Hi All,
I’m working to use CS Cart to sell some fairly complex products (automotive accessories) and am trying to add a field to the Product Detail Page that allows the customer to select their Vehicle Make, Model, Year, and Submodel through a drop-down box.
The problem that I’m running in to is that:
A) I’m completely new to this (programming, web development, etc.)
and
B) I’m not sure which file(s) I need to be modifying to add custom elements to a product detail page. (the .TPL file indicated in design mode, a relevant .PHP file, etc…)
I’ve spent a few weeks working through the tutorials on www.w3schools.com and in Dreamweaver CS4: The Missing Manual published by O’Reilly Media so I’ve been putting in the work and am now capable of modest design changes but I’m at a point where I could really use some direction on where to proceed from here on creating functional changes. (For example: Should I commit some time to learning Smarty?)
Any and advice, comments, and/or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Here’s what I have to work with:
Adobe Master Collection CS4
MS Office 2007 Enterprise
XAMPP (PHP/MySQL)
Firebug
I know that a custom mod is the easiest and most reliable route here, but I’d prefer to be able to make any changes myself so that I understand the processes involved and can de-bug any issues that might pop up in the future.
Again, I would be extremely grateful for any helpful advice or suggestions that anyone might be willing to offer.
Thanks,
Jerry
Jerry,
First welcome aboard. I think you will find that CS-Cart is a great system to work with and the forums offer a lot of help.
As for the things you want to do, you have the right tools and have learned some stuff that might come in handy.
Firebug is a great tool that I use all the time. Even though the templates aren’t layed out like they look on the browser you can find chunks like the css and use Dreamweaver to search your site for where those are called. Then you can modify the code accordingly.
I’m not sure exactly how much you know or how far you have come with CS-Cart, but I would recommend a few things to make things easier on yourself.
First, setup Xampp and install CS-Cart on your localhost. Then set up a new site using Dreamweaver and point it to the folder in your htdocs folder of Xampp. Now when you make a change in Dreamweaver and save the file you don’t have to upload anything. All you’ll need to do is just refresh your browser. Also, at least for me, this make it easier to add products and images. When your local site is all set up you can just move it to a live server and change the config file.
As for smarty and the html, I didn’t really “learn” any of it. Basically I just started messing around and now I feel pretty comfortable with it. I can’t do any kind of real addons or anything too advanced, but I can change the template around and add code here and there to get the effect I want.
Also I would recommend learning about the hooks feature of CS-Cart. I really like the hooks feature and it helps a lot on upgrades. They won’t make it so everything is perfect, but they do help.
Now as for what you want, I think CS-Cart is already set up for this. You can use the features and filters to have the auto parts separated out.
I am not the best at expaining the feature and filters, but if you take a look on the forum you can find all the information you need. You could also check the CS-Cart knowledge bas as it has a lot of infomation as well.
About the only other thing is to continue to look and search these forums. Most questions you are going to have, have probably already been answered and it is a lot faster to just do a search than have to wait for someone to reply.
I hope this was at least a little help and I am sure that others will have more to add.
Brandon
Thanks for your response Brandon. It’s great to see that these forums have an active community of users with shared interests and I’m confident that they will prove to be a valuable resource.
[QUOTE]First, setup Xampp and install CS-Cart on your localhost. Then set up a new site using Dreamweaver and point it to the folder in your htdocs folder of Xampp. Now when you make a change in Dreamweaver and save the file you don’t have to upload anything. All you’ll need to do is just refresh your browser. Also, at least for me, this make it easier to add products and images. When your local site is all set up you can just move it to a live server and change the config file.[/QUOTE]
I’ve already set up XAMPP and have been working on a local test server as described above… you’re right, it does make things a lot easier when editing with Dreamweaver.
[QUOTE]Also I would recommend learning about the hooks feature of CS-Cart. I really like the hooks feature and it helps a lot on upgrades. They won’t make it so everything is perfect, but they do help.[/QUOTE]
I think that this is my next step. Learning how to use the hooks properly seems like the best way to make changes that will weather any future upgrades and reduce any conflicts with native CS-Cart code.
[QUOTE]Now as for what you want, I think CS-Cart is already set up for this. You can use the features and filters to have the auto parts separated out.[/QUOTE]
I’ve explored this, but the included Product Options/Variants feature offered in CS-Cart don’t seem to allow for dependent drop-down menus. If, for example, a customer chooses “Chevrolet” under the “Make” option, he or she shouldn’t be able to choose “Civic” under “Model”, etc…
Also, by adding a dependent drop down box to each product page, I’ll be able to reduce the number of actual products stored in the cart and use a simple MySQL database to pull the available Makes, Models, Years and corresponding part numbers. This should help the pages load faster and keep my product catalog much more manageable.
P.S. - If I added each product variant as a separate product, I’d quickly have over 300,000 products listed - and that’s just from one manufacturer!
