ADDON: Product Designer Addon

We are glad to announce that Product Designer Addon release candidate 2 version is available now.



“Product designer” is a tool that any custom printed products website needs. This fully-featured software allows visitors to create their own Design and choose color, size, text, clipart and photo.







Features



1. The add-on is currently compatible with CS-Cart 2.1.3.

2. The add-on is based on flash technology.

3. The add-on will have the following modes:

- t-shirt mode (will work for all apparel types and garments);

- sticker mode (vinyl graphics, lettering and printing);

- engraving mode (engraving and printing businesses);

- fixed mode.

4. Administrator will be able to:

- upload cliparts, set a cost and create a category for them;

- upload fonts;

- create a palette of colors that will be used for text and designs.

5. On the product edit page Administrator will be able to:

- choose one of the product modes: t-shirt, sticker, engraving or fixed;

- set some specific canvas images (front, back, etc.);

- specify different canvas images for option variants;

- specify the drawing area and dimensions of this region;

- set a cost per character (or per line in fixed mode);

- set a cost per square centimeter of a customer photo;

- specify the initial design for product;

- set the color palette used for text and graphics;

- set up the availability of the managing tools (alignment, order, flip, arc, rotation tools);

- switch between themes.

6. Product with a modified design can not be added to the wishlist.

7. Customer will be able to edit and scale text, change fonts and colors, add cliparts.

8. Customer will be able to upload and use their images.

9. When ordering a printed product .png image will be generated.



Read more about it in the article CS-Cart “Product Designer” Add-on.



CS-Cart “Product designer” add-on price is USD 150 (before March, 10, 2011)

Since March 10, 2011 - USD 250.



You can buy add-on here

This is gonna boost CS Cart users experiences and sales greatly. Good work and thanks to Sno and the other members who originated this idea to get it going. I am looking forward to the final stable release.

1 thing though photo cannot be scaled up on item after uploading? is this correct to avoid poor quality perhaps?



JOhn

Dear JOhn,



You’re right; photo cannot be scaled up and it’s made in order to avoid poor quality.



The second pre-release version will be got out soon where the requirements to image sizes will be reduced.



Regards, Alt-team.

We are glad to announce that Product Designer Addon release candidate 2 version is available now.

“Product designer” add-on has been released.



We are glad to announce that we have finished working at the first “Product designer” add-on version.

So do you have any idea yet as to what kind of “power” someone is going to need on the server side with this mod yet? From my testing so far this baby pulls some serious power when it opens, uploads or does about anything. Do you think your users can put this on a “shared” hosting package? I know it depends on how much business someone gets, but let’s say it is simple at 50 customers per month.

Dear clips,



We have tested our add-on on a “shared” hosting package. By reference to our tests add-on doesn’t give much loading on the server. At the first launch of flash module, it uploads from the server, at the further launches it is taken from the browser cache. While design editing is made by customer, the standard ajax functionality of the store is used for price renewal (the same is used for price renewal and option changes).

An image for printing is generated at the client side and only after that is transfered to server.

As this picture is saved in the .png format, it doesn’t have a big format (at an average 70 Kb) and picture upload doesn’t lead to loading increase on server as well.



Regards, Alt-team.

I had been trying this on my shared server and was worried that the long initial load time was gonna put people off and they would click away.

I had planned to move to VPS anyway and did so a week oor so ago and it has made a big difference. I havent done any timed runs or logged anything but it is much better.



I am still concerned over the initial load time and I feel it should have some kind of notice like “product designer loading please wait”

instead of the progress bar (which isnt viewable in my skin as its too low).

Also I am trying to get to grips with the image upload side, it seems when you upload a image of say 600px wide, it comes out really small on the item, but I am not sure whether the ratio setting in the admin side has something to do with that so I am still playing.



Overall it is definately worth the money to get a virtual bespoke product like this and I look forward to the tweaks and potential speed issues being sorted and getting full confidence in the product.

That said If a product like this is gonna pull in the sales then its gotta be worth spending a bit of it on dedicated server?



John

Wasn’t this a SNOROCKET addon?



I’m confused by these 2 , did SNO and Alt-team make a partnership?



Just wondering.

[quote name=‘TonyK’]Wasn’t this a SNOROCKET addon?



I’m confused by these 2 , did SNO and Alt-team make a partnership?



Just wondering.[/quote]



More like an alliance :slight_smile:

Is anybody else getting this image problem with the addon.And know the cause

please see attached.



I cant investigate as it is part of the flash so cant use firebug to see where images paths are etc.





JOhn

image.png

Dear TonyK,



We cooperate with snorocket and he is a reseller of this add-on.



