Hacks, Mods and Add-Ons You Can't Live Without

[grantglendinnin]

Hey Guys (and Girls, too!)

I've been doing a bit of Googling tonight and looked at various Actinic sites - including those Actinic-based sites in forum members' signatures and have noticed several features which have been added to the functionality of Actinic sites using various methods not strictly within the standard Out-of-Box package.

So, it got me wondering - for the Actinic site developers - which ecommerce hacks, modifications to Actinic and add-ons (ie. plugins) do you people use on the majority of sites you create?

Further to that question - please post your favourite Actinic add ons (and whether or not they are available for free or to buy)

Though I've only used it on a test site to check functionality, my personal recommendation is the 'Actinic Quick Checkout' mod released by John@StinkyInk. Though I've not actually tried this on a live site - I will hopefully do so in the coming months and will gladly give credit where credit's due!

Cheers,
Grant

[dave_finlayson]

For me Normans Multi Column search results and the simple hack to remove the component quantity from the checkout are both essential for the day to day running of a site. Gabe's actSQL sync is now becoming just as essentail for us and will be more and more as we develop stuff specifically for it.

[jont]

My favourite "hack" is to place the actinic.css into an external file and use notepad .... saves me literally hours of work on each site.

[TraceyHand]

User Input formatting! I detest going through lazy customers' orders and capitalising the address lines so GBradley's address formatting is a great time saver!

[grantglendinnin]

User Input formatting! I detest going through lazy customers' orders and capitalising the address lines so GBradley's address formatting is a great time saver!

Yep, I didn't even know this one was available until you mentioned this - so thanks very much Tracey, I've saved almost 4 minutes so far today - so that'll be almost 21 hours saved by the end of the year. Well worth it for the 4 minutes worth of work it took to put it into Actinic. Thanks very much for that.

the simple hack to remove the component quantity from the checkout

I'm not quite sure which 'hack' you are referring to, but would like to see a sample site of this 'hack' in place and working so I can deem whether or not it's a necessity.

I've got quite a few ideas floating around - one of which is the online order status plugin.

I've seen two or three around the web, as well as Gabe's version - does anyone know which is best? (No offence to the developers)

Cheers,
Grant

[Darren B]

I've seen two or three around the web, as well as Gabe's version - does anyone know which is best? (No offence to the developers)

Cheers,
Grant

I prefer Gabes, maybe a tad biast but it has to be the simpliest thing to setup and use, and as with all of gabes things, they seem to have no end to them as gabe designs something else to graft into it.

Favorite hacks

The best was the hack Norman wrote for me to add any item to basket using just the part number. - paid for
Postcode lookup was one, before it became part of actinic. - free
Not really a favorite as i have yet to use it but Normans tabber menu is kinda neat, if i had a use for it im sure i would and to be honest i am nearing that point i could do with it. - paid for
order number hack, to use the 1st four digits of the postcode - free
RRP price displaying using variables

just a few

[TraceyHand]

I'm not quite sure which 'hack' you are referring to, but would like to see a sample site of this 'hack' in place and working so I can deem whether or not it's a necessity.

I think David is referring to THIS