Frequently Asked Questions for My Shortlist - Favorites & Quick Access List Extension for Joomla!
This article describes how to install and use My Shortlist, or how to solve any common problems that you may face with it.
If you cannot seem to find what you are looking for, you can search the My Shortlist forum, or contact me.
General Questions
My Shortlist offers the ability to create one or more lists of Joomla! articles or other items in a Joomla! website from a wide variety of components. It can be used for creating quick access lists, lists of favorites, wishlists, even simulate add-to-cart functionality, since it includes a "Send to Admin" feature.
No. My Shortlist is a Joomla! extension and can only be used within the Joomla! CMS.
That is very simple. You just login with your user account and navigate to Connect > My Purchases. Since July 2017, you can also use the Joomla! Updater feature!
Please refer to the My Shortlist download page, on the right.
Payment & License
You get unlimited usage on unlimited domains and websites. You get unlimited support (please read the Terms of Service for more information) and free updates for 1 year. After that, you may continue to use My Shortlist as you did, but to be able to receive updates, you would have to renew your license.
When you download My Shortlist, you get unlimited usage rights. That means you can install My Shortlist on a friend's site, but they won't be able to receive direct support or updates, and you should not share the zip archive you download.
Well, that is because Mavrosxristoforos.com extensions are not developed and maintained by a large company, but rather by Christopher Mavros, the developer and owner of this website. That means no expensive equipment and no large facilities, which results in low-cost development, and thus, low-cost extensions.
Installation & Configuration
To install My Shortlist, you follow the usual steps, as with installing any other Joomla! extension.
Navigate to Extensions > Extension Manager, and under the tab "Upload Package File", you select the zip archive you downloaded from Mavrosxristoforos.com, and click "Upload & Install".
Wait until the package file gets installed and you should see a completion message. You are ready to go.
My Shortlist is a plug-and-play module. After installing, you only need to publish the module in the pages you want it to appear.
If you want to take it a step further, you may want to configure the "Send to Admin" feature in the module options, or switch the "Automatically Append Menu Itemid" option to "Yes", if your site is configured to have SEO friendly URLs.
Note: For My Shortlsit to be able to send any email, you must make sure that your Joomla! Mail Settings are correctly configured. For more information, please read the question below.
Any other Joomla! extension that sends emails, requires that the Joomla! Mail Settings are properly configured. Those settings are found in your site's Global Configuration, under the Server tab.
Some servers allow the default settings (PHP Mail) to work just fine. Even though, it is better to use SMTP, according to your host directions for configuring an outgoing email client.
Extension Usage
No. My Shortlist can be used on unlimited sites and domains, with unlimited DB records. Enjoy ;)
My Shortlist, by default, saves favorite items in cookies for your website visitors, and on the database for logged-in users. If you want to select one of the two methods, you can change the "Save Method" in the module options.
Sure. My Shortlist allows the user to create multiple lists from within the module, which can be changed from the module option "Allow Multiple Lists".
If you want to have one or more modules that manage lists defined by the administrator (like Wishlist and Cart) you can set a "Cookie Prefix" for each, and disable multiple lists.
There is no problem if you use multiple instances of MyShortlist on the same page, but it is best if they don't have access to the same lists.
Sure. That is achieved by enabling the "Send to Admin" feature. The option is called "Show Send Button", and the administrator can also add custom fields to the form. For more information on how to add custom fields, please see the section "Advanced Configuration".
Yes. You can select the "Module Mode" in the module options.
My Shortlist is compatible with a constantly growing variety of Joomla! extensions.
Here is an exhaustive list of compatible items:
Articles & General Content
Joomla Articles, K2 Items, K2 Categories, K2 Users, MosetsTree Items, SobiPro Items, ZOO Items, JEA Items, JoomGalaxy Items, MultiCategories, EasyBlog Items, AcePolls Polls, HDVideoShare Videos, EDocman Documents, EDocman Categories, FlexiContent Items, Ignite Gallery Galleries, MyShortlist Custom Blocks, RSMediaGallery Items, SP Page Builder Pages, SobiPro Items, VipPortfolio Items
Advertisements & Classifieds
Ads Manager Ads, JobBoard Jobs, OSProperty Properties, EZRealty Properties, JBusinessDirectory Companies, iProperty Properties, Properties Products, vRestaurant Restaurants, DJClassifieds Items, JBusinessDirectory Offers, RealEstateManager Houses
Community Profiles
CommunityBuilder Profiles, JomSocial Profiles, JomSocial Groups, LoveFactory Profiles, Easy Profile Users, Easy Social Profiles, Easy Social Groups
Online Sales
Virtuemart Items, JDownloads Downloads, HikaShop Items, ShopOffers Offers, RSDirectory Entries
Newsletters & Events
NS Pro Newsletters, NS Pro Subscribers, AcyMailing Newsletters, EventBooking Events, JomSocial Events, EventList Events, DJEvents Events, DPCalendar Events, Easy Social Events, JBusinessDirectory Events, JEvents Events, Matukio Events
Locations & POI
JEvents Locations, MyMaps Locations
If you cannot find your component of interest in the list, please feel free to contact me to make it compatible!
