Price layout for customer accounts

[Lance]

Hi,

I have formatted my price layout by modifying the "StandardTaxExclusivePrice" layout. So far so good. This appears exactly as I want it for retail customers. However, when I log in the display is not at all what I want - the retail price list layout is completely ignored and some other layout is used. How do I modify this layout?

You can see an example at http://www.test.safekidswalking.org....log/Books.html

You can see I've added the text 'here i am' to the price text of Great Expectations. If you login using mrtrade|mrtrade you will see that a different layout is used.

How do I get the logged in text to look like the not logged in text?

Any help much appreciated.

[leehack]

Select the design tab and click on the price in your product layout, it should show you the different parts to it then. There is a layout group in the design|library called 'Prices for Customer Accounts' where you can open them up, but it's not the greatest to look at tbh. I think it will be a case of adding your I am here to see where you are at.

[Lance]

Thanks for the reply Lee.

I don't understand how actinic knows what layout to use for customer group prices. I can see the layout listed in the Settings|Site options|layout tab and that says "Use parent (Online tax inclusive and exclusive prices)". This is also the layout listed in the layout tab for the product (Great expectations in the example). However the only code for pulling in the prices is as follows:

<actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22PriceIsEnabled%22%20%2f%3e">
<Actinic:PRICES PROD_REF="<actinic:variable name="ProductID" />" RETAIL_PRICE_PROMPT="<Actinic:Variable Name="ProductPriceDescription"/>">
<actinic:variable name="PriceListRetail" />

</Actinic:PRICES>
</actinic:block>

This is straight from the sample website provided with actinic. Should there be an equivalent PriceListGroup or something like that? I can't see where you can say in the code "use this customer group price layout". I've tried editing
the layout "Online tax inclusive and exclusive prices" and my changes don't seem to get picked up.

I hope this makes sense.

[cdicken]

Lance

You need to go to 'Design | Library' then switch to the 'Layouts' tab and then look for a group called 'Prices for Customer Accounts'. There are three layouts in that group:

• Online Tax Inclusive Price
• Online Tax Exclusive Price
• Online Tax Inclusive and Exclusive Price

You can choose which of these is used in the store by going to Site Options | Layout and choosing the 'Price Layout For Online Customer Prices' under 'Product.

The code of these layouts is weird:

<Actinic:OnlinePrices>
	<Actinic:RetailPrices>
		<strong><Actinic:PriceDescription />
		<Actinic:QuantityApplies>
			&nbsp;(<Actinic:QuantityDescription />)
		</Actinic:QuantityApplies>
		&nbsp;</strong>
		<Actinic:TaxInclusivePrice />
		<Actinic:TaxesApply>
			&nbsp;<span class="actxxsmall">(Including <Actinic:TaxMessage />)</span>
		</Actinic:TaxesApply><br />
	</Actinic:RetailPrices><br />
	<Actinic:CustomerPrices>
		<strong><Actinic:PriceDescription />
		<Actinic:QuantityApplies>
			&nbsp;<Actinic:QuantityDescription />
		</Actinic:QuantityApplies>
		&nbsp;</strong>
		<Actinic:TaxInclusivePrice />
		<Actinic:TaxesApply>
			&nbsp;<span class="actxxsmall">(Including <Actinic:TaxMessage />)</span>
		</Actinic:TaxesApply><br />
	</Actinic:CustomerPrices>
</Actinic:OnlinePrices>

But it's just a bit of XML - the retail price layout is within the <Actinic:RetailPrices> brackets, the customer prices are within the <Actinic:CustomerPrices> brackets. The rest of the naming is fairly self explanatory. Have a play and use 'Revert to Factory Settings' if you get stuck.

[Lance]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your response.

I've had a look at that code but it doesn't seem to be as flexible as the code for handling retail prices only. I have customised the "Standard Retail Price List" layout and the "Standard Tax Inclusive" layout to put my quantity based prices into a table. You can see the kind of thing I am trying to do at http://www.test.safekidswalking.org....Waistcoat.html. There you can see the retail prices laid out in a table. Is it possible to do the same thing for the customer group prices?

[Paul Cooper]

I am having similar issues at the moment. I was able to alter the layout for standard pricing but now wish to copy the same text formatting for logged in customers. I was initially thrown by the code used in the Prices for customer accounts so I now see I need to read up on XML. The thing I am still stuck on is how to preview changes made to the customer pricing code before uploading for real?

Thanks

Paul
http://www.technobots.co.uk

[cdicken]

Editing the Prices for Customer Accounts layouts is pretty easy (I don't know XML either!) but you can only preview them online. Here's a guide.

