Hooks and Filters

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Hooks and Filters

We have included numerous hooks and filters into the plugin which experience wordpress developers will be able to use to modify the behaviour of the plugin.  We are working on publishing the full set of these but in the meantime here are a few useful examples

Setting the default results view to grid

function my_default_view( $example ) {
return ‘grid’;
}
add_filter( ‘wppf_query_wppf_view’, ‘my_default_view’ );

Set the default drop-down values for Min Rent/Max (search forms)

function my_min_rent($rentlist) {
return array(100,150,200,250,300,350,400,450,500,600,700,800);
}
add_filter(‘wppf_filter_minrent’, ‘my_min_rent’);

function my_max_rent($rentlist) {
return array(600,700,800,1000,1500,2000);
}
add_filter(‘wppf_filter_maxrent’, ‘my_max_rent’);

Set the default drop-down values for Min/Max Price (search forms)

function my_min_price($rentlist) {
return array(25000,50000,60000,70000,80000,90000,100000,110000,120000,125000);
}
add_filter(‘wppf_filter_minprice’, ‘my_min_price’);

function my_max_price($rentlist) {
return array(100000,110000,120000,125000,130000,140000,150000,160000,170000,175000,180000,190000,200000);
}
add_filter(‘wppf_filter_maxprice’, ‘my_max_price’);

Templates and Layout Customisation

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TEMPLATES / CUSTOMISATION

This section is intended for developers and theme builders and explains how to customise the WP Property Feed layouts.  There are 12 layout files that sit in the templates directory of the plugin and all of these can be copied into the root directory of your theme to override the plugin defaults.  Simply make a copy of the templates you wish to override in your theme and the plugin will automatically use these instead, this is the only safe way to modify the layout templates.  You can also override the plugin stylesheet by also making a copy in your theme but you will need to dequeue and then enqueue your versions in your theme functions.php as follows;

add_action('wp_enqueue_scripts', 'mytheme_enque', 101);
function mytheme_enque() {
    wp_dequeue_style('wppf_properties');
    wp_enqueue_style('wppf_properties' locate_template('wppf.css'));
}

Archive Template

The plugin stores properties as a custom post type (wppf_property) so the archive naming follows the standard wordpress structure.  We include a standard top level archive file archive-wppf_property.php but you could also create specific taxonomy templates in addition.  The branch, property_area and property_type tags are all defined to allow for additional archive pages to be created within your theme.  This template defines the layout of the results page for the property search and you will note from version that it takes the layout property from the plugin settings to return various different layouts.  You can simply discard these and use your own layout if you wish.  The main thing to note is the inclusion of wppf_layout_results sub-template which displays the property results.

Single Template

Just as we have the standard archive template we also include the standard single one single-wppf_property.php.  This is the template that displays the property details.  In our version this is simply a container for the sub-template wppf_layout_property

wppf_layout_results.php (wppf_layout_results_nomap.php)

Template to display the property results with tabs for grid, list and map (not the nomap version excludes the map tab as this is indended for templates where the map is always present alongside the results).  The template uses standard WordPress loop methodology so provided you are familiar with wordpress coding the code within should be clear.  There is an explanation of the custom post type structure further down.

wppf_layout_map.php

Map layout which is very basic.  This includes a function to create the javascript map pins and a div map container.  Care should be taken to include both and maintain the div id naming.

wppf_layout_slider.php

Template for the full width property slider used by the wppf_slider shortcode

wppf_layout_featured.php

Template for the featured properties shortcode wppf_featured.

wppf_layout_search.php and wppf_layout_quicksearch.php

Templates for the two search shortcodes wppf_search and wppf_quicksearch respectively

wppf_layout_widgetsearch.php

Template for the Property Search widget.

wppf_layout_property.php

Template used in the single page to display the full property details.  See the full details of the Custom Post Type for details on the properties available

wppf_layout_enquiry.php

Template used for the wppf_enquiry shortcode.  This makes use of google reCaptcha and will email contents to the branch in question.  The fields on the form are specifically named to match the Vebra enquiries api so cannot be altered.

