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  • #1

    Catalog/Shopping Cart

    Hi Guys,

    I noticed that there have been discussions WRT incorporating AMS with a catalog/shopping cart facility. Is this still under development or….?

    I urgently need the put together a catalog whereby the products can be viewed either via the CD (and/or installed on a local HDD), plus, incorporate some sort of shopping cart facility so as the customer can either print out, fax or e-mail an order of the selected product/s. Can I do this within AMS? If not, any suggestions on 3rd party software?

    TIA!!

    Nick.
    Tags: None
  • #2
    Re: Catalog/Shopping Cart

    Sure that's all do-able. You just need to setup a strategy, ask some questions like:

    1. Will the catalog need remote capabilities?
    2. Do I want to offer built in online secure credit card processing (https:// via web browser object)?
    3. What are the limits of my cart/catalog, i.e. how many items, how much info per item, etc.

    etc. Then once you have your objectives all clearly defined it's easy to go through and add the necessary actions to your design...

    Corey Milner
    Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

    Comment

    • #3
      Re: Catalog/Shopping Cart

      Hi Corey,

      Thank you for your quick response!!

      1. Can you expand on what you mean about "remote capabilities"?
      2. No.
      3. Approx 1500 products (in approx 10 categories and 8 sub categories) with no more than 20 - 30 word description but all products must have a part No.

      Thanks!!

      Nick.

      Comment

      • #4
        Re: Catalog/Shopping Cart

        No I didn't mean to answer here. I'm just suggesting a good way to go about this is to sit down and ask yourself all the questions you can think of about your project and then answer them to yoruself and make alist of your conclusions. This is the best way to vamp out requirements for a project for most people.

        Once you have done that you can formulate a strategy, i.e. how are you going to implement the solutions to these requirements in the best, most ergonomic and aesthetically pleasing way possible.

        As to the remoting, it means online. For example a catalog which gathers it's items from the internet at runtime is able to stay up to date, etc...

        Corey Milner
        Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

        Comment

        • #5
          Re: Catalog/Shopping Cart

          Thanks Corey.

          I have already done all that you have suggested. My next stage is to implement it!

          Can you suggest any links or “HELP” files that I could read and start implementing to AMS?

          Thanks Again Corey!

          Nick.

          Comment

          • #6
            Re: Catalog/Shopping Cart

            It helps to break things down into smaller tasks. Sounds like you're excited and ready to go though, that's good.

            So for example you have different tasks within your strategy I assume, i.e. create item display pages, create order page, create printable order form, or whatever. These too can be broken down into smaller tasks, i.e create display item pages can be broken down into things like optimize and gather jpegs, write a small description for each item, design the layout, etc.

            Best to gather everything you need first as a rule of thumb and then start building... Do a layout first then build on that... Sometimes it helps to create a mockup in Photoshop and then set that as your page background for the design process only, to use as a reference tracer, that's what I do very often...

            There's a link to the online help files in my sig here. VVV

            Corey Milner
            Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

            Comment

            • #7
              Re: Catalog/Shopping Cart

              OK, I hear what you are saying! [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

              Now that I know that it is "DO-ABLE" I will start implementing the layout.

              Thank you very much Corey!!

              Nick.

              Comment

              • #8
                Re: Catalog/Shopping Cart

                Happy to help Nick. One last thing. If you have 1,500 items, then you need to make sure your system is dynamic, i.e. it just won't do to have to create 1,500 pages, so I wouold suggest considering using a web browser object for your item viewing window and I'll tell you why.

                There are many different ways to do this but it's super easy to use a TEXT FILE > WRITE action to create/replace HTML pages on the fly, and they can contain freely contain any combination of images, text, forms, etc. So let's say you have a variable called %htmlTemplate% which contains your item layout in HTML. Let's say you place some dummy variables in the key spots, i.e. ###ITEMNAME###, ###ITEMPRICE###, ###ITEMPHOTO###, etc. then it's super easy to swap out those variables at runtime. For example let's say when someone goes to view an item your program simply uses STRING > REPLACE to add the correct item data to this string then saves it as an HTML file and display it in the web browser object... That way you only need one page with one HTML object and simply by re-writing the HTML file the items change...

                Like I say there are other ways but trust me, this one is the easiest and most extensible. For example if you decide to alter your cart's item view page, you only need to change that one single %htmlTemplate% variable and it's done for all 1,500 pics...

                Anyhow that's just a suggestion... The other very nice thing about doing this in a web browser object is that you can then use GET variables to hold your order details, making it very easy for people to add or remove items as they go along.

                To see an example of using get variables to power a cart, check out our site at http://www.liquidcabaret.com surf through and add some items to your cart as you go along, you'll see what I mean. because we're using GET variables that cart also works perfect on any browser, regardless of their cookie/firewall settings, regardless of whether they have javascript enabled, etc...

                Another thing is, if you create HTML pages for each item, you can easily make your catalog keyword searchable... For example they could search by item title, price, category, sub category, whatever... Again this should be part of your strategy in advance if it's soemthing you need, i.e. keyword searchability...

                Anyhow best of luck Nick, I like your enthusiasm, keep us posted!

                Corey Milner
                Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

                Comment

                • #9
                  Re: Catalog/Shopping Cart

                  Hi Corey,

                  Thanks for the excellent advice!

                  Though I must admit, it sounds as though there is a lot of coding involved, but hey, I'm going to give it go and see where I end up! [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

                  I have never created a text file with a create/replace action to replace HTML pages. Furthermore, I am trying to fathom the true function/purpose of this process. Are there any examples that I could look at?

                  My apologies for the dumb newbie Qs!

                  Thanks!

                  Nick.

                  Comment

                  • #10
                    Re: Catalog/Shopping Cart

                    would this maybe be a template available to purchase in the future?

                    Comment

                    • #11
                      Re: Catalog/Shopping Cart

                      Big time.

                      Corey Milner
                      Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

                      Comment

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