Here is a some of the ideas we have put together in the past for what I will just call the “Art” Designer because I know many different folks would use it for many different things.
ADMIN (CONTROL PANEL) AREA of “ART” DESIGNER
The site must be admin friendly to allow change of “skin” colors, main logo and basic look of designer.
The admin should also easily allow additional products to be added.
The back door interface should allow simple addition of fonts or new designs/images/borders.
Admin area should allow easy access to be able to download the PDF or .tiff designs that the designer creates.
Admin should allow different levels of log-in. A “master” admin who can do anything, an “employee” admin that allows employees to look at and take out paid PDF’s.
FEATURE IDEAS OF “ART” DESIGNER
Designer should be able to be “set” within CS screen, but not be “molded” or designed for any one skin. This would allow it to be used in a variety of skins.
We need this site to be able to build a PDF order form based on the information gathered by the interface and available as a link within the customers actual order info.
It needs to be able to show multiple products and collect all the pertinent data: ie. Item #, quantity ordered, sizes, font, logo, etc.
User must be able to edit and scale text, change fonts and colors, add images, designs
User must be able to Upload and use their own logo.
Ability to add “arch” to the text (in degrees of 15, 30, 45, 60).
Ability for the customer to add different designs to “Art” designer
User should be able to choose from different templates that allow for a border to be used around their image.
User can choose from pre-designed templates that are related to holidays like Christmas…kind of same thing as above
User can customize their design with clip art with pre-loaded clipart and the ability for us to add more
User can select from 20-30 TrueType fonts
User can upload different image formats BMP, PNG, TIF, JPG
Must set up with a dynamic variable within our store so we can easily modify (add/delete) ClipArt, Fonts, Colors and all other options within our drop-down menus.
Create the ability for customers to UPLOAD an image/photo and apply it to the item
Ability for customer to build/design without being logged in, but must log in before checking out.
Customer images saved in their account for set amount of day, say 20-30, then automatically deleted. This setting should be able to be changed in admin.
Low resolution warning given to customers who upload an image that is too low quality.
Multiple images should be able to be added to one product. For example, if you want to allow a customer to upload an image for the front of a tshirt and also for the back of a tshirt.
I will try to think about it more and see if there are other things.
Just a question. Has anyone bought these t shirts before and how are they printed. I guess they have a machine that prints directly on rather than screen print or use vinyl.
I’m sure it’s all possible but would need a team of experts to get it sorted and add greatly to the cost and length of getting it done.
Since I’m a one man band i didn’t even think about admin side, and don’t know if this is easy to accomplish or not.
To get a mod like this done with graphic imports, pdf samples, error handling, admin levels etc I think we’d need a team of Sno’s sorting out the different problems and puting them altogether and then getting it compatible with cs cart.
Guess we’re waiting on Sno to let us know whats possible and feasible and whats not.
If what you guys are asking is if we can take the images (graphics) designed by the customer and use them to print onto t-shirts, mugs ect… I seriously doubt the addon could be ever made to do this. The Product Designer Addon is really only intended so the customer can design the product the way they want it to look, you must then use this graphic as a guide to create the product. For t-shirts I’m assuming most shops use Illustrator or some other graphics program to crate the actual graphic to be screen-printed, you won’t be able to use a graphics from am addon because I don’t think you can get the resolution where it needs to be to print a quality product.
I don’t know how other shops work but most shops are generally doing the same as we are. That is we get a graphic example from the customer (a design from the product designer addon), we’ll use this example to layout and design the product using dedicated sign making, screen-printing and engraving software. Then we print, engrave, cut the product according to the customer’s example, is this what you guys where expecting?
Yes I agree with Sno, thats the idea. You will get in all kinds of trouble if expecting to use the customers ****py graphic downloaded form the web to use for printing.
Its more of a customer play thing to visualise what they may get, one point would be though is to not allow them to upload a graphic if it was below a certain dpi.
1.The minimum i want is a way of uploading a base picture ie t shirt, trophy, banner etc. (we input size in back end)
2.A way of applying text in different fonts, colour and varying sizes. fonts need to be added as necessary and not just come with a default set (unless there are hundreds to choose from) with a way of telling us sizes for when we come to cut it (the size or number of letters might affect the price). needs to have the ability to do this more than once for a garment (multyline).
3.I don’t need the ability to upload images but i’m sure others will so this would be good.
4.I think shapes would be good and this could maybe done with windings font.
5. Ability to print image (and list of items,sizes,colours etc.)
That’s it from me .
Edit. like the above johnbol i want to use it so the customer has a better visual idea of what their buying.
my problem with fonts is customers never know what size their font needs to be . You can never tell from the height what the length it will be. so length is either smaller or longer than expected.
[quote name=‘jagorny’]What seems ideal to me would essentially work out a plug-in that would allow people to send designs created in an online editing system like aviary.com -
For example, on my Aviary account I use Raven to design a vector image and export it as an SVG… but be able to work out the design in Raven and then send it over to CS-Cart and simply have it show me a preview thumbnail of the image so that I can confirm.
I’m guessing there’s a good SVG library out there for PHP? Haven’t really looked…
Just throwing that out there - you can import SVG into Raven as well…[/QUOTE]
I think this deserves some more consideration. Aviary has an API for exactly what we’re discussing here.
For me personally I am wanting something different than that a lot of the t-shirt sites. Yes it is nice to be able to modify the shirt, add clip-art and lettering, etc. But I think a lot of these website designs lose customers because they don’t work the way they should.
