Extended Info-Link to another page?

[stuartmorley]

I'm looking to get my extended product info to jump to a new page with the ext info in, rather than open a pop-up window that appears by default. By having it link to another page I would want all the usual stuff that appears on every page to appear. The user could then hit the back button to get to the prev page.

Anyone any ideas?

[alexwren]

Hello,

I have also tried this question in the past but with no luck.

It seems that you have to have the pop up...

There is a really quite complicated way of making the product listing page the extended info page, then adding a section for each product but to be honest this would be an administrational nightmare.

Actinic take note - please can we have the ability to have the entended info page as part of the site, every other online shop has this ability and what with popup blockers and so on this is really not cool.

Rant rave etc!

[stuartmorley]

Thought as much. I would agree about the pop-ups. I wonder how search engines behave when they get to the pop-up - My guess is they will ignore the pop-ups. 8-(.

We used to have links to other static pages containing the details (before ver 6), that worked but was an admin nightmare.

[alexwren]

Hi Stuart,

Well you can put some code into the product listing that allows the search engines to follow a 1 pixel link to the popup. They can then spider the content (as the main link is javascript) but I am not sure what happens if one of your pop ups get indexed?

I guess that an orphaned page would load from the search engine link. This is pretty poor really as the extended info pages are going to have the most decent copy on to be spidered...

Alex

[stuartmorley]

Just thought of any idea.....

Take the html source from a standard acatalog page with products and strip out the contents of the table that includes all the products.

You are now left with a blank actinic page (no products)

Change your act_extinfo page (or whatever its called) to look like....

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
include (via cgi or ssi or js or something) the top part of the page upto and including the beginning of the table


The stuff in the middle would then be your ext_info stuff


include (via cgi or ssi or js or something) the BOTTOM part of the page from the </table> to the very end - get the idea...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You would then have to change your calls to the ext info page from javascript to a std link to another page (the ext info one) and that should work?

You would of course have to update the included files everytime you make major changes (that affect design) to the site. Also any section list info that appears down the left hand side would be stale if changed (unless you did away with it completely - or replaced with a lick here for sections or whatever.)

I have assumed that the site does not use frames (as i hate them!)

Any thought's........

[stuartmorley]

Yes good idea, your ext-info page could also have links back to your site or even to the product? - As you said before its a bit of a cludge though, but one that is necessary especially as you were right about the content of the ext info page. The other problem that we face is that we have an email this page on each page, but it doesn't seem to like working from the pop-up (maybe it can't ascertain which page to email?)

[alexwren]

I will have a look at that later.

My main issue is that we develop shops to then hand over to a client. Obviously I need to keep the ongoing maintenance as simple as poss as they may not be so computer literate as some.

In an ideal world you would be able to change a tick box on the layout tab of design options. It could say something like "open extended info in main window"

Sorry dreaming again.....

Actinic please fix this for us! Otherwise Stuart and I will keep moaning and filling up your hard disk with posts!

Alex

[Ben]

You can work around this by doing the following:
- Create two new custom properties - extinfolink, extinfotext
- Enable the popup - tick 'Generate Popup Page' - but leave all 'Display By' checkboxes unticked
- Enter the custom properties in the Properties tab with the required link text as the value for extinfotext and the popup page name as the value for extinfolink
- Edit the ProductLine template and replace
NETQUOTEVAR:EXTINFOLINK
with
<A HREF="CUSTOMVAR:EXTINFOLINK">CUSTOMVAR:EXTINFOTEXT</A>