Custom Post Type – wppf_property

The plugin pulls all the feed data into a single custom post type.  This works just like any other custom post type with title, description, slug and featured image all available as normal.  In addition to this there are a number of taxonomies and meta data attached that can be used in your templates;

Taxonomies

  • branch – Name is the name of the branch but also includes meta fields phone and email.  We provide a function wppf_get_branch_address to get the branch address
  • property_area – This is will be To Buy, To Rent or Commercial
  • property_type – This links the property to the property type (House, Flat, etc)

Meta-data

  • featured – 1 or 0 – whether the property is featured or not
  • uploaded – date first uploaded
  • updated – date last updated
  • available – date property available
  • address_name
  • address_street
  • address_locality
  • address_town
  • address_postcode
  • address_custom
  • agent_ref
  • price_postfix
  • price_qualifier
  • price_currency (three letter currency code)
  • price_display (1 = yes, 0 = no)
  • price
  • fees
  • furnished (1 or 0)
  • let_type (i.e student, professional etc)
  • longitude
  • latitude
  • web_status (For Sale, SSTC, etc)
  • custom_status
  • premium
  • service_charge
  • rateable_value
  • let_bond
  • newbuild (1 or 0)
  • groundrent
  • propertyarea_sqft
  • propertyarea_sqm
  • landarea_unit
  • landarea
  • bedrooms
  • receptions
  • bathrooms
  • garden (1 or 0)
  • parking (1 or 0)
  • user1 (User specific fields – Alto only)
  • user2 (User specific fields – Alto only)
  • rm_qualifier
  • bullets
  • files (assoc array)
    • sortorder
    • filetype (0- Image, 1 – Map, 2 – Floorplan, 3 – 360, 4 – eHouse, 5 – Ipix, 7 – PDF, 8 – External URL, 9 – EPC, 10 – HIP, 11 – Virtual Tour)
    • name
    • url
  • pargraphs (assoc array)
    • sortorder
    • filesortorder – cross reference to files sortorder
    • name
    • dimensions
    • description

Theme Support

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ALL THEMES

We have designed the plugin to use standard wordpress styles and as such it should work seamlessly with most wordpress themes, so colours and font styles should cascade down through our plugin.   Occasionally themes will use their own bespoke styling system in which case we allow you to override our plugins styles with your own.

In general the plugin is intended to work with general themes that do not already have property features already included as our plugin will provide all the property display and search functionality you require.  However, we are now starting to build connectors that will join our plugin to popular property themes so that your back-office properties will automatically appear in the property theme.

SUPPORTED PROPERTY THEMES

In order to provide the connection between our plugin and a property feed you need to download and install a plugin addon (in the form of another plugin).  You must have the WP Property Feed plugin installed and enabled and also the property theme installed and enabled in order for the connector to work.  Once the connector is installed and activated you can just use all the features of the property theme as normal.  All our connectors are provided free via the wordpress.org plugin repository.

Radius Filter

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To change the default radius ranges in the search filter we have provided a wordpress filter.  You can add the following code snippet to your themes functions.php file to make use of this filter to change the radius  values;

function my_radius_filter( $data ) {
    return array(0.5,1,2,3,5,10);
}
add_filter('wppf_filter_radius', 'my_radius_filter');

Set the default sort order for properties

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If you want to change the default sort order for the property display you can add the following code snippet to your WordPress Theme functions.php file

function my_default_sort( $example ) {
return ‘price-asc’; //can be price-asc, price-desc,latest
}
add_filter( ‘wppf_query_wppf_orderby’,’my_default_sort’);

Changing the WP Property feed property slug

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In some cases you might be using our plugin along side other plugins or themes that already use the slug /property/ for another Custom Post Type.  If that is the case you will see a clash and the display of either our properties of the existing custom post type may become garbled.  To change the default slug for our plugin use the following code snippet and place it in you theme’s functions.php file.

add_filter(‘wppf_filter_slug’,’my_property_slug’);
function my_property_slug($current) {
return ‘wppf_property’;
}

Change ‘wppf_property’ to whatever

Once this has been added to your function.php we recommend that you log into wp-admin and visit Settings > Permalinks and click the update button on this page.  This will refresh the WordPress permalink cache and make sure that the correct templates are then applied.

Elementor Walk Through

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This guide will help you through using the Elementor integration we have setup to get the most out of the Elementor Theme Builder which is part of the Elementor Pro package.

Requires Elementor Pro Version 2.9.4 or greater

Setting up the search listing page

In WP Property Feed all properties are a special Custom Post Type called properties.  To see the property listings you therefore just need to go the the archive page for properties /properties/ on your site (no need to create a page as WordPress already has all this functionality built in).  Now that you are using Elementor Pro you may want to style the layout of this page, here’s how;

Step 1 : Create a new theme template for properties.  In wp-admin select the Templates > Theme Builder menu option

Step 2: In the select the type of template you want choose “Archive” and give the template any name you like

Click the “Create Template” and you will be taken to a library of templates.  Just press the X in the top right to close this library.

Step 3 (optional): Normally we have a search bar at the top of the property listing page and for this we have created an Elementor widget.  If you scoll down the widget section until you find the WP Property feed section then drag the Quick Search widget onto your new archive page.

