Beast Directory

Beast Directory includes listing reviews and star ratings with moderation, rating criteria, owner responses, and a modern frontend review experience.

Beast Directory is the free core of the Beast Directory platform and provides a production-ready foundation for directory websites. It provides the foundational directory engine that future premium functionality can extend without modifying the core plugin.

Features

• Directory Listing custom post type
• Categories, locations, and tags
• Frontend multi-step listing submission and editing with multi-category selection and review summary
• Guest account creation
• Featured image and reorderable gallery uploads
• Listing expiration date and owner renewals
• Pricing plans and listing packages with optional WooCommerce checkout integration
• Booking and appointment slots based on listing hours
• Booking management, availability rules, blackout dates, and email notifications
• Operating hours
• Elementor widgets
• Privacy-conscious listing view tracking
• Analytics dashboard with listing performance insights
• Views, leads, bookings, reviews, favorites, claims, and search activity metrics
• Top-performing listing insights and owner analytics shortcode
• Owner dashboard
• Advanced archive search with custom-field filters, numeric ranges, and AJAX result updates
• Basic archive search and taxonomy filtering
• Persistent lead storage with consent and preferred contact time
• Lead admin dashboard, status workflow, and CSV export
• Category icon/color/image metadata
• Plugin templates with theme override support
• REST API foundation
• Developer actions for Pro/add-on extensions
• CSV listing import/export with validation, preview, duplicate detection, and batch processing
• Category and location CSV export
• Data migration/versioning hooks and backup-safe uninstall behavior
• WordPress privacy export/erase integration for stored leads
• REST data minimization for contact information
• Privacy-conscious view counting using a short-lived first-party cookie
• Hardened admin capability, nonce, input validation, contact anti-spam, privacy, and internationalization foundations

Shortcodes

[beast_directory_submit_form] — Add/Edit Listing submission form.
[beast_directory_all_listing] — Listing archive/output.
[beast_directory_search] — Search form.
[beast_directory_search_results] — Search results.
[beast_directory_listing_header] — Listing header.
[beast_directory_listing_content] — Listing content.
[beast_directory_contact_form] — Listing contact form.
[beast_directory_analytics] — Listing analytics board.
[beast_directory_dashboard] — Frontend owner/user dashboard.
[beast_directory_profile] — Frontend user profile.
[beast_directory_favorites] — Frontend user’s saved/favorite listings.
[beast_directory_pricing] — Pricing plans output.
[beast_directory_booking] — Booking form for a listing.
[beast_directory_bookings] — Current user’s bookings.

Authentication & Account Shortcodes

[beast_directory_login] — Frontend login form for existing users. Supports username/email login, password, remember-me, lost-password and redirect handling.
[beast_directory_register] — Frontend registration form. Public registrations create a Directory Owner account; Listing Manager accounts are assigned by an administrator.
[beast_directory_account] — Frontend account area for logged-in users, including account/profile links and logout.
[beast_directory_logout] — Frontend logout action/link.
[beast_directory_lost_password] — Frontend password recovery form for requesting a reset link.
[beast_directory_verify_email] — Frontend email-verification status/verification endpoint output.

Authentication shortcodes are intended for frontend pages and can be placed in standard WordPress page content, shortcode blocks, or supported page-builder content.

Blocks & Builder Compatibility

The package includes WordPress block/editor support and Elementor preview integration. Keep the assigned page templates simple and test AJAX/search/filter behavior after changing themes or page builders.

REST API

GET /wp-json/beast-directory/v1/listings
GET /wp-json/beast-directory/v1/listings/{id}

Template Overrides

Copy plugin templates to:

theme-root/directory/archive-bd_listing.php
theme-root/directory/single-bd_listing.php

License

GPL v2 or later.

External services

Beast Directory can optionally connect to third-party mapping and geocoding services when the site administrator enables/configures them:

• Google Maps Platform: used for maps, Places autocomplete, and geocoding when a Google API key is configured. See https://developers.google.com/maps/terms and https://policies.google.com/privacy.
• OpenStreetMap/Nominatim: used for geocoding when selected or when the site uses the OpenStreetMap provider. See https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/nominatim/ and https://osmfoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_Policy.
• Photon (Komoot): used for optional address/place search and geocoding. When a visitor or site administrator uses a location search, the search text and request parameters (including result limit and language) are sent to the Photon API at https://photon.komoot.io/. Depending on the feature, the request is made by the visitor’s browser or by the WordPress site server. Do not enter personal or sensitive information into location searches. Photon is operated by Komoot; see https://photon.komoot.io/ and https://www.komoot.de/privacy. The plugin does not send directory listing or account data to Photon as part of these search requests.

The plugin does not use third-party JavaScript or CSS CDNs for its core UI assets. Mapping requests are made only for configured mapping features.

Privacy

Beast Directory stores directory listing data and, when visitors submit contact forms, inquiry data in the site database. It does not send telemetry to BeastThemes. Public REST contact fields are disabled by default. Site administrators should publish their own privacy policy describing the personal data collected by their directory, retention periods, contact/booking workflows, and any enabled third-party mapping services. The plugin provides WordPress personal-data export/erase integration for stored leads.

Developer notes

The free core exposes stable actions and filters for add-ons. Premium functionality should be provided by a separate extension plugin rather than hidden trialware in this plugin.