On the way…

…to being the standard WP plugin for directories.

GD is a young plugin, and there are still things that require adding or improving to make it a 5 star review. Also, as has been said elsewhere, the documentation still needs work, but that is already underway.

Having read the other reviews, a common complaint is theme compatibility. With the best will in the world, something as complex as GD will never be able to fit perfectly with every single theme ever developed, it just isn’t possible. The point though, is that fixing any incompatibilities takes just a few minutes of fairly simple css work.

Frankly, if you’re in the business of building websites and aren’t able to figure this out and sort it yourself, then perhaps building a complex site might not be the thing for you.

Support is great, with Paolo and Stiofan both very active in the forums and the addition of John to address theme problems has been an excellent move.

There are drawbacks, I think. I don’t get the use of virtual pages, due to the restriction this places on the naming of menu items in particular, and shortcodes would be much easier and much more flexible in terms of layout. Without that flexibility, all GD-driven sites risk looking like a turnkey purchase.

Also, I’d like to see a little more integration with WP, in terms of user profile pages. GD has author pages, but to include listings, reviews etc as part of the core profile page isn’t so straightforward. Or if it is, I don’t see it.

But these aren’t show stoppers, and it really is early days. There will always be people who have bad experience with WP plugins, and these tend to be the people who leave the reviews. Even the top-rated plugins have some 1 star reviews. I would advise anybody reading the GD reviews to not just focus on the negative, but balance good reviews against bad. If a bad review is based on just one feature, ask yourself if you actually need that feature. If not, don’t worry about it.

The fact is that GD has some way to go to be perfect, but it’s a lot further along than some reviews here would have you believe.