With push-button simplicity, the new custom form builder makes it a snap to add custom data to your theme. The form builder allows you to create custom fields that will show up on the Vantage “Create a listing” form. After your customer enters data into the custom fields, it shows up on their listing. Simple as that.

We created a short video tutorial to show you how to get the most out of the new custom form builder for your site. Check it out below.

This video – and a text tutorial to be added later – can also be seen on this page in our documentation section.

By the way, the new form builder is part of our framework. We’ll be migrating it to our other themes sometime in the near future.

Quite a few people have asked us about the checkout process after an end-user creates a listing in Vantage. It’s not possible to see this with the demo, so we thought it would helpful to create a video.

The video below shows the entire process of creating a listing in Vantage including making a payment with PayPal.

Next week, we’ll take a look at the fantastic, new custom form builder for Vantage.

Vantage is a powerful and robust business directory theme for WordPress that’s easy to use and even easier to setup. It’s fast, got lots of horsepower under the hood, and uses our new drag and drop form builder which will help transform your site into an interactive, money-making, community-building machine.

It’s on Sale!

As promised, Vantage will be on sale for 30% during the first week, after which it’ll jump back to its normal price of $99. It’s a little token of appreciation to everyone that has waited patiently (or not so patiently) for Vantage to become available. The sale lasts until next Tuesday, May 8th. Purchase Vantage here and use coupon code: GETVANTAGE

Learn More

• The Vantage overview page outlines all the features and functions, complete with screenshots
• Test drive the theme by visiting the live Vantage demo and admin demo

Vantage Home Page

Vantage Single Listing

Vantage Create Listing

Vantage Dashboard

The Nitty Gritty

Business Listings
Once setup, Vantage makes it a breeze to add or sell business listings. Each listing contains contact info, website, social links, pictures, overview text, locator map and more. You can charge for listings and upsell featured listings prominently displayed on the home page and category pages.

Business Reviews
Since interactivity keeps visitors coming back to your site, Vantage includes a review and ratings system. Users can rate a business on a five-star scale and leave a detailed, text review about their experience with that business.

Monetize Your Site
Vantage allows you to charge for listings and upsell for featured listings. Or, you can use Vantage to build traffic to your site and charge for banner ads. Either way, Vantage give you a great start to creating an income-generating web site. If you can build the traffic, Vantage makes it easy to generate the revenue.

Not Just a Directory
Vantage includes pages, a blog, and all the other features you’d expect from a premium WordPress app. This means you can build a fully immersive experience and make the business directory just a part of that experience.

Much, Much More
These features just scratch the surface of what Vantage is capable of doing. We suggest reading the theme overview page or checking out the demo to learn more. It’s also just the first step in what Vantage will ultimately become.

Over the next few months, we’ll be adding more features like events, coupons and discounts, multiple pricing options, user favorites, owner responses to reviews, claim a business, more social integration, custom fields for users, additional payment options, and more. We’ll also have tutorials for developers on how you can easily extend Vantage (payment gateways, etc.).

Don’t Forget, It’s on Sale for Just this Week!
Seriously, it’s flying off the shelves and we’re running out of stock so you better get your copy now! Don’t forget to use the discount code GETVANTAGE for 30% off.

What’s Included in Vantage 1.0

Single Listing Lightbox

All the basics of what you would expect from a business directory theme.

• Business listings with business address, contact, website, social links and description
• Pictures including a thumbnail / featured image – pictures open in a lightbox
• Reviews and ratings
• Editable user accounts
• User dashboard to manage reviews and listings
• Keyword and location-based search using Google Maps API
• Multi-tier categorization system
• Search engine optimized
• Multiple page templates
• Editable menus in header and footer
• Email notifications for new listings and reviews
• Localization support
• Theme color options
• Separate blog and page templates to promote your directory

Vantage Custom Form

Vantage Extras

• All new custom forms and custom fields with an even easier to use AppThemes form builder
• Refine search features like search radius, category and sorting filters
• Custom user admin bar that leverages the power of the WordPress admin bar
• Easy log in form on every page
• Integration with ShareThis social sharing plugin

Sidebars and Custom Widgets

• Four fully widgetized sidebars: main, single listing, search results and single page
• Four widgetized spots in the global footer
• 

  Widgets and Sidebars

  One widgetized spot in the global header, perfect for a 468×60 ad banner

• Create listing button is widgetized so you control where it is placed on a page
• Sidebar map widget with exact location of business listing
• Recent reviews
• Recent listings
• Popular and related categories
• Sidebar and footer ad widget
• Vantage social connect widget for footer

Payment Options

Monetizing Vantage

• Charge a fee for business listings
• View all transactions via admin panel
• Additional fee for home page and category featured listings
• Standard ad widget can be used in four pre-installed sidebars and four slots in the global page footer
• Widgetized location in the header that is perfect for a 468×60 banner

Taking Payments

PayPal Options with PDT

• All payment gateways created as plugins
• Comes prepackaged with PayPal
• Uses PayPal Payment Data Transfer for greater security
• Test gateway for testing transactions on your site (available version 1.1)

We wanted to know what gateways you are interested in having the most. We have seen suggestions in the forums and on the ideas exchange but thought a poll would be a great way to measure the demand for this.

