Job Manager Highlight: BlueTree Search
BlueTree Search recently re-launched their site with the help of Stripe Creative, switching from plain HTML to WordPress as a CMS. Along the way, they decided to bring their job listing in-house.
Initially, this client asked us to add a job posting section to the web site we developed for them a few years ago. Our awesome programmer dude (Scotty at randomproductions.net) suggested that for the same cost of adding a custom-written application, we could re-create the site in WordPress and find a customizable job posting plug-in. This allowed us to offer the client some serious added value (easier updates and adding new functionality through plug-ins) at no additional cost. The transfer to WordPress was transparent to the end users — we kept the site’s original design — and adding/customizing Job Manager was a breeze.
— Brian Robboy, Stripe Creative
With a little bit of editing of the Individual Job Template, they were able to easily highlight pertinent information, without distracting from the content of the listed job.
And a final bonus comment from Brian:
I love working with people like you who actually CARE about the applications they’re writing…we’d never get this level of dedication, customer service and communication with a commercial product.
Are you doing creative things with Job Manager? Have some time to tell me how and why you’re using it? Drop me a line, you could be the next Job Manager Highlight!
Stats for WordPress plugins and themes hosted on wordpress.org
I am a stats addict. For all of the sites I work on, there’s a link in my Google Analytics account to show me the statistics for that site.
Unfortunately, there’s one site missing from the chain: wordpress.org. Job Manager is hosted there, but I cannot see the visitor statistics. Google Code allows you to track statistics for your project hosted there, so I think wordpress.org hosting should be able to do the same, for plugins and themes hosted there.
To that end, I have submitted a shiny new feature request. If you like this idea, go, comment, and vote for it!
Job Manager 0.6 Released
AKA: The “so many features, so little time” release.
Here are some of the major features that have been added:
- Custom Job Fields. Like the Application Form, you can now add custom fields to Jobs, so you can display the information that is pertinent to your organisation.
- Job and Job List Templates. You can now completely customise the HTML that is produced for lists of jobs, and individual jobs. (If you build a cool template that you’d like to share, feel free to send it through – I’d like to build a database where people can easily browse through and choose the look-and-feel that they’re after for their job listing.)
- Widgets. No more maintaining text widgets with links to your job categories, or lists of latest jobs.
- Highlighted Jobs. You can now highlight important jobs, and stick them to the top of any job list they appear in.
- CAPTCHA support, thanks to the excellent SI CAPTCHA plugin.
There are many more, check the Changelog for the complete list!
The development cycle for this version has been a little bumpy. Mid-way through, I decided to add Job Fields and Templates, the lack of which had been bugging me, but in order to meet the arbitrary deadline of “mid-February” for the 0.6 release (which I ended up only meeting with the first beta), I had to cut a few of the other features I had planned. That said, I think the process is getting smoother, and I’m certainly getting a lot of support from the WordPress community: we now have two complete translations (Dutch and French), more on the way, and a comprehensive user manual in the works!
So, where to next?
First up, I like having a “small features” release. It gives me a chance to attend to the tweaking that can be overlooked when implementing major features, so I’ve schedule version 0.8 as being the next small features release. I’ve already have a few listed on the Roadmap, but I’m always interested in adding more!
Speaking of the Roadmap, I’m going to have to revise the Due dates that I have listed. These dates were set in November/December last year, and it seems I made them a bit too aggressive – not allowing for beta releases, longer-than-expected development time, et cetera. I’ll be looking at them over the next couple of weeks, if you have any thoughts on it, please leave a comment below.
The next major feature I’m going to be working on is allowing anyone to post jobs. If you have any comments on how you’d like this to work, please post them in this issue.
Finally, do you have any ideas for where you’d like to see Job Manager go? Some of my best feature suggestions have come from the community – you’re the people who are using it in every day life, so I want to know how I can make your life easier. Send me your suggestions through the issue tracker.
-
Gary Pendergast, noun: Gamer and developer. MySQL, WordPress, web and music geek. Currently employed as a MySQL Support Engineer for Oracle. Can be observed in his natural habit at pento.net, or usually in Melbourne, Australia.
