Now that my site is complete, I just have to rave about abut JReviews. Put simply, this component made it possible to build a very complex real estate site.

I had tried HotProperty and EZRealty, and was disappointed. They were not flexible enough, and were very buggy with clumsy code. With JReviews, I was able to create custom layouts, include contact forms in the property detail views, create elegant lists, AND provide member reviews, of course. Searching is a breeze thanks to the ability to do searches on fields.

The developer should consider changing the name of this component, because it is useful for so much more than just reviews. Really, it turns Joomla into a true CMS with so-called structured content items, where a single content item can have multiple fields for storing discreet information. You can they organize the content on-the-fly according the values in the fields, create very custom presentations of content lists, detail views, and modules, and customize it thanks to the flexible templating system (once you get the hang of it that is.

I did a lot more with JReviews as well: I also created a research area and Yellow Pages/directly listing (again, I was disappointed with Sobi and others – JReviews did exactly what I needed).

Finally, the support is simply amazing. I don’t think the developer sleeps.