Extended info pages

[deano]

I wish to do 3 things.

1. Have the extended info appear in the same page - not a pop-up
2. Click on the product name for extended info (not text or image)
3. Have add to cart button on the extended info page.

I already have item 3 from Norman's handy code, but I see from various threads that this will only work with pop-ups.

I also do NOT want to use duplicate products.

[SamL]

1. is fairly easy, go to "Design" > "Text" and under the "Web Site" > "Html" tabs you should find "javascript:ShowPopUp....", simply delete it and leave only "%s" (without "quotes" of course) and your pop-ups will magically disappear.

Next, open the primary template for the extended info pages and incorporate all of your layout code so that it is a fully linked viable indexable usable blah blah blah page and not just blank white with a pic and text.

2. Not sure but I guess with some inventive tempalte mods would work...

Sam

[deano]

Thanks sam

I have already done all these things in iscolation, it's getting them to work together which is the trick.

So far I have got number 1 and 2 working but cannot get the add to cart butotn to work on the new extended info page.

I was using Normans add to cart on pop-up page fix but this only works when the underlying page is still there. If the extended info page is no longer a pop-up this fails.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[NormanRouxel]

Some of the NetquoteVars needed for the Add to Cart form aren't available in the Extended Info Template. My JavaScript picks them up from the opening page. You won't have this capability if you replace the page.

Here's a possible solution:-

On the main page popup use JavaScript to add the extra paramters to the URL of the popup and change the popups JavaScript to pick it up from the URL.

[sensible]

Getting Extended Info popup to appear by clicking on the Product Name

Hi Deano,

Can you tell me how you got the Extended Info popup to appear by clicking on the Product Name please?

Thanks

[sametch]

Like Deano I also want to do exactly the same I hate popups. It appears that adding the "add to cart" button is the stumbling block.

I had been thinking of creating a section for each product, so the final section has only one product and using the section list like a product list, but its a bit messy.

Can anyone at actinic find a solution to this, there are good number of commercial sites that work the way Deano wants and have good usability.

[Nadeem]

Hi Sametch,

This question has been asked twice already, i have answered the following thread: http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=14480

Kind Regards

[sametch]

Nadeem

The thread you point to does not answer what I would like to do.
I would like to create extended information for products complete with "add to cart" buttons, within the actinic main site templates ie I don't want extended info on pupups.

In the main sections all I want is very simple and brief product info, so i can get a lot on a page. If a customer wants to find out more they click on "more info" which takes them to a new page with loads of information on the product selected. But I don't want this page to be a popup and I want to be able to order directly from it without going back to the simple listing.

The answer you have pointed to is about creating popups from product names rather than "more info" links, which does not interest me.

Currently the only way I can acheive what I want is to have a section for each product with only one product in it and use the section link as if it was a product. This approach is an administrative nightmare, it doesn't work well with products that you want to appear in multiple sections and makes dynamic menus too big.

[deano]

I used a combination of Normans techniques and changing ID2175 and ID1192. When I get a chance I'll post up the exact code.

I still can't get the add to cart on the extended info pages though...

However if I could have alink that when closed returns to the product page with anchor (if the extened info is called from a search engine) the that would be OK.

[deano]

Some of the NetquoteVars needed for the Add to Cart form aren't available in the Extended Info Template. My JavaScript picks them up from the opening page. You won't have this capability if you replace the page.

Here's a possible solution:-

On the main page popup use JavaScript to add the extra paramters to the URL of the popup and change the popups JavaScript to pick it up from the URL.

Norman

I am unsure how to do this but it sounds feasable. Can you help?

[NormanRouxel]

Sorry, haven't time to do this for you. It would have to be something like (completely untested)

Main page

Set 'CUSTOMVAR:POPUPPAGE'

newpage='CUSTOMVAR:POPUPPAGE';// e.g. http://mysite.com/acatalog/mypopup.html

newpage += '?P1=' + document.getElementById('param1');
newpage += '&P2=' + document.getElementById('param2');
newpage += '&P3=' + document.getElementById('param3');

showPopUp(newpage, 400,500);


And in the popup code

have


var params = location.href.match(/\?P1=(.*)&P2=(.*)&P3=(.*)/);

now hopefully params[1] contains the param1 from the calling page.

[fergusw]

I would like to create extended information for products complete with "add to cart" buttons[/COLOR], within the actinic main site templates ie I don't want extended info on pupups.

In the main sections all I want is very simple and brief product info, so i can get a lot on a page. If a customer wants to find out more they click on "more info" which takes them to a new page with loads of information on the product selected. But I don't want this page to be a popup and I want to be able to order directly from it without going back to the simple listing.

How about approaching this problem from a simpler perspective.
You want a page that displays a little bit about the product, some simple info like price, image etc, which is clickable and takes you to the "extended info" page where people can 'add to cart'?
Sounds like you want 1 product per page and the section link as the 'simple info' product.
i.e. Section Name and description and image gives you the 'simple info' and clicking into this section gives you your normal actinic product page with add to cart etc and your 'extended information'.

The only issue would be ensuring that the section info (price, image etc) was updated when the product in that section was updated.
I have actioned this for clients with large numbers of products in the past and utilised Customvars for the price,info etc for each section and developed an updating macro that runs through the site and auto-updates these section customvars to reflect changes in the products within each section.

Does this sound a feasible solution or have I missed some required functionality?

[sametch]

Hi Fergus

Your suggestion is a potential solution as I posted on 16th June. It has some problems though, in particular if you use dynamic cascading menus you end up with a menu listing per product which will make very big cascades that are difficult to navigate.

Kind regards

Sametch

[NormanRouxel]

If you're using one of my Menus then it's possible to limit how far down the tree they go. It should also be fairly easy to configure them to stop 1 section short of the final one.

However, I'm only able to help people who've respected their "Donationware" status.

[NormanRouxel]

Someone "deano" is e-mailing me about this but with invalid reply-to addresses.