Joomla Auto Dealer Inventory Website? - joomla

Hi are there any good Joomla extensions or pre made website to use as an inventory auto dealer site?

RD Autos is a pretty decent extension, but it is developed by a European so it has a Euro bent to it, which means some of the fields they use are not used by American and there are some fields missing that are widely used by Americans. We use it on a couple of sites but it's been heavily modified to fit American dealer needs.
http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/vertical-markets/vehicles/5458
K2 would also be a really good choice. You can define what ever extra fields you need to use then make a car detail subtemplate to display any way you want.

Try looking in the Joomla extensions library - here

You could use something like K2 http://getk2.org/ or Flexicontent http://www.flexicontent.org/ to create a catalogue if that's what you mean?

Related

Generate EDGAR FTP File Path List

I'm brand new to programming (though I'm willing to learn), so apologies in advance for my very basic question.
The [SEC makes available all of their filings via FTP][1], and eventually, I would like to download a subset of these files in bulk. However, before creating such a script, I need to generate a list for the location of these files, which follow this format:
/edgar/data/51143/000005114313000007/0000051143-13-000007-index.htm
51143 = the company ID, and I already accessed the list of company IDs I need via FTP
000005114313000007/0000051143-13-000007 = the report ID, aka "accession number"
I'm struggling with how to figure this out as the documentation is fairly light. If I already have the 000005114313000007/0000051143-13-000007 (what the SEC calls the "accession number") then it's pretty straightforward. But I'm looking for ~45k entries and would obviously need to generate these automatically for a given CIK ID (which I already have).
Is there an automated way to achieve this?
Welcome to SO.
I'm currently scraping the same site, so I'll explain what I've done so far. What I am assuming is that you'll have the CIK numbers of the companies you're looking to scrape. If you search the company's CIK, you'll get a list of all of the files that are available for the company in question. Let's use Apple as an example (since they have a TON of files):
Link to Apple's Filings
From here you can set a search filter. The document you linked was a 10-Q, so let's use that. If you filter 10-Q, you'll have a list of all of the 10-Q documents. You'll notice that the URL changes slightly, to accommodate for the filter.
You can use Python and its web scraping libraries to take that URL and scrape all of the URLs of the documents in the table on that page. For each of these links you can scrape whatever links or information you want off the page. I personally use BeautifulSoup4, but lxml is another choice for web scraping, should you choose Python as your programming language. I would recommend using Python, as it's fairly easy to learn the basics and some intermediate programming constructs.
Past that, the project is yours. Good luck, I've posted some links below to get you started. I'm only allowed to post two links since I'm new to the site, so I'll give you the beautiful soup link:
Beautiful Soup Home Page
If you choose to use Python and are new to the language, check out the codecademy python course, and don't forget to check out lxml, as some people prefer it over BeautifulSoup (some people also use both in conjunction, so it's all a matter of personal preference).

Which CodeIgniter Template Library fits requirements?

I would like to use tags like {{headline}} in the CodeIgniter views instead of PHP and I'm looking for a template parser. CodeIgniter has a built-in template parser: http://www.ellislab.com/codeigniter/user-guide/libraries/parser.html
The question is if it's better to use the built-in parser or another parser? Are there any limitations with the CI template parser like not supporting loops, if statements, etc.?
If so, there are a number of other parsers but it seems that a developer works on them for some time and then it falls into a numb state when it's not supported any more. I'm looking for a parser which will also be supported in a year:
Bucket
http://backstack.ca/projects/bucket/
Comper Template Parser
http://parser.comper.sk/en/
Ocular-Template-Library
http://github.com/lonnieezell/Ocular-Template-Library
Phil Sturgeon Template library
http://philsturgeon.co.uk/code/codeigniter-template
PyroCMS Lex Parser
http://github.com/pyrocms/lex
Template Library for CodeIgniter
http://www.williamsconcepts.com/ci/codeigniter/libraries/template/
The most active seem to be Comper and Lex Parser. What is the difference between Phil Sturgeon Template library and PyroCMS Lex Parser because it's the same developer?
What I am looking for is:
- Separation of PHP and HTML/CSS in views
- Solidly supported so that it's not stalled within a year
- Use of simple tags but also loops, if statements and other functions
Can anyone give me a tip? The existing information on the CI forum or elsewhere have not been really useful.
Many thanks!
Philip
How to Choose a Template Engine
I went through a similar exercise for choosing a PHP/CMS system, and here are some points that may carry over to your decision making process.
I first look at the documentation to get a sense of how much support there is for the system, evaluate range of features and so on. I also see if there is an online forum with enough activity to get some help if needed.
I then try out the installation to see if it goes smoothly. If I have trouble at this stage, I may simply quit and try another system unless there is an online forum or help desk with a ready answer.
I then set up a sample website (2-3 pages) and try out the features that I need. In the case of CodeIgniter, I may have content stored in multiple database tables and I evaluate how much effort it takes to get the data from my SQL queries into the array structure that can be used by the template system. This is usually the step that takes the most effort when developing the website.
I also check to see how easy I could integrate a PHP function into the mix. For example, I once had to build a specialized function to determine a range of dates and these dates had to be passed to the template engine. I was able to do it but it took a lot of effort. The template system had almost no support for parsing dates and I had to resort to a PHP function to do the work.
Summary
Ultimately, you will need to try a few of these systems out to get a feel for them. Once that is done, pick one that makes sense for your coding style, ease of use, and your data structure.
PS
I have not used the systems that you listed above but I have spent quite a bit of time using the template engine in Expression Engine (CMS from the same group that created CodeIgniter). My comments are based on my experience implementing database driven websites using Expression Engine and dealing with the limitations and quirks of that particular platform.

