More Info page / Product display questions

[David]

I want to display a particular product in different fashion on different
pages - using templates.

Out of the box I can do:

Product1 using Format1 on Page1
Product1 using MoreInfoFormat on MoreInfo Page (pseudo* 2nd page)

*I can actually work with this, but there seems to be some major
shortcomings with the template capabilities on the More Info Page.

Is there any way - using templates - to format the More Info Page with
page links or some form of navigation? (the default navigation plan seems
to be the browsers back button - which leads to some confusion when the
shopper returns to a More Info Page from the carts Continue Shopping
button)


What I really want is the following:

CustomPageTemplate.1
*
[-- Product.ProductTemplate.1 --]
*



CustomPageTemplate.2
*
[-- Product.ProductTemplate.2 --]
*
{products are displayed on Pages with a user specified Product Template}

~~~~~ or even ~~~~~~

CustomPageTemplate.x
*
[-- Product.Name --] [Product.Code --] etc.
*
{products are display on Pages using Product db tags}

If I could use the tools above, I wouldn't bother with the More Info pages.

I realize that I could hardcode links (aka "future dead links") into the
More Info Template but I need page addition and deletion to be dynamic.

What I am ultimately trying to accomplish is a line-item product listing
on one page with links to *Product Detail* pages - and have consistent
navigation on all pages.

Am I missing a method of accomplishing this?

Thanks,
David Ebinger

[loren_d_c]

In ShopSite v7 you can override the template selection for products when
you do the LOOP PRODUCTS in your page template, so you could have:

CustomPageTemplate1:
[-- LOOP PRODUCTS --]
[-- PRODUCT CustomProductTemplate1 --]
[-- END_LOOP PRODUCTS --]

CustomPageTemplate2:
[-- LOOP PRODUCTS --]
[-- PRODUCT CustomProductTemplate2 --]
[-- END_LOOP PRODUCTS --]

A workaround to this in v6 is to set a VAR with different values in your
two page templates prior to the LOOP PRODUCTS loop, and then use IF
statements in one custom product template to test the VAR to see which
way to display the product. Similar to this:

CustomPageTemplate1:
[-- VAR.ProductStyle "style1" --]

CustomPageTemplate2:
[-- VAR.ProductStyle "style2" --]

CustomProductTemplate:
[-- IF VAR.ProductStyle "style1" --]
{ do style1 stuff here }
[-- ELSE_IF VAR.ProductStyle "style2" --]
{do style 2 stuff here }
[-- END_IF --]


-Loren



David wrote:

I want to display a particular product in different fashion on different
pages - using templates.

Out of the box I can do:

Product1 using Format1 on Page1
Product1 using MoreInfoFormat on MoreInfo Page (pseudo* 2nd page)

*I can actually work with this, but there seems to be some major
shortcomings with the template capabilities on the More Info Page.

Is there any way - using templates - to format the More Info Page with
page links or some form of navigation? (the default navigation plan
seems to be the browsers back button - which leads to some confusion
when the shopper returns to a More Info Page from the carts Continue
Shopping button)


What I really want is the following:

CustomPageTemplate.1
*
[-- Product.ProductTemplate.1 --]
*



CustomPageTemplate.2
*
[-- Product.ProductTemplate.2 --]
*
{products are displayed on Pages with a user specified Product Template}

~~~~~ or even ~~~~~~

CustomPageTemplate.x
*
[-- Product.Name --] [Product.Code --] etc.
*
{products are display on Pages using Product db tags}

If I could use the tools above, I wouldn't bother with the More Info pages.

I realize that I could hardcode links (aka "future dead links") into the
More Info Template but I need page addition and deletion to be dynamic.

What I am ultimately trying to accomplish is a line-item product listing
on one page with links to *Product Detail* pages - and have consistent
navigation on all pages.

Am I missing a method of accomplishing this?

Thanks,
David Ebinger