Advanced Configuration
First of all, you need to switch the module option "Add Extra Fields" to "Yes". Then in the "Additional Fields" option, you write your custom fields in the following format:
Field Type#Field Name#Required
For example:
text#Your Name#r
text#Country#r
textarea#Your Message
If you have SEO URLs enabled, then you obviously assign a menu item for every possible page your website has. For My Shortlist to be able to automatically create the correct URLs for each item added, please enable the module option "Automatically Append Menu Itemid".
There are two options to show items accessed from My Shortlist lists in custom menu items.
- You can use the "Fixed ItemId" option, to set a specific menu item for all the links, (or)
- You can use the "Menu ItemIds to Article IDs List" option, to assign specific menu items for each of the items that a user can add to their list.
This is particularly useful, if you want to track how is My Shortlist used in your website.
Note: If you want to assign specific menu itemids to other component items, please contact me for more information.
You can include MyShortlist anywhere you want using the System - MyShortlist button plugin. You can simply write {msl_button}
anywhere in your site to automatically create a button for the main item of the page, or {msl_button aid="#two-code#id-here" cp="cookie-id-here"}
where #two-code# is the two letter code of the component and id-here is the ID of the item you want to add in/remove from your list. The cookie-id-here part is the Cookie Prefix, the List ID that separates wishlists in MyShortlist. Such a button would always add the specified ID into the list, even when in a completely different page.
Read more about two letter codes here.
Common Problems
Please configure your Joomla! Mail Settings. For more information on how to do that, please refer to the "Installation & Configuration" section, at question "How to configure my Joomla! Mail Settings".
Note: If your site is sending emails, but My Shortlist is not sending, please check if you set the same email address as the Sender Email Address in both the Joomla! Mail Settings, and the Rapid Contact Ex options. Some servers may not allow different configuration. If it still doesn't work, please contact me.
This is normally produced when an email from address is not correct, or a recipient address is not correct. It may also happen if you are have configured your Joomla! Mail Settings to appear to be sent from your "Gmail" account, or similar, while you are using your website address to connect to SMTP. Some servers do not allow that.
This may happen for two reasons.
- Either My Shortlist is not enabled in the target URL, (or)
- Site Cache prevents My Shortlist from running the add-to-list code.
The first case, means that you have probably changed some of the following options: Exact URL, Disable HTTPS, Fixed URL.
The default configuration for those, is "Exact URL" > "Yes", "Disable HTTPS" > "Yes", "Fixed URL" > "No".
If you have changed one of those options, please make sure that the My Shortlist module is enabled on the target page, where the form is posted.
For the second case, you may want to disable your site cache in general, to check if that is the problem. If it works correctly after you disable the Cache, but you still want the Cache enabled, you may disable it only for the My Shortlist module in the Advanced module options.
You may want to check the link URLs. If they are relative URLs, you may want to enable the "Use Absolute Link" option.
A relative URL does not contain the http:// (or https) protocol and the domain name.
This may happen for one of the following reasons:
- The Site Cache prevents My Shortlist from working. You may want to disable the site cache in general, to check if that is the problem, and if it is, you may either keep it that way, or re-enable it and disable it only for the My Shortlist, from its Advanced options.
- The page you are viewing is not one of the compatible component views.
Please see section "Extension Usage" for an exhaustive list of compatible components.
This is a usual problem, which only happens if you have not configured your Update Options properly. Since this is a commercial extension, your Mavrosxristoforos.com account username and Paypal email are required for security reasons. If you do not know your Mavrosxristoforos.com account username, please search your inbox for the automatic message sent to your address right after purchasing MyShortlist.