

Still lots of smaller things to come to so if you like what you see now and the price it's worth getting before I increase the price again in 2-4 weeks so you have plenty time to try the free version out.

[jakesterz]

I downloaded the free version yesterday. Do I need to download a newer one?

I've got a little tweak I need to make on my site (hopefully today), then I'll be trying it out.

[Ryan Bayne]

I released a new version today so you will be able to update the plugin from wordpress dashboard.

Another update will be released sometime tommorow probably for both the free and paid version.

[jakesterz]

Grrrrr....some issues with my site cropped up so it'll be another day before I can test CSV2P. I'll be testing it tomorrow.

[Ryan Bayne]

Aw OK.

What sort of issues anything to do with server by any chance?

CSV 2 POST and it's power to put thing short can trigger issues with some servers and really so can any script or plugin like this depending on your servers settings. Thought I best mention it.

Ryan