[QUOTE]About the only other thing is to continue to look and search these forums. Most questions you are going to have, have probably already been answered and it is a lot faster to just do a search than have to wait for someone to reply.[/QUOTE]
I’ve done a lot of searching of the forum before I even joined or posted this and have found several valuable solutions (especially from Bob and SnoRocket).
Again, Brandon thank you for the encouraging response. What kind of shop are you running through CS Cart?
Cheers,
Jerry
Hi Jerry,
I’m still a novice but noticed your comment:
“I’ve explored this, but the included Product Options/Variants feature offered in CS-Cart don’t seem to allow for dependent drop-down menus. If, for example, a customer chooses “Chevrolet” under the “Make” option, he or she shouldn’t be able to choose “Civic” under “Model”, etc…”
You might want to check into the Exceptions option that’s available for product features. Setting up exceptions along with setting the exceptions to hidden in your Admin settings will make it that when a customer chooses a certain feature, only the allowed combinations will show up. It’s still not as sophisticated as some other carts but it’s a start in the right direction. Hopefully, CS-Cart can enhance this feature in the future.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Stephanie
Testing 2.0.8 to deploy Jan. 2010
Currently using King-Cart: www.Products4Pets.com
Jerry,
By setting the product feature not options you can then use the filters to help your customers narrow down the results.
So for example a brakepad for a 2002 Dodge 1500 (my truck) would be like:
product: 2002 Dodge 1500 Brakepad
Category: Brakes
Features:
Make: Dodge
Model: 1500
Year: 2002
Type of part: Breakpad
Or at least something like this, I think you get the idea.
Than you would set up the filters as a block on, say the left column. Now when a customer goes to your page they can narrow things down.
Boarderbloke did a real nice site that sells children’s clocks. He made great use of features and filters. You can visit the site at:
[URL=“http://www.childrens-clock-shop.com/”]http://www.childrens-clock-shop.com/[/URL]
Take a look and you should get some ideas.
By the way I sell aquariums and aquarium supplies for freshwater and saltwater
I hope this helps,
Brandon
JerryRider
Have you checked the product configurator if it suits your requirement although nothing to do with the product details page?
You can use the drop down menu box for each bundle or configurable bundle and also the compatibility one to one. Unfortunately the current product configurator has missing features as well.
Brandon
Have you given up the use of the product configurator?
Thanks for the replies, guys (and gal).
It’s my understanding that the product configurator is designed for use with products which have additional components that may or may not be compatible, hence the use of exceptions in CS-Cart admin. As such, I would be obliged to create each option Make, Model, and Year as a product and then add it into the configurator for each configurable product.
With the data that I’m working with, there are literally about a hundred makes, thousands of models, and between 5 and 50 year selections available for each product.
If I blow out my product catalog to include each possible Make-Model-Year combination for every product, I’ll end up with over 300,000 individual SKU’s for just one product category from a single manufacturer. Add in all of the additional products that I’ll be offering, and you can see how this method could get out of hand very quickly.
Unfortunately, I’m stuck in a position where I like CS-Cart better than any of the alternatives that I’ve looked at but at the same time customizations such as adding a block with a dependent drop-down menu are a pain in the hiney.
Has anyone tried to add a custom block with HTML, AJAX/Java, or other code to a product and/or category detail page that sends the selected info to checkout?
If so, I would be eternally grateful (and willing to pay) for help in getting this set up.
Again, thank you for your responses, it’s really great that the CS Cart community is so active and helpful.
Cheers,
Jerry
Dustundag,
No I haven’t given up. I’ve just been concentrating on adding products and maketing my site and just haven’t had time to continue to mess with the configurator. One of these days I’ll get it finished.
By the way, I don’t see any way that the configurator could really work for Jerry. It would be a complete nightmere to set up and I’m sure he wouldn’t get the results he want.
Personally, I still say features and filters are the best option. Even though they would take some time to set up, I don’t think there is a better way with the existing cart.
Like he said, there might be a need for a mod for this, but I still don’t see anything being any easier or faster. The fact is, all those makes, models, years, etc. will still have to be put into the cart.
Brandon
[quote name=‘brandonvd’]
Personally, I still say features and filters are the best option. Even though they would take some time to set up, I don’t think there is a better way with the existing cart.
Like he said, there might be a need for a mod for this, but I still don’t see anything being any easier or faster. The fact is, all those makes, models, years, etc. will still have to be put into the cart.
Brandon[/QUOTE]
Thanks, Brandon. My thinking is that I could add each manufacturer’s Makes, Models, Years and Submodels to a MySQL Database with the Part #'s listed as primary keys. That way I can add a drop-down to the product page and have a different table of available applications (Make, Model, Year) listed for each product as the selections vary by manufacturer.
I’d really like to hear from some of the web gurus with more experience than myself to confirm whether or not the above strategy is the right route to follow in my case. It seems solid from a theoretical standpoint and it is my hope that adding this custom block will allow me to add new products quickly and more efficiently.
Again, any and all comments and suggestions are appreciated,
Thanks,
Jerry