Internationalizing Title/Meta Tags ok or bad practice?

Is there a problem if I have both English and Chinese versions of the same title/meta tags under the same exact url? I detect the language the user has set for the browser (through the http header "accept-language" field) and change the titles/meta tags based on the language set. I get a large percentage of my traffic from China and felt this was a better-localized user experience for those users BUT I have no idea how Google would view this. My gut feeling tells me that this is not good for SEO.
Baidu.com, a major Chinese search engine, does in fact pick up my translated tags however for other US based sites it does not translate their English title/meta tags into Chinese. I would think Chinese users are less likely to click on those.
Creating sub domains and or separate domains for other countries is not an option at this point. That being said should I only have one language (English) for my title/meta tags to avoid any search engine issues?
Thanks for any advice / wisdom you can offer. Really hoping to get clarity on best practices.
Thanks all!
Yes, it probably is a problem. Search engines see mixed language content. You are not describing how you “detect and change the titles/meta tags based on the users browser language”, but you are probably doing it client-side and using “browser language”, which is wrong whatever it means in detail (it does not specify the user’s preferred language).
To get a more targeted answer, ask a more real question, with a URL.
If you want to get search traffic from search engines in both English and Chinese, you should have two urls instead of one.
When googlebot crawls a page, it does not even send the "Accept-Language" header. You have to send it your default language. When there is one url, there is no way for you to have your second language indexed. You won't be ranked in search engines in multiple languages.
For best SEO, use separate top level domains, subdomains, or folders for different languages.
http://example.de/
http://example.es/
http://example.com/
http://de.example.com/
http://es.example.com/
http://www.example.com/
http://example.com/de/
http://example.com/es/
http://example.com/en/
I think there are no problem when you use English and Chinese in same meta tags.

How to use <say-as> tag in vxml to Voice out Names?

I m trying to develop a vxml app to play a welcome prompt with names.
for example "Hello Mr Karthikeyan.. welcome to stackoverflow helpline..."
I want system to voice out the name without spoiling the User Experience..
is there any the possible values for interpret-as/format attribute of < say-as > tag in Nuance Platform? something like ?
There are no say-as or interpret-as attributes that will help with proper names. To fine tune the Text-To-Speech (TTS) engine for proper names you will need to update the TTS dictionary with the names that will be voiced back and the proper pronunciation. Nuance sells some packages that can update their TTS dictionary with a large list of common names.

What simple syntax can be used for rich text?

I want in an application with a simple text input, enriched with some marks to include formatting or semantic labeling. I want the syntax as easy as possible and I want to include self-defined labels.
Example:
[bold]Stackoverflow[/bold] is a [tag]good[/tag] resource for programmers.
Tables would be needed too.
HTML/XML and LaTeX are mighty enough to allow this, but too complicated. Wiki-Syntax seems simple, but uses another symbol for each markup, has unclear quoting and every Wiki seems to have another syntax. For tables and similar stuff Wiki becomes very complicated.
Exists a language/syntax, that matches my needs or can be slightly changed to do so? Or do I have to invent something myself? In that case, do you have suggestions?
Definitely do NOT invent your own. There are plenty of simple markup languages already, and users HATE learning new ones. Trust me on this!
I would suggest using one of the following:
Textile
Markdown
BBCode
Make your decision based on your userbase, as well as what tools and parsers are available in your chosen language. For my site, we went with Textile, but I've found that BBCode tends to be the language that most people already know. However, this will vary with different user demographics.
StackOverflow, along with several other sites, uses Markdown. I think it will give you the best balance between features and simplicity.
Let me add ReStructuredText to the list.
An additional benefit of using it is given by the availability of ReStructuredText to Anything service that makes extremely easy to create HTML or PDF versions of the document.
As already pointed out there are a lot of lightweight markup languages (many are listed here: wikipedia article), there should be no need of creating your own.

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