WordPress Freelancer Affiliate Widget Formatting

In the previous article, the settings used to retrieve project with affiliate links from the freelancer.com was discussed. Customization of the project listing retrieval method was explained in detail.

How WordPress Freelancer Affiliate Widget should display projects

In this article, how each component of a retrieved project can be optionally turned on/off is discussed. Visit the WordPress Freelancer Plugin dashboard. Then select the ‘Affiliate Tab’. The first settings section was discussed in the previous article. The second settings section contains eight check-boxes which you can use to customize the appearance of the components in the WordPress Freelancer Affiliate Widget.

  1. Project Name: The name of the project. This will be displayed at the top of each listed project if enabled. Project name is denoted by the ‘name’ element in the api response. Project name will be linked to the project page on freelancer.com

  2. Project Description: The description of the project can be turned on/off using this setting. ‘short_descr’ and ‘short_descr_html’ elements represent the project description snippets in the freelancer.com api response.

  3. Project Start Date: The project posted date. Projects can be marked as ‘Urgent’ to end the bidding period after 24 hours. This helps to draw more attention from the freelancers for an additional service charge.

  4. Project End Date: The date when the bidding ends. Employer usually chooses a bidder as a winner after bidding period ends. You can turn on/off this information using this setting.

  5. Days Left for Bidding: This is the number of days from today to project end date.

  6. Bid Count: Current number of bids for a project. You can view updated information by refreshing the browser. However this is only possible if the project ordering is not set to ‘rand’. See previous article for an explanation.

  7. Project Budget: This value is the employer estimation of the project value. This information is given by the project poster/employer upon posting the project.

  8. Average Bid Value: Eventhough the employer already given his estimation upon project posting, you can bid on the project with your estimation, using a different value. That is bidding. The average of the bid values can be turned on/off using this setting.

WordPress Freelancer Affiliate Widget - Example API Call

The parameters used in an api call for affiliate listing was discussed in the previous article. The typical freelancer.com api call for a project listing is as follows.

http://api.freelancer.com/Project/Search.xml?keyword=wordpress&count=2&aff=upekshawisidaga

Note: Try the same query without ‘aff’ parameter. You will notice the urls are changed significantly. To participate in the affiliate program you need to specify a referrer using ‘aff’ parameter value.

Below is an example response obtained by querying freelancer.com affiliate api.

