How to display multi-column subcategories in CS-Cart

Often we want to display multiple categories in CS-cart at a category and sub-category (or, sub-sub-sub-category) level. We’re not sure why CS Cart doesn’t offer this out of the box, but for future reference, you should bookmark this so you now how to implement this in new cs-cart builds

http://kb.cs-cart.com/display-subcategories-multicolumns#3

If you have a question about CS-Cart, please feel free to contact us to see if we can help you.

We’ve recently deployed:

  • Coverall Stone / Cascade Stone Works – a CS-Cart build that sells by the Sq. ft for tile, pebble tile and hardscapes. It also includes a freight integration for CS-Cart (CSCart freight module add-on) that also offers multiple shipping options depending on what you have in your cart. We literally have it able to calculate up to 20,000 lbs of different materials ranging from stone columns -to- boxes of tile -to- fountains and accessories.
  • Bamboo Flooring by Plyboo.com – an Estees & CS-Cart deployment with custom buying options and shipping methods, a SugarCRM to CS-Cart integration as a chat system.

How to find & replace text in a MySQL Database

a function we use a lot is to quickly find and replace all references to a piece of text, word, whatever .. in  a database table or the database as a whole.

Common usages are:

  • Find and replace a word across all WordPress posts
  • Find and replace an HTMl Tag that appears in a line of code in a database
  • Find and replace part of a URL or image reference in a database
  • Find and replace an incorrect spelling in a database table or piece of content

As a baseline, the command is easy:

 UPDATE `your_table_name` SET `your_field_name` = replace(your_field_name, 'text you want to find', 'text you want to replace')

That’s it. It is that simple. Of course, you will want to backup your database before doing this like a good little developer, but we assume you already knew that. You can execute this command from command line within your MySQL account, or you can do this in a web-based tool such as PHPMyAdmin.

 

How to disable or remove CS Cart Upgrade notification or warning

We often get requests for how you can disable the CS Cart upgrade warnings or notifications that you get in the pop-up modal window inside the admin area of CS-Cart.

Often, clients will have us customize their CS-Cart builds in such as may that making use of any automatic upgrade process will overwrite core functions in their CS Cart build.

Some recent custom CS-Cart develop projects of ours have included:

  • Creating an ApparelMagic to CS-Cart integration bridge as an add-on (or call it Apparel Magic CS-Cart Add-on if you prefer) that syncs inventory in ApparelMagic to CS-Cart’s inventory process.
  • Creating a custom square foot calculator for CS-Cart
  • Creating a California Sales Tax add-on for adhering to the Department of Revenue city-tax rate system.
  • Custom shipping options for CS-Cart LTL Freight and Fed Ex ground (so it picks which is better for a particular order)
  • A custom framing application for CS-Cart that allows users to select images and checkout with framing options.
  • CS-Cart and online eLearning integration, where you can see online courses through CS-Cart and have it unlock.

So, in the end .. you can see where it would not really be wise to reply on an upgrader included with a cart like CS-Cart to try and upgrade all of your files automatically.

To disable such notices, you browse to:

fn_set_notification('W', fn_get_lang_var('notice'), $msg, 'S', 'upgrade_center');

And comment out this line. Easy. Fast. Effective.

Seattle Zen Cart Developers – Import scripts for ZenCart & Squirrelcart

Recently we released a free set of scripts to import data into Zen Cart from Squirrelcart as well as a series of scripts for importing customer data. You can view our SquirrelCart Zen Cart import scripts as well as our Zen Cart Customer Import scripts.

If you need help with a project like this, anf we mean any project involving importing data to or between:

  • OSCommerce to Zen Cart Import
  • OSCommerce to CS-Cart Import
  • Zen Cart to Magento Import
  • OSCommerce to Magento Import
  • Zen cart to CS-Cart Import
  • OSCommerce to Shopify Import
  • Zen cart to Shopify Import
  • Yahoo Store to CS-Cart import
  • any other cart -to -cart imports.

We’ve love to assist you with a custom quote. Just use our contact page to get in touch.

 

OSCommerce Point of Sale System

  • Also know as – OSC POS, OSCommerce POS, POS Plugin for OSC
  • POS System for OSCommerce
  • Point of sale for OSCommerce

Figure 1 – posshot1.png – Creating POS Orders in OSCommerce.