The options in the poll below represent some of the gateways we might consider adding as a plugin. There are a ton of gateway solutions available. If you don’t see the one you’re interested in, mention it in a comment below. There’s a chance that one of our community developers would be interested in creating it for our upcoming plugin and child theme marketplace.

Vantage 1.0

The first, widely available version of Vantage, the business directory application theme from AppThemes, will be on sale by April 27. That’s right — this release will be available to everyone, not only club members. Of course, all AppThemes Club members will have access to Vantage 1.0, too.

The release of Vantage has been a long time coming. To show our appreciation for your patience, Vantage will be on sale for the first week following the release. As mentioned in a previous post, Vantage will be available for 30% off the regular price of $99 for standard and $159 for developer. This sale will only last a week, so make sure you mark your calendar.

JobRoller 1.6

Bruno, our JobRoller developer, has been doing some absolutely incredible work. 1.6 is going to be a fantastic release with some highly anticipated features.

Job Alerts

This version of our job board theme will introduce the popularly requested job alerts feature. End users fill out an easy-to-use form to define what jobs interest them most. Whenever a job gets posted that fits their criteria, JobRoller sends an email to them. It’s just another way that JobRoller helps you stay engaged with your audience. We’ll have a full blog post on this feature in the coming days.

Job Packs

1.6 improves on job packs by adding new options. And we’re throwing away the plain design of job packs and introducing a new, more polished design. Another simple feature that should have a lot impact is allowing the purchase of a job pack without buying a job listing. Your site’s customers will now be able to click a link in the sidebar and buy job packs whenever they want.

New and Improved Feeds

Not only are we adding a Simply Hired feed, we’re improving the ways that you can use the feed data. Pull jobs from job sites, direct employers or both — sort jobs by relevance or date; style sponsored jobs using custom CSS classes and more. More feeds mean more opportunities for you and Indeed and Simply Hired are just the beginning. We’re in conversations with Career Jet and JobG8 in hopes of adding feeds from them. Have your own favorite feed you want to see added to JobRoller? Let us know in the comments!

Leaner Themes, More Plugins

The Simply Hired feature marks a major change for AppThemes. Instead of continuing to pack in feature after feature, we’re going to create lean and robust themes that have a solid set of core features. With plugins, we can continue to create a ton of new features that will not bog down your site. As a site-owner, you will get a chance to choose the features you want and leave behind the ones you don’t need.

Speaking of Plugins…

AppThemes has a fantastic community full of talented developers and designers. You may have seen some of the great work produced by members like Mr_Green, Rubencio, TinyGiant Studios and more. These folks have been selling their plugins and child themes through the forums for some time now. Well, it’s about time that they have a proper place to offer their products to all AppThemes customers.

We have been quietly working on an AppThemes marketplace for child themes and plugins. It will be a one stop shop for fine tuning and customizing your AppThemes application theme. Want to change the look of your ClassiPress site? No problem. How about a plugin to add extra features to JobRoller? Get it in the marketplace!

We’re about a month away from launching. If you have a plugin or child theme that was created to work with our themes, drop us a line at support@appthemes.com. But know up front that we are looking for only the best, highest quality products to sell to our customers.

Clipper Too!

The hits just keep coming! Clipper 1.3 is available now. That’s right, we just released it today and there are some big changes to the layout. Here’s what we have done…

• Revised the standard Clipper logo
• Created a much larger, full-width featured coupons slider
• Added store thumbnail to coupons – a very popular request on our ideas exchange!
• Added expiration date to coupons in coupon list
• Added tags to coupons in coupon list
• Revised voting and rating display
• Submitting a coupon has changed – more info here ( http://docs.appthemes.com/uncategorized/setting-up-submit-coupon-links )
• Added editable text to “Receive Coupons by Email” widget
• Enabled styles on retrieve password page to create a seamless, branded experience

In addition to these layout and feature changes, we fixed a number of issues and addressed many other items requested by the community. You can see a full list of changes here.