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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<projects xmlns="http://api.freelancer.com/schemas/xml-0.1">
  <count>1</count>
  <items>
      <item>
          <id>4210246</id>
          <name>Wordpress + WooCommerce + Subscriptions Plugin</name>
          <url>http://www.freelancer.com/affiliates/ref.php?u=upekshawisidaga&amp;l=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.freelancer.com%2Fprojects%2FPHP-Wordpress%2FWordpress-WooCommerce-Subscriptions.4210246.html</url>
          <start_unixtime>1359997161</start_unixtime>
          <start_date>Mon, 04 Feb 2013 11:59:21 -0500</start_date>
          <end_unixtime>1360601961</end_unixtime>
          <end_date>Mon, 11 Feb 2013 11:59:21 -0500</end_date>
          <buyer>
              <url>http://www.freelancer.com/affiliates/ref.php?u=upekshawisidaga&amp;l=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.freelancer.com%2Fu%2Fbasebalman.html</url>
              <id>2718492</id>
              <username>basebalman</username>
          </buyer>
          <state>A</state>
          <closeDate />
          <short_descr>I currently have an e-commerce website running Wordpress 3.3.2 and WooCommerce 1.6.5.2.  The website has been heavily customized...</short_descr>
          <short_descr_html>I currently have an e-commerce website running Wordpress 3.3.2 and WooCommerce 1.6.5.2.  The website has been heavily customized...</short_descr_html>
          <additionalDescriptions />
          <options>
              <featured>0</featured>
              <urgent>0</urgent>
              <nonpublic>0</nonpublic>
              <confidential>0</confidential>
              <trial>0</trial>
              <fulltime>0</fulltime>
              <for_gold_members>0</for_gold_members>
              <hidden_bids>0</hidden_bids>
              <qualified>0</qualified>
              <nda>0</nda>
          </options>
          <currency>1</currency>
          <budget>
              <min>30</min>
              <max>250</max>
          </budget>
          <budgetPeriod>fixed</budgetPeriod>
          <jobsDetails>
              <item>
                  <id>3</id>
                  <name>PHP</name>
                  <project_count>1969</project_count>
                  <contest_project_count>0</contest_project_count>
                  <seo_url>PHP</seo_url>
                  <updatedate>2012-09-12 20:13:37</updatedate>
                  <category_id>1</category_id>
                  <islocal>0</islocal>
                  <isremote>1</isremote>
                  <descr>PHP stands for Hypertext Preprocessor. It is a widely used scripting language designed for web development and is used in producing dynamic web pages. If you are developing PHP based web applications then you might need help with the same. You can outsource whole or part of the PHP web development tasks to freelancers who have skills in PHP. Start by posting a PHP job today!
&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
Check out our Tycoon Talk &lt;a href=&quot;http://tycoontalk.freelancer.com/php-forum/&quot;&gt;PHP Forum&lt;/a&gt;! Ask experts questions or get tips. </descr>
                  <seoname2>PHP Index</seoname2>
                  <seoworker1>Developer</seoworker1>
                  <seoworker2>Programmer</seoworker2>
                  <allow_contest>0</allow_contest>
                  <ad_grade>A</ad_grade>
                  <isdeleted>0</isdeleted>
                  <enc_name>PHP</enc_name>
                  <index>380</index>
              </item>
              <item>
                  <id>69</id>
                  <name>Wordpress</name>
                  <project_count>388</project_count>
                  <contest_project_count>1</contest_project_count>
                  <seo_url>Wordpress</seo_url>
                  <updatedate>2011-08-23 20:44:34</updatedate>
                  <category_id>1</category_id>
                  <islocal>0</islocal>
                  <isremote>1</isremote>
                  <descr>Wordpress is a blogging platform that allows you to manage and edit your blog. It has its own in built content management system which makes it easy to manage your site. In order to customize your blog you need unique themes and plug ins to make the blog your own. Experienced freelance wordpress developers can assist you in creating and implementing themes and plug ins to make your blog professional and successful. Wordpress experts can also help you write, post and maximize exposure of your blog posts in an efficient and cost effective way.
&lt;/br&gt;&lt;/br&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.freelancer.com/hire/wordpress&quot; title=&quot;hire wordpress developers&quot;&gt;Hire Wordpress developers&lt;/a&gt; on Freelancer.com </descr>
                  <seoname2>Wordpress Install</seoname2>
                  <seoworker1>Developer</seoworker1>
                  <seoworker2>Expert</seoworker2>
                  <allow_contest>1</allow_contest>
                  <ad_grade>B</ad_grade>
                  <isdeleted>0</isdeleted>
                  <enc_name>Wordpress</enc_name>
                  <index>567</index>
              </item>
          </jobsDetails>
          <jobs>
              <item>PHP</item>
              <item>Wordpress</item>
          </jobs>
          <bid_stats>
              <count>4</count>
              <avg>218</avg>
          </bid_stats>
          <currencyDetails>
              <id>1</id>
              <name>US Dollar</name>
              <code>USD</code>
              <sign>&amp;#36;</sign>
              <exchangerate>1</exchangerate>
              <country>US</country>
              <seq>1</seq>
          </currencyDetails>
          <formatedState>Open</formatedState>
          <daysLeft>6</daysLeft>
          <hoursLeft>23</hoursLeft>
          <isHourly>0</isHourly>
          <files />
          <workroom_comm>5</workroom_comm>
          <opened>1</opened>
          <closed>0</closed>
          <frozen>0</frozen>
          <pending>0</pending>
          <rejected>0</rejected>
      </item>
  </items>
</projects>