This screenshot demonstrates the standard three-part sales order view. The very top bar indicates where in the system you currently are. You are logged in as a sales-rep – “Dan” and you are processing a new sale. Next will come the individual line items.

Basic product lines in this OSC Point of Sale (POS) example, including kilt types and belt types, are specified in the first dropdown. Each has a two-letter code. Once these codes are learned, you can enter them without having to click the drop-down.

<p “>There are two types of order as specified in “Product”. A stock item is usually scanned, which populates the entire line with the relevant data. But it can still be manipulated manually. Grabbing the drop downs in a Stock Order will indicate what options are available, based on what you have already chosen. Choosing added-cost options will cause the drop down to change color and an extra cost amount to appear in the Attributes pane.

Figure 2 – posshot2.png – Using SKUs in OSCommerce & access your OSC Database via the Point of Sale System.

The SKU field is what the scanner will populate. Each combination of options has a unique SKU, so scanning a tag will cause all of the dropdowns to automatically update. When manually configuring an order, the SKU field is not normally touched. Clicking “Clear” will clear the entire line.

Putting more than a few line items in this view will give the Items pane a scrollbar, but in the top right corner of the pane, you’ll see an Expand button. This will expand the Items pane to the entire visible browser window, moving the Customer and Payment elements below the fold. The scrollbar will transfer to the browser window itself, as is depicted in the next screenshot.

Figure 3 – posshot3.png – Accessing customer data (OSC) via the POS.

When the Customer field is visible, it can be used to enter a new customer as depicted in Figure 1, to search for customers as depicted in Figure 2, or to display or edit existing customers as depicted below.

Figure 4 – posshot4.png – POS & Payment information. Using a POS in OSC to fullfill payment and transaction.

This also showcases some of the Payment field functionality. Since this functionality is usually tied to your preferred Gateway / Payment processor, we will not go into detail on it. It serves to indicate at a glance what the payment method and details are.

This POS System for OScommerce & ZenCart is VERY robust and is not one of those things that just comes off the shelf. It is a custom install service we’re happy to offer. For more information – call us at 877-239-3063 or 425-466-0804 if you are in the Seattle-area.

Email us questions about our OSC POS!

Virtuemart Destination Based Sales Tax for Joomla

We’ve just completed another Virtuemart Destination-based sale tax module for Joomla. You can see it in action here: Ozonegear.org

When considering Destination-based Sale Tax calculations for Virtuemart you need to deal with:

  1. Solve the problem with getting your customers to give you their zip + 4 information during the registration or checkout process. Since most people, including myself, do not readily know our zip + 4 information – you need to have a method for suggesting to the customer what it might be. You see this on high-end systems such as Buy.com or Amazon.com.
  2. We do this by taking the user input and when they enter in their address we make a call out to either the USPS Web Service or Yahoo Maps API and send the zip and map it to the missing +4.
  3. Then, you present them with what you “think” is the +4 based on the info returned. When the customer selects it, it then writes to their customer profile in the database.
  4. You can also make this call out during the registration process or anyt time that they update their address information.
  5. Then, in our case we get the sales tax tables from the WA State Department of Revenue and compare it with the zip +4  information for that order, based on destination and then get the correct tax rate for the specific destination now based on the zip +4.
  6. Then, it is just a matter of clean up in Virtuemart, Zen cart, OSCommerce or whatever other shopping cart you are using to calculate the tax against the order + shipping to arrive at a final total that reflect destination-based sale tax for your Wa State order – or any other state for that matter so long as the information is available.

It is not exactly a drop-in module by any means – but it does take care of your destination-based taxes, calculations and reporting in less money than a trip to your accountant for advice.

If you want more information on how we can work for you and solve your destination-based sale tax project, whetehr for Virtuemart or any other shopping cart – contact us today.

    Zen Cart POS System

    The Zen Cart & OSCommerce AJAX POS System  is getting close to having a release ready. For more information on the OSCommerce POS or the Zen Cart POSclick here.

    It works as an add-on module that hooks your OSC or Zen Database and still allows you to control attributes and information from inside OSC and Zen cart respectively.   The fact that it is AJAX means you can do speedy real time lookups of customer information and orders. We have several brick and mortor stores who do millions in sales using the BETA of our system.

    Destination Based Sales Tax – Zen Cart & OSCommerce

    After a very long development cycle, we now have custom modules for Zen-cart and Oscommerce that can calculate destination-based sales tax. Using a combination of address verification and data made available by your State you can become compliant in no time flat.