Let me explain. If I’m searching for a shirt with a smiley face on it I don’t want to go to a custom t-shirt design page, search through possibly hundreds of pieces of clip-art looking for a smiley face and THEN modify the design. I want to be on a t-shirt site that has smiley faces on a page in which I can then go to the product page and make modifications. This not only makes the design MUCH easier for the customer to run across but also works much better from an SEO point of view. [url]http://www.zazzle.com/[/url] is a great site that does it the “right” way.
So my site is set up with thousands of designs that each have their own page. I do well in SEO for several terms which keeps me going. Me being in the decal business I am more looking for a previewer; here is essentially the main things I am wanting:
-From my product page in place of an image have the “design previewer”
-Ability to change the color of the product in real-time preview
-Ability to change the background image/color shown in the preview image
-Ability for the preview to determine height/width based on one dimension
-Ability to “flip” the design from left to right
I only have about 2 products (custom lettering/numbering) that would require more customization by the customer. Which would consist of a font previewer style page. So hopefully in the backend there would be an option to to turn on/off the customization options.
Being able to make this addon to fit everyone’s business is going to be the hardest part, looking at the examples of zazzle works great but is basically backwards from the traditional pick the product, then make/add a design to the product. I’m going to look into if it’s possible to make the design part of options so that customer’s can pick the design that can then be filtered down to the productt using product filters ect…
cafepress kinda works both ways so maybe we can achieve this using the cafepress method but make it easier for the customer to navigate:
Went to cafepress and the “make you own” was very intuitive.(some sites had seemed so complicated they came with a video)
Was surprised they didn’t allow you to customize an existing design even if just to put a bit of wording on it, but i guess i have their reasons.
The only thing i would want is the upload image tab taken away on certain products (an option in back end) because i do vinyl rather than prints (at the moment anyway) and it would cause problems.
If you could do something along the lines of cafepress it would be great.
we’ll keep you posted, keep checking back or sign up as a member at the snorocket forums, this is a pretty huge addon so it will not be coded over-night and more importantly we are still working on a way to make sure the addon will work and be compatible with all types of business models, Thanks - Sno
Found this down loadable tool where you can design items like tshirts, posters, banners etc. The items you design are sent away to get done (affilate programme) but you can use it for making designs even when you cant connect to the internet. good if your away at a show and want to do some previews. [url]http://www.sonicshack.com/[/url]
[quote name=‘mrfoameruk’]Found this down loadable tool where you can design items like tshirts, posters, banners etc. The items you design are sent away to get done (affilate programme) but you can use it for making designs even when you cant connect to the internet. good if your away at a show and want to do some previews. [url]http://www.sonicshack.com/[/url]
[quote name=‘snorocket’]we’ll keep you posted, keep checking back or sign up as a member at the snorocket forums, this is a pretty huge addon so it will not be coded over-night and more importantly we are still working on a way to make sure the addon will work and be compatible with all types of business models, Thanks - Sno[/QUOTE]
Hi,
Im very interested in this too,
I want to be able to have pre designed printed documents that users can insert their own text on, similar to how moon pig is, even if a more cut back basic version
[quote name=‘snorocket’]If what you guys are asking is if we can take the images (graphics) designed by the customer and use them to print onto t-shirts, mugs ect… I seriously doubt the addon could be ever made to do this. The Product Designer Addon is really only intended so the customer can design the product the way they want it to look, you must then use this graphic as a guide to create the product. For t-shirts I’m assuming most shops use Illustrator or some other graphics program to crate the actual graphic to be screen-printed, you won’t be able to use a graphics from am addon because I don’t think you can get the resolution where it needs to be to print a quality product.
I don’t know how other shops work but most shops are generally doing the same as we are. That is we get a graphic example from the customer (a design from the product designer addon), we’ll use this example to layout and design the product using dedicated sign making, screen-printing and engraving software. Then we print, engrave, cut the product according to the customer’s example, is this what you guys where expecting?[/QUOTE]
Sorry, the mod would loose me if were not able to print exactly what the customer designed or created online. We have already done this in the past with another shopping cart and had little problems…and that was 4 years ago. Right now we have a different sight that does wonderful with what the customer creates but it is not integrated with our current CS shopping cart. I really feel you would actually be working in the past if it did not offer this. If the customer tried to upload “****py” pictures, the designer/builder we had then and have now would just tell a customer they uploaded bad or low resolution images.
I would like to see the progress of the one that is being developed in this thread. It seems a lot of people have donated. Lets see something even if it is not finished.
No one has donated here it was a matter of who would like it and how much would you be willing to stump up, but as of now thee hasnt been a collection.
I cant actually see this addon being done no matter how good the intentions are round here as it way to complicated for just one person to attempt.
As for the one you mention, I don’t know if you have tried it but a lot of whats on their website seems out of date (2009) and i wondered if it’s still being updated. Thought it was weird there weren’t any links actual sites that use it.
found a thread about this company and a guy with cscart trying to get it to work.
I haven’t forgotten about this addon but yes as mentioned above this is s huge addon to develop, to make the addon do what everyone needs it to do for every business type has become an extremely challenging problem that I don’t think we’ll be able to overcome without blowing the development costs through the roof.
It would be nice if we could use an existing application like weprintdesign, but I’ve looked at doing this and apps like weprintdesign are confusing for the customer to use, I couldn’t even figure out how to resize text, plus it requires a domain license and the code is ioncubed, it sounds like as time has passed we may have more individuals wanting to donate, which will lower everyone’s minimum donation amount, we’ll continue to keep this addon alive and work together to figure out how we can make it work for all business types, Thanks - Sno