We think this is an outstanding release of Clipper. The new look is bound to please your customers and visitors. We strongly recommend updating to take advantage of the great new additions. You can either download Clipper 1.3 from your customer dashboard or upgrade directly from within WordPress.

Check out the demo to see the new layout.

We have more in store for Clipper. We’ve heard your requests to make this theme more effective as an income tool and we are working on making that happen. Stay tuned, there’s a lot more to come for Clipper.

Whew! Anything Else?

Yup! We sure do have a lot going on here. As soon as we release Vantage 1.0, we’re jumping right back in to work on the next release. We’re going to keeping pushing the limits on JobRoller and keep finding ways to monetize Clipper. And there are more themes on tap but nothing that we’re ready to announce yet. We’ve learned our lesson about pre-announcing themes. But it’s really going to be a banner year for AppThemes and it all starts with our big April. Get ready everyone, it’s going to be great!

Vantage 1.0 will be available on April 27.

JobRoller 1.6 will be available by the end of April.

Clipper 1.3 will be available on April 9.

Many more announcements and exciting developments coming soon. Stay tuned.

So let’s get to it and see what this theme is all about.

Vantage Home Page

Vantage Single Listing

Vantage Create Listing

Vantage Dashboard

What’s in Beta?

All the basics of what you would expect from a business directory theme.

• Business listings with business address, contact, website, social links and description
• Pictures including a thumbnail / featured image – pictures open in a lightbox
• 

  Single Listing Lightbox

  Listing tags and categories (custom taxonomies)

• Reviews and ratings (custom comment type)
• Editable user accounts
• User dashboard to manage reviews and listings
• Keyword and location-based search using Google Maps API
• Multi-tier categorization system
• Search engine optimized
• Multiple page templates
• Editable menus in header and footer
• Email notifications for new listings and reviews
• Localization support

Vantage Custom Form

Vantage Extras

• All new custom forms and custom fields with an even easier to use AppThemes form builder (custom taxonomy)
• Refine search features with search radius, category and sorting filters
• User admin bar that leverages the power of the WordPress admin bar
• Easy log in form on every page

Sidebars and Custom Vantage Widgets

• Four fully widgetized sidebars: main, single listing, search results and single page
• Four widgetized spots in the global footer
• 

  Widgets and Sidebars

  One widgetized spot in the global header, perfect for a 468×60 ad banner

• Create listing button is widgetized so you control where it is placed on a page
• Sidebar map widget with exact location of business listing
• Recent reviews
• Recent listings
• Popular and related categories
• Sidebar and footer ad widget
• Vantage social connect widget for footer

Payment Options

Monetizing Vantage

• Charge a fee for business listings
• View all transactions via admin panel
• Additional fee for home page and category featured listings
• Standard ad widget can be used in four pre-installed sidebars and four slots in the global page footer
• Widgetized location in the header that is perfect for a 468×60 banner

Taking Payments

• 

  PayPal Options with PDT

  All payment gateways created as plugins

• Comes prepackaged with PayPal
• Uses PayPal Payment Data Transfer for greater security
• Test gateway for testing transactions on your site (available version 1.0)

What’s Planned for 1.0?

There are a handful of items that did not make beta but are planned for the first full release of Vantage.

• Completion of sidebar map widget
• Menu item that displays all categories
• Integration with ShareThis plugin
• Theme color options
• Themed log in, register and recover password pages
• Vantage help tab in admin
• Business listings tag widget
• Separate blog to promote your directory

What’s Planned for 1.1?

• User defined favorite listings
• Ability to add more than five images
• Allow business listing owners to reply to reviews
• Custom fields for user profiles
• Bank transfer payments plugin
• Coupons and discount codes for business listings
• Ability for business owners to claim existing business listings
• Responsive design for better viewing on desktops, laptops, tablets and phones

Beyond Vantage 1.1

• Improved map and location based search features
• Facebook log in, and potentially a Google log in, too
• More pricing options
• Child themes
• Contact business owner form

When Will All of This Become Available?

The beta testers are already hard at work and we’ll give them a week to see what they discover. While we anticipate beta testing to continue past next week, the development team will meet next Monday (Mar 12) to review the ticket list at that time. We will then create an estimated release date for Vantage 1.0.

Any release dates for 1.1 or beyond would be completely speculative at this point. We can only say that we want to release everything as quickly as we possibly can. As always, we will keep you updated as we get new information.

Until then, have a gander at our Vantage live demo. This demo will be updated regularly. As new features are added, you’ll see them in the demo.