<Actinic:RetailPrices>...</Actinic:RetailPrices>
Marks the start and end of the 'Retail Price' bit

<Actinic:CustomerPrices>...</Actinic:CustomerPrices>
This marks the start and end of the 'Your Price' bit

<Actinic:TaxExclusivePrice />
Formatted price (excluding tax)

<Actinic:TaxInclusivePrice />
Formatted price (including tax)

<Actinic:QuantityApplies>...</Actinic:QuantityApplies>
Marks the beginning and the end of the quantity-dependent pricing message

<Actinic:QuantityDescription />
Quantity-dependent pricing message (e.g. 'x or fewer', 'between x and y', etc)

<Actinic:TaxesApply>...</Actinic:TaxesApply>
Marks the beginning and end of the tax message

<Actinic:TaxMessage />
Tax message e.g. 'VAT at 17.5%'

[cdicken]

<fx: drumroll>

ta dah!

[Paul Cooper]

Chris, Shame you can only preview online but so be it. Many thanks for the guide, that will really help get me started. I did check the knowledge base first before posting, did I miss it or did you just put that guide there as well?

Many thanks

Paul

[cdicken]

I wrote the kb entry yesterday (just after posting your answer) so hence the fanfare. Hope you find it useful.

[Lance]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the reply - apologies if I'm being dumb here but it doesn't really seem to answer my question which was "Is it possible to make the group prices look like the retail prices however you decide to display the retail prices (assuming you have quantity based pricing)". Refering to my example above you can put logic around the retail prices to say stuff like

"if this is the first break qty do this, if it is a middle one do that and if it is the last one do this"

e.g.

<actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22PriceIsEnabled%22%20%2f%3e">
<tr>
<actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22IsFirstQuantityBreak%22%20%2f%3e">
<actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20Name%3d%22QuantityDescMax%22%2f%3e%20%3d%3d%201">
<td>(<actinic:variable Name="QuantityDescMax"/> item)</td>
</actinic:block>
<actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20Name%3d%22QuantityDescMax%22%2f%3e%20%3e%201">
<td>(1 - <actinic:variable Name="QuantityDescMax"/>)</td>
</actinic:block>
</actinic:block>
<actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22IsMiddleQuantityBreak%22%20%2f%3e">
<td>(<actinic:variable Name="QuantityDescMin"/> to <actinic:variable Name="QuantityDescMax"/> items)</td>
</actinic:block>
<actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22IsLastQuantityBreak%22%20%2f%3e">
<td>(<Actinic:Variable Name="QuantityDescMin"/>+)</td>
</actinic:block>
<actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22GetPriceListCount%22%20%2f%3e%20%3d%3d%201">
<td>Each</td>
</actinic:block>
<td class="myprice"><actinic:variable name="PreFormattedPrice" value="Product Price Excluding Tax" /></td>
<td class="actxsmall"><actinic:variable name="PreFormattedPrice" value="Product Price Including Tax" /></td>

</tr>
</actinic:block>

I've tried putting this into the online layout but the conditions and variables are ignored.

It appears to me that the retail layouts are processed within actinic and therefore the variables are available. However, the online layout with all the xml is sent up to the webserver and so the variables are not available.

If this is the case it would suggest that it's not possible to do what I'm trying to do.

Please tell me I'm mistaken and that it is possible to do what I want to do by messing about inside the xml! Alternatively put me out of my misery and tell me it can't be done.

Yours confused

[cdicken]

You can't use blockifs in these Online Customer Price layouts, and you can't use the variables from other layouts. All you can really do is add bits of extra code here and there.

If you want to do a table - check out the following code snippet...

	Your price: (excluding VAT)
	<table border="1">
	<Actinic:CustomerPrices>
	<tr>
		<td><Actinic:TaxExclusivePrice /></td>
		<Actinic:QuantityApplies>
			<td><Actinic:QuantityDescription /></td>
		</Actinic:QuantityApplies>
		<Actinic:TaxesApply>
			<td>(excluding VAT)</td>
		</Actinic:TaxesApply><br />
	</tr>
	</Actinic:CustomerPrices>
	</table>

If you want to edit the quantity dependent pricing messages, they are all in 'Design | Text'. Do a search in there for the word 'fewer' to find them. Remember to comment out <!-- %d --> rather than delete any variables you see there.

[Lance]

Brilliant!

I didn't realise you could wrap the table tags around the customer prices xml - doh!

That should pretty much do the trick.

Thanks for your time Chris. It's much appreciated.

[amylouise]

Hi All,

We're trying to add Customer Accounts to the site but having problems with layout. I've set up all the Accounts and Groups but the appearance of the Pricing is not at all what I want - like the other member I would just like a Compact Tax Inclusive Price style. I have read Chris' Knowledge Base Article but sadly having followed :

"Within 'Site Options | Layout | Product' there is a drop down list called 'Price Layout for Online Customer Prices'. You can use this setting to set whether customer account prices are shown including or excluding tax."

http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=44579

I don't appear to have any mention of this Layout in my Site Options. I've looked under Product and pretty much everywhere else I could think of but it's not there.

Should I also have a selector in the Design Library > Prices for Customer Accounts? - I don't.

Any help much appreciated.

Thanks,

Amy

Musthave : Retailer of the finest natural beauty brands
www.musthave.co.uk

[leehack]

Yes there should be an "OnlinePriceLayout" selector in that group. Do you only have catalog or have upgraded from catalog and these haven't been added for you possibly?