Quick'n'dirty reference list for using OrderAnywhere

[blackhorsedesign]

A client of mine wants me to replace their existing cart software with their new Shopsite account, using the OrderAnywhere part to be able to copy/paste the cart's code into the existing website. We're not using any of the Shopsite templates other than just the shopping cart/checkout portions and don't want to rely on the Shopsite itself to maintain the entire website because we've already invested a lot of time and energy in it over the years as well as SEO'ing the pages.

What I need to be able to allow for customer text input on the product's page on the site. I can't seem to find an easy explanation of how to do this. I can only get it to show on the cart page once the user has added the product to the cart. I've heard "freeop" but how do you get it into the cart's database so that the cart recognizes the new fields? Also, how do you have more than 1 text input option? I only see room for one on the Edit Product options. We need 2 separate text inputs on some products and I'd like to have them on the product's page itself rather than just on the shopping cart page.

Also how do you edit the Orderanywhere Link coding template? I want to tweak it to fit in better with the website's layout without having to manually edit each bit of link code I get for each product. (and also for easy maintenance for my client once the initial transition is complete.)

If someone could point me to the best place I can find these things out? Thanks!

[Jim]

ShopSite Pro and Manager store can edit the embedded templates under Merchandising > Custom Templates > Products. Use the Copy ShopSite Product Template button to find the two templates that start with em_ which are the two templates that ShopSite offers for the Embed type Order Anywhere feature. Once you have copied the template you can edit it and make changes that you would like. (Note: Starter level stores can not edit templates)

There is just one text input box per product but you can create multiple boxes on your page. When multiple input boxes are submitted to the cart the content will be combined to one field. You can use some type of separator between the input fields so that on the order you will know where the two separate inputs are. An example of using multiple input boxes can be seen on: http://www.shopsite.com/templates/cookbook/product16-textentryfielddivided.shtml

On the Commerce Setup > Order System > Shopping Cart screen you should check the box "Customer Text Entry can not be changed" so that the shopping cart won't have the input boxes and will instead just show what the shopper entered on the store page.

[blackhorsedesign]

Thanks, I'll look into those. My client does have the Shopsite Pro.

One thing I can notice off the bat though....will those tags work outside of the Shopsite software? In our own .shtml webpage files? (So we can just have the item info and 'add to cart' on our own pages, linking to the Shopsite cart.) I'm thinking they won't because they're look to be designed to go through the Shopsite software to get the data for them and spit out the results on a page. Am I right?

[Jim]

There are 3 different ways to use the Order Anywhere code, html that you copy and paste, urls that can be put in an email or on a website, and the Embed code that creates an Iframe for the product on the page you put the code on.

The method that I described previously would be for the Embed code. This method makes a call to ShopSite when the page loads and then loads the iframe with the elements of the product laid out according to the template that is assigned to the embedded code. This method is better than the other methods because it will automatically update the price, image, text etc in the iframe each time the page loads.

With the other html method you have to format everything on the page where the product is. The Order Anywhere code just outputs product options. maybe a quantity input field and the add to cart and view cart buttons. It does not include product description, price, image etc that has to all be hand coded on the page by the merchant.

The url method would typically be just used for sending in an email or on a banner image etc.

Because of the things you are trying to do the Embed code would be the best in your situation. You could use the html method but you couldn't just copy it from ShopSite and paste it on to your html page, since you want text input fields and that isn't generated for the Order Anywhere functionality. It could be added to the code generated by ShopSite but would have to be modified for every product that needs the special fields. Using the Embed method you create the code once and it is automatically handled for all products that you put on your pages.