CapeInfo turns 15 years old in October this year and we wanted a thoroughly up-to-date, class-leading website in time for that. The upgrade was only planned for September but had to be brought forward to cater for our new Online Courses, which have some special requirements our old platform could not provide.
This upgrade is not just a newer version of everything we had before. Upgrades of this magnitude only take place every four or five years, because of the enormous amount of work involved.
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, click the Quick Reply button above or below. You don't have to be logged in.
Before you do, there are a few important points:
- Not all directory and event content has been transferred yet. We're busy doing that.
- The "addresses" of most directory images changed which means they don't show. We're busy updating those images.
- The login and registration has moved to the top left-hand corner of your screen.
What are the main changes?
Login, Registration & Subscriptions
The log in and registration area now shows as two buttons at the top left-hand corner of your screen. Many people don't even need to use the registration button if they are adding an entry in the directory - the registration, login and a new subscription system has been combined. Making a selection at "Add new entry" under the Directory menu item starts this process.
All new entries are automatically subscribed for one year and, where payment is required, there are options for credit card, EFT and offline payment. Payment is required
before new entries are approved. Where applicable, PDF invoices are emailed automatically after each subscription is submitted and show if payment has been made. If offline payment was the selected option, you have five days to make the payment to prevent the entry you submitted from being deleted.
Old directory entries will be added to the subscription system in the coming weeks and everybody will have to renew their subscription each year. The status of all subscriptions can be seen by logged in users at the "My subscriptions" link at the very top of the screen.
Logging in with Facebook or Twitter accounts will be introduced in about a month's time.
Directory
CapeInfo has a completely new directory system.
If your entry is missing its photos or has anything else wrong, please see the notes at the bottom about what we're still working on. The biggest changes here are:
- Address fields - province, town, suburb, etc - are determined by relationships. So you can only select "Cape Town" if you've already selected "Western Cape". With this system, we've been able to make suburbs a searchable field, and (so far) we introduced regions for the Western Cape and Limpopo. That means, for example, you can search for listings just in the Garden Route or Waterberg.
If you have content in the directory, you can help us update your address by making sure that all the fields are filled in correctly. If your town or suburb is not shown as an option, click on the "Add" button to add it.
- Categories - The new system only allows a business to be added to a single category.
- Mapping - For entries located in towns and cities, clicking the "Map it" button will in most cases show your accurate location. You can refine your position on the Google map by dragging the pointer to the correct position after your enlarge the map/satellite image. If you're in a rural area, it's faster to add your GPS co-ordinates (decimal only!) and save the page without clicking the "Map it" button.
The system also shows Google Street Views (where available) and route directions for the reader.
- Image Gallery - what we have now is temporary and a completely new media system will be introduced in a few weeks. Apart from dramatically different presentation, it will allow captions to be added to the images, video uploads and (when reviews are enabled) guests and customers to add images to your gallery.
What's on - the Events Calendar
We decided to ditch the old EventList system we've used for the past five years quite late in the day and this now uses the same system as the directory. This makes searching for events by province, region or town much easier. We've only just started exploring the presentation possibilities so we'd appreciate your questions and suggestions. The main changes are:
- Location & venues - You do need to complete the address of the event, but you don't have to add venues. Only venues included in the directory may be shown and including them is very easy.
- Images - You can now include up to 12 images in your event listing. In about a month's time, a new media system will be introduced to allow captions, video uploads and vastly improved presentation.
- Mapping - it's now much easier, but see more detailed info about this under the directory section above.
Much more work is underway!
The platform upgrade may be completed, but there's still a huge amount of work we are busy with.
- A relatively small number of entries did not transfer to the new system and those are being added.
- Images have been transferred but the process of linking them to each entry is a manual process that will take some time. (If your photos are missing and you'd like to add new ones, please go ahead and add them.)
- There are some strange characters or slashes added to directory content when it was added with MS Word. We're working through all of these but you can help by editing your own content.
- Search and filtering facilities will be vastly improved in the coming weeks.
- And there are layout issues, and more...