We just released JobRoller 1.5.4 – that’s five updates in the last five months! We’ve made incredible progress with the theme in that time period. Our once sizable ticket list has just a handful of open issues. We feel that JobRoller is stronger and more stable than it’s ever been – and now it’s time to take it to the next level.

Indeed, Simply Hired and More

The Indeed feed has been a great feature for JobRoller. 1.5.4 makes even more use of the Indeed feed data. You are now able to use and display Indeed data in ways that simply were not possible in the past.

As good as Indeed has been, we’ve heard your cries for more. That’s why we are working on a Simply Hired feed. Expect to see that available as a plugin for JobRoller by late spring of this year. Indeed and Simply Hired are just the start. If there is a feed out that there that is worth having, we’ll be looking to add it to JobRoller.

Your Ideas + Our Job Board Software = Huge Success!

Admittedly, there are a ton of great ideas on the AppThemes ideas exchange. We’re reviewing the list and we will be incorporating some of the most popular ideas in the near future. Obviously, job alerts is the overwhelming favorite and we’ll be adding that feature soon. We can’t add everything to the theme at once, but you will start to see more and more of your ideas in JobRoller in the coming months.

Tell Us More

The ideas exchange is great for sharing feature suggestions but it doesn’t tell us the whole story. We want to hear directly from you. What is it like to use JobRoller? What are the good things – what are the bad? Are you a recruiter? Are you a corporation that uses JobRoller to list open positions?

If you think you have a story worth telling, drop an email to me at sdunn@appthemes.com. I want to talk to you!

Bruno Makes it All Possible

Bruno Carreço

All the recent progress on JobRoller is the result of the hard work done by Bruno Carreço. Many of our customers may know Bruno as Sebet in the forums and as the creator of the FXtender plugin for JobRoller. Bruno was doing a lot of work with JobRoller and offering invaluable help to many of our customers. We thought it was a no-brainer to make him part of the team.

Bruno has been working with us for a few months now. He is the dedicated developer for JobRoller and responsible for maintaining the theme, creating new features and helping the support staff with customer issues and questions. Bruno will also be helping to create new tutorials and documentation. With Bruno on board, JobRoller is going to be better than ever.

Good People Making Good Things for Good Themes

We’re not the only ones hard at work on our themes. There is a growing community of developers that are making products that work with our themes. As mentioned above, Bruno offers the FXtender plugin which extends some of the capabilities of JobRoller. TinyGiant studios is another great source for JobRoller add-ons, They create a very attractive child theme called Prima. They also have a couple of plugins worth looking at: TypeRight and Count.

We will be promoting more plugins and child themes for all our themes. We can’t put everything into a single application theme. These “after-market” products take it up a notch and give you, the customer, the options to expand JobRoller even further. Let these developers know that you want more products like these by checking out their current products now.

Don’t Forget to Talk to Us

Seriously, we want to hear from you. Send an email and tell us your experience. We’d love to hear it.
Thanks and here’s to our mutually beneficial success.

Our development team has been burning the Vantage candle from both ends the last several months. We’re close – we just need a little more time. It’s important to us that we get it right before releasing it into the wild.

We understand that everyone has waited a long time for Vantage. As we come closer to completion, we are prepared to offer up a mea culpa. So here it goes:

30% Off All Themes

Next week, all our themes and Club packages will be on sale. 30% off ClassiPress, JobRoller, Quality Control or Clipper. Or take 30% off either of our Club packages. The sale starts at midnight January 1st thru January 7th (PST -8 GMT). Coupon code for the sale is: BANANASLUG

Any Love for Club Members?

That’s great for new customers, but what about all our loyal Club members that have been waiting patiently for Vantage to be released? Well, all AppThemes Club members will receive Vantage first. That’s right, you’ll have exclusive access to Vantage before we release it to the rest of the world. It’s the least we could do for our most devoted customers.

Another Sale Later

Finally, when we do release Vantage to everyone, we’ll be offering it at a 30% discount from our normal price.

We really do appreciate our customers and we’re very excited to offer Vantage to the world as soon as possible. We thank everyone for their patience while we complete the final details of what will be a great theme.

What about the Slug?

And lest you think we have forgotten, we’ll have more news on the fate of our friendly banana slug soon. Happy holidays and have a great New Years!

The following is an excerpt from the Google Maps API FAQ page:

25,000 map loads per day is a pretty high number. We don’t think this news from Google will have an impact our customers, but we want to be sure. Tell us, do you think the new Google Map API limits will affect your ClassiPress or JobRoller site? Are you getting in excess of 25,000 map loads per day?