Once you have this on the page you can play with all the normal Elementor settings and styling options to make it look as you want.  UPDATE: You can now use the Elementor From widget to create your own form just remember to set the “Actions After Submit” to “Property Seearch”.  

Step 4:  Add the Elementor “Archive Posts” widget to your page.

In the layout options for this widget we have created a “Property” skin to use for the display of property details and added specific options for showing the sort-order dropdown,  sub-title display (displays the type of property rooms etc), show price, and badge display (For Sale, SSTC, etc).  Again play with the settings to suit.

Step 5: Publish the template.  When you press the publish button you will be thrown to the Publish Settings dialog where you will press “ADD CONDITION” and select “Include” and “Properties Archive” to make this template apply to the property archive page only.

You will now have an Elementor template setup for your search results.  To see the template in action go to https://{yoursite.com}/property/

Setup a property details template

Next you will need a page to display the property details on a page, so that when you click through a property details you are using Elementor to style the results.

Step 7: Create a property details template

To do this again click on the wp-admin menu Templates > Theme Builder and then “Add Templete”.  This time in the template box choose “Single” and the “Properties” post type and give the template a meaningful name.

Elementor Version 3 Update: The release of version 3 of Elementor has seen the above box modified to no longer include the “Select Post Type” option.  Elementor will only now override pages that use the default page template so we have had to build in an override option in Settings > WP Property Feed > General to allow Elementor to override the base property template THIS OPTION MUST BE TICKED if you are using Version 3 or more.

Again close the library popup that appears so that you are in the Elementor designer.

Step 8: Using dynamic tags.

We have added a load of dynamic tabs to help you access the specific property details you will need to drop onto the template.  As normal you will want to add the title and description as much of the property detail information is in those two settings.  But you will also want to add specific property details which will be either text, media or galleries.

Text Tags: Text tags can be used in many places but the most common will be using the “Text Editor” widget.  If you drag a widget onto the page and look on the content tab you will see the dynamic content tag icon.

Click the cylinder button and from the drop down select “Property Data”.  Once selected you will then see a settings spanner next to Property Data which you can click on to select the specific property data you require.

You can get property data into many of the various Elementor widgets this way.

Link Tags: We have created a number of link tags for items that only appear as links in particular the Brochure PDF can be found here.  Use with button widgets or any other widget that allows linking.

Gallery Tags:  We have also created a number of gallery tags to display the various property images, floorplans and  EPCs.  If you drop a Galley Widget onto the page you will again see the dynamic tag icon with various WP Property Feed options for these.  Try playing with these options

Maps: There is one special case for the Google Maps widget where you will want to add the address but the widget does not have the dynamic tags option.  Fortunately it does allow you to select a “Post Custom Field” where you can enter the Custom Key “address_all” which will pull in the full location text to render the correct location.

UPDATE: We have found that the standard Elementor map widget is not very accurate at locating properties using the address_all option and we now recomment using the “Premium Addons for Elementor” plugin which provides a much better Google Maps widget.  This widget allows you to use the longitude and latitude values we provide in the property data tags which is much more reliable.  Make sure you set both the map center and also the map marker to these longitude / latitude values.

Setp 9: Publish the template.  At the default option will be to Include Properties which will then apply this template to all properties.  At this point you could just “Save & Close” and your template for properties will be ready.  However you may choose to design different templates for different property_areas.  Property Areas (probably not well named, sorry!) are the main search divisions – to-buy, to-rent, commercial and developments.  You may want to show details of rental deposits and let types for rentals but not for sale properties so having 2 different templates will allow you to modify the layout depending on the area.  You could also do the same for Branches if you are a multi-branch agency for instance.

Setting this condition above will limit the template to Rental properties only.

Step 10:  Other widgets

You may also want to add some property widgets to other pages too.  For this there are 3 main widgets.  We have already explored the “Quick Search” widget in the archive template, but this can also be dropped into any Elementor page you wish.  You may also want to “Feature” some properties on some pages in your site.  To do this you can use either the “Posts” or “Portfolio” widgets both of which work in a similar way.  As an example we will take the “Post” widget setup.

Add a “Posts” widget to your page and in the “Layout” section select “Properties” from the “Skin” option.  This will add all the options you came across earlier in the “Archive Posts” widget, but this time you will want to select the specific properties you want to show in this widget.  To do this click on the “Query” section of the widget and select “Properties” in the “Source” setting.   To limit the properties returned to say “For Sale” properties you will click the “Include By” and “Term”, then in the “Term” box below enter “to-buy”.

You will also see an option to “Always show featured first”.  Selecting this option will override the sort order options above it and display properties specifically marked as featured followed by the newest (if we don’t have enough featured properties to fill the grid).  This is useful if you want to use the featured flag to highlight properties.

Other than that just play!

