Blogging Feature With Feedback & Comments
Blogging original content is HUGE for SEO. Currently we have to host our blogs on Wordpress. Why does able not have this feature? Major drawback for this software and it's SEO capabilities.
2/17/16 UPDATE:
I’m marking this as completed so you can have your votes back to use again.
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In Gold R11 (released yesterday), we’ve included controls and some new features that allow you to create “informational” blogs within AbleCommerce. They are using webpages which means the feature fits in nicely with the existing catalog system.
I’ve changed the status of this feature to “Started” because we still need to create a user comment section so these can be more traditional blog pages.
If anyone cares to comment, here are some questions we have.
- Do you want to enable comments on a page-per-page basis?
- Do you want the ability to review (or remove) comments before they are posted to the blog?
- Do you want to require users to be registered, or should it be an option?
This will help us design the next phase of the Blog feature. Thanks for any feedback you have!
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Hello Ryan,
Thanks for your feedback. This is an interesting idea, but I don't know for sure if we could distribute "official" plug-ins. There are a number of behind-the-scene factors that would need to be considered.
- Source code would have to be distributed separately.
- Version control would be complicated because all code changes are merged between the base build and specific version branches as they are created for each release.
- PA-DSS certification must include all code and be build specific. Any new changes increases the build number which would be out-of-sync unless it was included in the base build.It gets complicated with regards to distribution. All full and upgrade release builds are only distributed through secure account access. There is an expectation that these builds include all "official" files. So, the only way to accomodate a plug-in from AbleCommerce would be to make it "unofficial" with a disclaimer that it is not approved for PA-DSS certification.
Regarding Blog Comments, I have been brainstorming something similar to Product Reviews, where the merchant would have an opportunity to require registration and to also edit or delete an undesirable post. I think it would fit in nicely with code that we have already written.
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Ryan A. commented
Hello Katie,
Just throwing this out there, but how about a comments setup that is available as a download (instead of built in so that you can release new updates independently of the main package releases) and offer the following:
- Built in module with basic functionality
- Facebook comments
--- https://developers.facebook.com/products/social-plugins/comments
--- Would include the ability in the settings to specify a comma separated list of moderators https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/comments#moderation-setup-instructions- Disqus
--- https://publishers.disqus.com/
--- Settings could be made on the Disqus site for moderation- Etc as the community requests them.
This may be a way to "beef" up the http://www.ablecommerce.com/AbleCommerce-Plug-ins-C106.aspx section of the site with "Official" extensions that are released by the Able team, but don't bloat the base software.
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Chip Wimbauer commented
With Davids suggestion below, you run the risk of creating duplicate content. It's not an issue if you're exposing help desk content that is in a protected area, but if you're exposing Blog content that could be an issue, or of no benefit.
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David O'Leary commented
Utilizing Angular.js or something similar to pull in dynamic content (not just blogs but news, announcements, ...) from other systems that have a REST API would provide a whole lot of flexibility as you could display content from WordPress and other blog engines as well as knowledge base articles from things like FreshDesk, User Voice, or ZenDesk.
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CharlesA commented
I've seen some Able sites integrate BlogEngine.NET in their sites, but I agree Able needs this feature.
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Mike Randolph commented
I agree we should include some new features that would expand the capabilities of our webpage editing abilities. Latest articles widget and perhaps a category control that more closely resembles a blog.