Splitting Product Full Description

[Runner]

I have searched but cannot find an answer.

Using V10

I want to split the product full description so that I can have the first part - the main features and benefits - then the price and add to cart under that - then the rest of the description which would be the product specification and technical details under that.

I don't want to resort to using fragments if possible. Can it be done another way?

[fergusw]

You could put half of the text in the "full description" field and the other half (technical details) into a product UDV (user defined variable) which would be positioned in the layout beneath the price and add to cart.
This would be one way to do it.

[Runner]

I want to include html like lists etc and multi line text. I'm not sure that can be done in UDV's. Well I can't see how to do it, anyhow.

[fergusw]

Keith,
You could use a variable in Actinic which is of type text and enter the HTML directly into the variable field. Alternatively you could use a variable which is of "file type" which references an external file which could be an HTML file or text file which contains the required HTML and multi line text.
Just two options out of several available ways of doing this.

[NormanRouxel]

My "Tabber" will let you do that. It splits the Product Description into text before the tabs and tabbed stuff, followed optionally by text after the tabs.

It normally puts all this into the Product Description area but there are optional ways to place the prefix text, the tabs and the suffix text anywhere in the product layout.

Tabber details on www.drillpine.biz/actinicstuff

[Runner]

Thanks for your replies. I've tried using the variable as text. You have to put all the code/text on one line. The variable won't accept multiple lines. Not a major prob but maintenance/editing is a bit tedious.

I'd rather keep all the product info in one place so I don't like the idea of keeping it an external text file - could get messy.

Norman - I've already got your tabber on my site

What needs to be done to achieve this split?

[leehack]

Details are in the readme you got with the tabber addon. Easy to do, just one change and one new thing to add and job done. I regularly use this so i can have an excerpt of text and also a tabber. Example - http://www.physiosupplies.com/acatal...y_-_85gms.html

[NormanRouxel]

Hi, Keith

If you've got Tabber you're in luck. The usual way Tabber works is that it (in your Product Layout(s)) replaces:

<actinic:variable name="ProductDescription" />

with:

<actinic:variable name="TabbedDescription" value="TabbedProductDescription" />

However you can extend this and instead of using:

<actinic:variable name="TabbedDescription" value="TabbedProductDescription" />

use:

<actinic:variable name="TabbedDescription" value="TabbedProductPrefix" />
<actinic:variable name="TabbedDescription" value="TabbedProductTabs" />
<actinic:variable name="TabbedDescription" value="TabbedProductSuffix" />

TabbedProductPrefix is the description before the tabbed text.
TabbedProductSuffix is the description after the tabbed text.
TabbedProductTabs is the tabbed display.
These can be located in different places in your layout if required.

A similar set of layouts is available for Fragments and Extended Info text.

Described in the Tabber ReadMe under "ADVANCED CUSTOMISATION".

There's also an example of such a product layout "Standard Layout Using CSS - Tabbed Descriptions Split" already available but it only displays the 3 bits one after the other so appears to operate like the standard Tabber. You'd need to move them around to suit.

[Runner]

Thanks Lee and Norman. That works well. I'm looking at not having tabs displayed at all. So I guess I can just restyle the layout so that I can lose the border around the tabbed part and it just shows as a heading and text.

[NormanRouxel]

That should work if you only use 1 tab. However it will apply to all Tabber instances on the site.

Here's two lumps of code that you can use in a Product Layout.

One that will display all Product Description text before the keyword SPLIT in the description (n.b. SPLIT must be in upper case).

<actinic:block php="true">
	// display part before SPLIT or full description if no SPLIT
	$desc = <<<DESCSPLIT
	<actinic:variable name="ProductDescription" selectable="false" />
DESCSPLIT;
	if ( preg_match('/(.*?)SPLIT/s', $desc, $bits) ) $desc = $bits[1];	// the bit before SPLIT
	echo $desc;
</actinic:block>

And the second displays all text after SPLIT.

<actinic:block php="true">
	// display part after SPLIT
	$desc = <<<DESCSPLIT
	<actinic:variable name="ProductDescription" selectable="false" />
DESCSPLIT;
	if ( preg_match('/SPLIT(.*)/s', $desc, $bits) ) echo $bits[1];	// the bit after SPLIT
</actinic:block>

So a description like:

This is one lump of text.
SPLIT
And this will appear somewhere else.

Can be made to appear in two different places.

[Runner]

Well that's just amazing. That's exactly what I wanted. Thanks Norman.