    The modules calculate based on Zip +4 to break down the sales tax by zip code and the 4 digit code as well. If you tax rates change quarterly like our state, you can upload and parse the CSV file they make available to you in order to update the rates in bulk. For more information, contact us here.

    Custom Zen Cart Build – Each Catagory has its own Specials & Featured Module.

    We’ve recently completed a new modification to a West-Coast Satellite Radio retailer – JJIElectronics.com that is working really well for them. We’ve added the ability to define the specials and featured products on a per-category basis.

    Example #1 -XM Satellite Radios

    For the admin, it really is as easy as assigning special or featured products with a few selection boxes and both the design styling and information shows up within the design template. Your clients do not have to mess with the description box or define_mainpage – it is that easy.

    Zen Cart Feature – Displaying Zen-Cart Sub-categories in the Main Menu.

    We’ve also built a dynamic menu system that displays all the the categories & sub-categories on the same menu – this is great for providing customers the ability to see all of the types of products you offer rather than force them to search. You can see the Zen Cart Dynamic Menu examples here. This helps your main page get spidered for all top-level keywords (which for an ecommerce site should start with your categories of products that you sell at the very least.

    Zen Cart Feature – Multiple Shopping Feeds and “Referral Network” Integration.

    Feedburner, Yahoo Shopping, Google Base / Froogle and Bizrate. We set up this Zen Cart build so it would detect the inbound referral and pop the correct survey box based on whether they came from BizRate, Shopping.com, etc. Most of these services give you their code to integrate and it really does nothing except pop the survey after you have successfully checked out. If you are a business as large as this client – and make use of several networks – then you either have to dynamically detect the referral and trigger the appropriate code – or you are stuck with popping all of the various surveys and letting the user fill out whichever one is relevant. Since JJIElectronics.com cares about their user’s experiences – they went with the auto-detect.

    Additional Zen-Cart Modules

    In addition to the stock build, we also added:

    • Custom Shipping Tables & Rules
    • Google Checkout & PayPal Express (that conforms to the above – just try that… we dare you.)
    • An AJAX Sidebar Manager – to allow the various advertising, banners, buttons and tables they display throughout their site (ala DeepDiscountDVD.com & TigerDirect)
    • A Zen-Cart to QuickBooks Exporter
    • An advanced order manager that allowed batching of functions and printing.
    • An advanced reporting module that allowed for reports to be generated on keywords and stock control.
    • A total Zen Cart SEO overhaul.
    • and Special Holiday Headers for a nice friendly touch!

    All in all – a very effective website and relationship. For more information on our custom Zen Cart Developers & Zen Cart Development Services – just visit our website. Whether you need a Seattle Zen Cart Developer
    or just want to outsource your problems to us – we are ready to help you. [We do not outsource ourselves, the buck stop here.]

    Zencart Google Checkout and freeoptions shipping module issue and solution

    Symptom:
    My client is using the new Google Checkout Module with Carrier Calculated Shipping, et al. (v1.4.5)

    You can see the Google Checkout module for ZenCart here.

    His freeoptions shipping module allows free shipping for orders greater than $50.00.
    This is what his freeoptions shipping method options are:
    Shipping Cost: 0.00
    Handling Fee: 0
    Total >= 50.00
    Total < =
    Weight >=
    Weight < =
    Item Count >=
    Item Count < =

    When you navigate to google checkout as a customer, it would not follow the pricing rules-- it would allow free shipping for any order regardless of price.

    Here’s the Zen Cart Google Checkout Solution:

    In the googlecheckout/gcheckout.php file, find these two lines: (line numbers 533 & 534)

    $price = $quote['methods'][0]['cost'];
    $shipping_price = $currencies->get_value(DEFAULT_CURRENCY) * ($price>=0?$price:0);

    replace them with:

    if ($quote) {
    $price = $quote['methods'][0]['cost'];
    $shipping_price = $currencies->get_value(DEFAULT_CURRENCY) * ($price>=0?$price:0);
    }else{
    unset($googlepayment->mc_shipping_methods[$key]) ;
    continue ;
    }

    This should fix the other options in freeshipper as well – items, and weight, since it performs the same way (though I haven’t fully tested it in every possible combination or onfiguration). It should also fix any other shipping methods that just don’t show up based on some sort of option configuration.

    Hope this helps someone else!

    Kevin