Dear John,



CS-cart 2.1.3 has a bug: php notices were displayed during thumbnail generating if development mode was enabled for the store. Because of it thumbnails in the Product Designer aren’t displayed.

This bug was fixed in 2.1.4 version of the store.



Regards, Alt-team.

I uploaded V 1.01 and my test product now is like this,



[url]http://www.hivis.co.uk/test-vest.html[/url]



I can remove the wty discount box but now the price and add to cart are not sitting above the artwork template?



Also is it possible to give qty discounts on the number of items being printed.



We have product dicounts set on products but cannot yet give discounts on the printing. SO the person who wants 100 prints has to pay the same for prints as the perosn who only wants 10



Thanks



JOhn

[quote name=‘johnbol1’]I had been trying this on my shared server and was worried that the long initial load time was gonna put people off and they would click away.

I had planned to move to VPS anyway and did so a week oor so ago and it has made a big difference. I havent done any timed runs or logged anything but it is much better.



I am still concerned over the initial load time and I feel it should have some kind of notice like “product designer loading please wait”

instead of the progress bar (which isnt viewable in my skin as its too low).

Also I am trying to get to grips with the image upload side, it seems when you upload a image of say 600px wide, it comes out really small on the item, but I am not sure whether the ratio setting in the admin side has something to do with that so I am still playing.



Overall it is definately worth the money to get a virtual bespoke product like this and I look forward to the tweaks and potential speed issues being sorted and getting full confidence in the product.

That said If a product like this is gonna pull in the sales then its gotta be worth spending a bit of it on dedicated server?



John[/QUOTE]



HAving run it for a while longer on my shared server I would say the difference isnt too bad,I perhaps didnt give it long enough, maybe the cache and Smart optimizer working .



JOhn

Dear JOhn,



Product Designer addon doesn’t have an effect on discounts. They stay the same as you have set them.



Could you please explain more detailed what did you mean by this


[QUOTE]Also is it possible to give qty discounts on the number of items being printed.[/QUOTE]



Regards, Alt-team.

I sell Hi visibility vests WITHOUT design.



If i Sell 1 it costs £1.60

If I sell 25 they cost £1.45 each.

If I sell 100 they cost £1.25 each etc etc.



Customer buys 100 vest and gets the £1.25



at the moment the customer gets the discount on the vests by CS cart script but cannot get discount on the prints from Product designer addon.

The print/design should have the ability to be discounted like we can with the vests.



1 vest £1.60 + 1 prints cost £2.75 =£4.35 each

25 vests £1.45 each + 25 prints@ £2.25= £3.70 each

100 vests £1.25 each +100 prints @£1.75=£3.00.each





This gives even greater flexibility to the Product Designer addon and will appeal to more users.

Perhaps we could be able to set the discount qty rates in admin similar to attached image.



I hope I have made it clearer

line qty.jpg

Dear John,


[quote name=‘johnbol1’]I hope I have made it clearer[/QUOTE]



Yes. thank you. It’s clearer now. :slight_smile:



We are going to realize this option in one of later add-on versions.

In order to specify discounts on prints in percentage terms the new column will be added on the product edit page, in the Quantity Discounts tab.



Regards, Alt-team.

That is really great news.

This will enable many users who have mass qty orders to get more business.



Thanks

JOhn

We have found the following errors with current version:


  1. When I upload a larger image it fills in part of the background instead of just being a picture I can select. We have explained this error several times. It is a little different, but it still there.


  2. On the customer side, after uploading a custom image and putting it in the canvas I rotated the image and then move the image on the canvas. At that point when I try to expand or shrink the image it works the opposite way it should. So when I try to “enlarge” the image the image instead gets small. When I try to make the image smaller it instead gets larger. This seems to only happens after I rotate about 90 degrees and then move the image on the canvas.


  3. After I design something and I hit “add to cart” there is a VERY long drag time or slow time. There should be an hour glass or something that says “please wait while your image is saved”. I have heard many of your mention this before.


  4. Does everyone else show the “product designer” tab in the admin within the actual order? Ours does not show anything so we cannot see what the customer has designed.

[quote name=‘clips’] After I design something and I hit “add to cart” there is a VERY long drag time or slow time. There should be an hour glass or something that says “please wait while your image is saved”. I have heard many of your mention this before.[/QUOTE]

Agreed stops people clicking and clicking more


[quote name=‘clips’]Does everyone else show the “product designer” tab in the admin within the actual order? Ours does not show anything so we cannot see what the customer has designed.[/QUOTE]

The product designer tab was Ok for me if you mean the one attached with the actual order. Cant check for sure as I have disabled the addon it as its not really usefull for me with out being abled to give discounts on the designs. I am waiting to see if the discount ability is ready.



John