Jupix – Redirecting Match Emails to a Custom Link Structure

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One of the features of Jupix is to have emails sent to clients with links to properties that match their search requirements.  By default the email will link to www.yourdomain.com/more_details.php which or cause will not exist on your WordPress site.  However our “out of the box” templates include code to capture the profileID sent in this link and redirect to the correct property on your site.  The code is placed in the property archive page which is normally the /property/ page (unless you have overridden the default property slug), so asking Jupix to change the email link to www.yourdomain.com/property/ will allow your email links to work.

Elementor Search Form Walkthrough

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You can now use the Elementor Form widget to build search forms for your website, rather than using the property search widget.  Using the Elementor form builder allows much more control over the styling and layout of the search form but there are some important settings to use in order to make it work effectively.

1 Add Form widget to your page

Select the Form widget and drag this onto your page.  You will need to then add the various search options you want to your form.

This image shows the basic settings of the first field in our form which is used to select the broad area of search we want – For Sale or To Rent in this case.  The options are the available options and values (separated by a | character) in this case are the taxonomy slugs.  There are 3 search fields that use taxonomy slugs, which are Branches, Property Areas (this one in this example and Property Types).  To get a list of the available slugs go to the “Properties” in your WordPress admin and click on the appropriate submenu option.  This will show you a list of options and slugs as shown below;

Once you have your field and selections added you will need to click the “Advanced” tab in the field properties in order to add the correct field name and default values

The default values only need to be set if your form is being displayed on the property archive page since you will want the form to reflect the search being performed in this case.  In that case for the default value select the dynamic tags and choose “Site > Request Parameter” from the drop down then in parameter name enter the form field id for this form item.

In all cases you will need to enter an ID for field and these need to be from the list below in order to make the search work.  Below also shows the ideal type of field to use for each value and what selections if any to set.  You may use as many or as few of these field options below and may add any as hidden field too.

ID Type Options
wppf_branch Select use slug value from “Branch” Taxonomy
wppf_search (comma separated list of; to-buy, to-rent, commercial) Select use slug value from “Property Areas” Taxonomy
wppf_location Text User entry, will search address/postcode for text
wppf_featured Checkbox or Select Value should be “yes” to search only featured properties
wppf_min_bedrooms Select or Number
wppf_max_bedrooms Select or Number
wppf_min_price Select or Number
wppf_max_price Select or Number
wppf_min_rent Select or Number
wppf_max_rent Select or Number
wppf_min_area Select or Number
wppf_max_area Select or Number
wppf_property_type Select use slug value from “Property Type” Taxonomy
wppf_status Select Status is a text value from the feed and can be any value so avoid using unless you want a specific search
wppf_user1 Select
wppf_newbuild Checkbox or Select “yes”
wppf_lettype Select Let type varies from feed to feed but generally will include “Student”, “Professional”, etc
wppf_furnished Select or Radio Furnished, Un-Furnished, Part-Furnished, Not Specified
wppf_soldlet Select hide or show – hide will hide an properties that are sold, let, let agreed, sstc – show will show all properties including sold and let
wppf_orderby Select price-asc, price-desc or latest, default is price desc unless search by location then default is nearest
wppf_radius Select or Number distance in miles from the location center for location searches only
wppf_records Select or Number number of records to return per page, -1 will return all records on a single page

Set Actions After Submit

In order to get the form to post to the property archive page with the settings in the field you will need to set the “Actions After Submit” action to “Property Search” as that will the set the correct path for the form.

Jupix and Vebra Property File Shortcodes

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Originally Jupix alone had a Property File option but it now also applies to Vebra API properties.  Property file is an add on product that allows Valuation and Viewing widgets to be added you your site that will directly book these in your backend system checking for availability and giving your customers options on when to book these in.  You will need a subdomain and API key for property file and these are added under the Jupix tab in the WP Property Feed Settings in your WordPress Admin panel.  The default property template will launch the viewing widget when a visitor clicks the Request a Viewing link on the property detail page but you may want to add the widgets elsewhere so we have created two shortcodes to allow you to add them in.

[wppf_propertyfile_valuation class=’btn btn-success’ text=’Value Me’]

[wppf_propertyfile_viewing class=’btn btn-success’ text=’Arrange a Viewing’ propertyid=”]

These shortcodes will output a link which is properly formatted to launch the required widget.  The valuation widget can be placed anywhere on your site as it does not depend on a specific property being viewed but obviously the viewing widget may only be used on the property page.

The shortcodes have two options  – class is used to pass through any addition styling css classes that you want added to the link and the text is the text that will be displayed in the link.  The viewing shortcode also has an additional option to pass through a specific propertyid which can be ommitted if the shortcode is used on a property details page (it is picked up automatically)