Verified documentation

Documentation should be correct and up to date. To assure that, the documentation is used to test the software. So both the software and the documentation are assured to be correct. That is why you will see code examples throughout this document.

First a small bit of setup: adding an admin user and a registered visitor.

>>> self.loginAsPortalOwner()
>>> self.portal.portal_membership.addMember('admin', 'secret',
...                                         ['Manager'], [])
>>> self.portal.portal_membership.addMember('visitor', 'secret',
...                                         ['Reader'], [])

Installing real estate broker

The handiest way to get up and running with plone 3.0 and realestatebroker is to use the buildout. The basic setup can be done with:

https://svn.plone.org/svn/collective/collective.realestatebroker/buildout/reb30/trunk

If you have old 1.0 content you can migrate that by uncommenting two lines in the buildout, as indicated there with a comment.

Inside plone, log in with an administrator account and install real estate broker through the quickinstaller (in the plone control panel: "add/remove products").

>>> self.login('admin')
>>> qi = self.portal.portal_quickinstaller
>>> qi.installProduct('collective.realestatebroker')

Add-on products

RealEstateBroker makes use of the Maps product to integrate Google Maps. Check that this product is also available in the site after RealEstateBroker has been installed.

>>> self.portal.portal_quickinstaller.isProductInstalled('Maps')
True

PloneFlashUpload is used for easy mass-uploading of images.

>>> self.portal.portal_quickinstaller.isProductInstalled('PloneFlashUpload')
True

Behind the scenes, the reportlab library is used to export PDF.

Commercial and residential real estate content types

There are two content types, residential and commercial. They differ in a few fields.

>>> self.portal.invokeFactory('Residential', id='home1')
'home1'
>>> self.portal.invokeFactory('Commercial', id='office1')
'office1'

Migration support for the old 1.0 version to 2.0

If you installed using the migration buildout, a reinstall of realestatebroker will perform a migration. The migration does the following:

• Replace old REHome/REBusiness objects with Residential/Commercial objects.
• REHome/REBusiness have CMFPhotoAlbums with CMFPhotos in them, these photos are moved directly into the (folderish) Residential/Commercial object as regular Images.
• Migrate old workflow states OR old status field to new workflow states.
• Copy over all the fields if still present in the new content types.

It is probably best to create a new site in 3.0 and to selectively move things over. You cannot do a direct 2.0 to 3.0 plone migration anyway. It works to make a .zexp export of the old houses and offices and to import them in a 3.0 site, assuming you have the migration buildout installed: that buildout includes hacked-up versions of the old RealEstateBroker product, CMFPhoto and CMFPhotoAlbum that lets you load the old objects.

Customization

Almost surely, realestatebroker will need to be adapted to local circumstances. In the Netherlands, an airco is not common, but in the south of the USA it might be something you want to keep track of.

archetypes.schemaextender is a great tool for cleanly adapting the schema. See realestatebroker's documentation section on plone.org for a how-to.

Also, the PDF export will need work like adding a header/footer. And choosing a different font. Here also: see the plone.org documentation.

Real Estate Workflow

Real Estate Broker comes with a special workflow named 'realestate_workflow' which is mapped to both the Residential and Commmercial content type.

>>> home1 = self.portal.home1
>>> wftool = self.portal.portal_workflow
>>> self.failUnless('realestate_workflow' in wftool.objectIds())
>>> wftool.getChainForPortalType('Commercial')
('realestate_workflow',)
>>> wftool.getChainForPortalType('Residential')
('realestate_workflow',)

The initial state of real estate content should be offline, which means anonymous can't view it and only owner, editor and manager can edit it. From this state we can publish the content, which will bring it to the 'new' state.

>>> wftool.getInfoFor(home1, 'review_state')
'offline'
>>> wftool.doActionFor(home1, 'publish', wf_id='realestate_workflow')
>>> wftool.getInfoFor(home1, 'review_state')
'new'

After two weeks, new items will become regular items so that new items can be displayed more prominently in the listing. Similarly, sold items will remain visible for two weeks (which is important for getting the "this realestate broker really sells quite some houses" impression).

Portal Properties

RealEstateBroker installs under portal_properties a property sheet with default attributes.

>>> pptool = self.portal.portal_properties
>>> self.failUnless('realestatebroker_properties' in pptool.objectIds())

Site Properties

Don't show Resdiential or Commecial objects in the navigation tree.

>>> navtree_props = pptool.navtree_properties
>>> types_not_to_list = navtree_props.getProperty('metaTypesNotToList')
>>> self.failUnless('Residential' in types_not_to_list)
>>> self.failUnless('Commercial' in types_not_to_list)

Vocabularies

For the city field we make use of a vocabulary that reads it's values from a propertysheet.

>>> from collective.realestatebroker.content.vocabularies import CityVocabularyFactory
>>> vocab = CityVocabularyFactory(self.portal)
>>> [item.value for item in vocab]
[u'New York', u'London', u'Amsterdam', u'Paris', u'Tokyo', u'Alberschwende']

For the house type field we make use of a vocabulary that reads it's values from a propertysheet.

>>> from collective.realestatebroker.content.vocabularies import HouseTypeVocabularyFactory
>>> vocab = HouseTypeVocabularyFactory(self.portal)
>>> [item.value for item in vocab]
['Apartment', 'Villa', 'Mansion']

For the rooms field we make use of a vocabulary that reads it's values from a propertysheet.

>>> from collective.realestatebroker.content.vocabularies import RoomsVocabularyFactory
>>> vocab = RoomsVocabularyFactory(self.portal)
>>> [item.value for item in vocab]
['1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8']

portal_catalog Indexes

Test if the index have been created in the portal_catalog tool.

>>> indexes = self.portal.portal_catalog.indexes()
>>> for idx in ('getPrice', 'getCity', 'is_floorplan'):
...     self.failUnless(idx in indexes)

Google maps support

Realestatebroker uses the 'Maps' product for google map support. Our contenttypes can be used by Maps:

>>> from collective.realestatebroker.interfaces import IRealEstateContent
>>> from collective.realestatebroker.interfaces import IResidential
>>> IRealEstateContent.providedBy(home1)
True
>>> IResidential.providedBy(home1)
True
>>> from Products.Maps.interfaces import IMapView
>>> view = home1.restrictedTraverse('@@maps_googlemaps_enabled_view')
>>> view.enabled # We want to show maps.
True

Authors

Original 1.0 version made by Ahmad Hadi and Jean-Paul Ladage.

2.0 re-write done by Reinout van Rees, Jean-Paul Ladage, Fred van Dijk and Mirella van Teulingen, all of Zest software .