User Defined Fields Advice Please

[Khrest]

I am considering the purchase of Actinic for a new business venture. However, every system I have looked at appears to have very limited functionality for adding extra information fields to a product form.

For Example. Our product will have a list of traditional option choices that will affect cost. No problem. However, we also need to obtain dimensions from the customer for each item. I therefore need a straightforward way of adding boxes to product order pages, such as WIDTH & HEIGHT, where this information can be input before the ADD TO CART button is clicked on.

I have a basic knowledge of html and .asp and was hoping to be able to use an off the shelf package to get this business going without having to employ a web developer. All the ecommerce packages I have demoed so far seem great for selling 'nuts and bolts' but very limited when it comes to items that have variable data that must be collected from the customer.

Can anybody offer some advice? I need something more concrete than the features list to go on before purchasing Actinic, as this need is paramount to our project.

[NormanRouxel]

I've done a (free) extesion to Actinic that allows an arbitrary number of Other Info fields to be input on the product page. Some can be made mandatory and others can be optional.

See www.rouxel.cwc.net/actinicstuff.html for details. It's Multi Other Info Prompts.

There's a bit of patching required - just follow the instructions (and back-up any files first).

However if your needs are simpler then it not too hard (a tiny bit of JavaScript) that would allow you to have 2 or more input fields and their data combined into the standard Other Info field.

Norman

[Khrest]

Norman, I've had a quick look at this and it appears to be able to do what I need. Many thanks for your time and effort.

Can I assume these fields can be added to any customer confirmation email?

I would of course still be interested in hearing from anybody with other ideas, especially as I am only at the planning stage.

[NormanRouxel]

As far as I remember (I don't actually use these patches myself - I just wrote them to see if it could be done) the additional fields appear on the customer e-mail as well as the printed reports.

Norman