GM1

Robert, Not serious, but I noticed that empty categories get links in sitemapCategories.xml. So using standard osc install where "memory" and "cdrom drives" are both empty categories, you still get them showing up (and both go to the same "no products in this category" page): <url> <loc>http://127.0.0.1/test/hardware-memory-c-1_16.html</loc> <lastmod>2011-02-21</lastmod> <changefreq>weekly</changefreq> <priority>0.5</priority> </url> <url> <loc>http://127.0.0.1/test/hardware-cdrom-drives-c-1_17.html</loc> <lastmod>2011-02-21</lastmod> <changefreq>weekly</changefreq> <priority>0.5</priority> </url> Again, not a big deal (most will not have empty categories), but thought I'd mention it so you know.

Yup, should have said that, the second case works as expected (does the correct thing and redirects, though still in LED because I forgot to remove the parent category change) the first case doesn't do the redirect to the correct parent category which is unexpected. My thoughts were that the first case should act like the second and redirect to the correct parent category.

Robert, In regards to Mark's issue, I noted that you can manually edit the parent category in the url and make pendants appear under LED lighting for example: http://www.lightingathome.co.uk/ceiling-lights/pendants-c-159_267.html So I believe this implies this is independent of cache. If you choose to rename pendants to blahdeblah, a redirect takes place and pendants shows up: http://www.lightingathome.co.uk/ceiling-lights/blahdeblah-c-159_267.html No response necessary, just thought I'd pass this on..

I had the same thing happen in my test setup which has the standard 3 osc languages installed and I got 3 entries generated per product. As with you, only in sitemapsProducts.xml (not sure why categories wasn't showing triplicates). Going into admin and deleting the unused 2 languages removed the extra entries and now have only 1 entry per product. G.

Answering my own question for others who might be interested: grep -R "function linkTextOrder" * I won't bother to post my hack since Robert doesn't need to answer questions about this on his support thread. G.

Thanks very much Robert, that worked great and I've now got it installed and working (using rewrite if you're interested). Could you point me to where in the code you build the product name that goes into the url? The reason for me needing this is as follows: I'd like to make a small hack so that I can shrink my very long descriptive product names to something shorter for the url by grabbing from the beginning of the product name string up until the separator (likely a ':') character. So for example if I had a product name like: ShortVersion ProductName: Extra long description of the product giving more detail for the category view then the url would become mysite.com/ShortVersion-ProductName-p-18.html instead of mysite.com/ShortVersion-ProductName-Extra-long-description-product-giving-more-detail-category-view-p-18.html If you can point me towards the file to start my search it would be very helpful. I'll post what I come up with if you think others would be interested. Thanks, G.

Robert, thank you for this and your other solid contributions. Love KissER! Planning on installing USU5pro, KissMT, and SecurityPro. Just now looking at your profile, FileSafe looks cool too. 1) Is there a define somewhere in the code to move the cache directory? I am a bit security paranoid and like to keep my includes dir 0750 and I like to keep things coded so that they can be easily ported to other hosts (where apache runs in my user's group or higher). As far as changes to the Dec release, I've seen post_2483/pg_125 and post 2507/pg_126. (I've read from page 124 forward.) 2) Any other updates to be aware of, or should I wait for your next update? Again, many thanks, G.

Hey Brian, Running under Ubuntu 6.10 Desktop (not server). The fact that this isn't properly server configured could be my problem since I do have a problem where images are not showing up when I //192.168.x.y/catalog from another pc. In regards to search engine optimization, I have Chemo's SEO mod on my todo list but haven't done that yet. Anywho, I'll backburner this problem for now and revisit it once I'm on a proper server. Thanks again for your help, Gord.

Thanks for the reply Brian. I am using Apache (part of XAMPP) but it could certainly be my test environment or some other hack/mistake I've done if no one else is having the same problem. If anyone else has seen this please reply... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- XAMPP uses Apache: http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html XAMPP components XAMPP combines many different sofware packages into one packet. Here's an overview over all packages. Many thanks to the developers of these programs. Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl, ProFTPD, phpMyAdmin, OpenSSL, Freetype, libjpeg, libpng, gdbm, zlib, expat, ming, Sablotron, libxml2, Webalizer, pdf class, ncurses, mod_perl, FreeTDS, gettext, IMAP C-Client, OpenLDAP (client lib), eAccelerator, mcrypt, mhash, SQLite, cURL, ZZIPlib, libxslt, phpSQLiteAdmin, FPDF

Empty Cart Problem (more data/info) Okay here is some more information on the Empty Cart problem I reported above. Step 1) Start at home page of site. Not logged into site. No session id yet. Add an item to the cart, click checkout (goes to login page). Here is what is in the address bar before launching off to paypal: //localhost/catalog/login.php?osCsid=a090cfda368786bfc265bc781abe1260 Step 2) Click "checkout with paypal". (wait a bit) Once at their site, click on "Return to xyz." (on the left near the bottom) Here is what the link looks like after returning to the osCommerce site: //localhost/catalog/login.php?ec_cancel=1%7Fa090cfda368786bfc265bc781abe1260&token=EC-8R4741312N422572Y Note that the "osCsid=" has been replaced with "%7F"! If I go into the address bar and change "%7F" to "&oscSid=" all is well. The cart contents are still valid, osc happily uses the session id. Now the question is: where/how is this getting munged up, and how does one fix it?? :blink: Gord. PS note I am using the developer sandbox, this is not a live site.

Empty Cart Problem If I click on the "Return to blahcorp." link on the paypal express checkout page, it returns to my site but leaves the customer with an empty cart. Not good if they simply decided paypal wasn't what they wanted to do. It works fine if you click the back button but loses the cart when the customer uses that nicely provided link. If you force cookies perhaps the paypal link would work but if I understand osc correctly it would fail for those with cookies disabled. Is there perhaps a way to disable that "Return to blahcorp." link? Does anyone with a live site have this problem (I'm running in a XAMPP environment at the moment: localhost/catalog which is perhaps my problem). I noticed back in November that this was discussed/mentioned but didn't see a solution (see quotes below). Any comments Glen(SteveDallas) or Brian(DynamoEffects) (since you discussed it)? I really appreciate all the effort that has gone into this contribution and this support forum. Thanks much! Gord. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Contribution can be found at: http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,5168

This will be the support forum for WC&DC. Gord. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WC&DC Which Countries and Default Country ------------------------------------------ Sure we all want to go global but starting up a web shop is difficult enough without having to worry about: accepting payment from, creating customs forms for, and shipping to many international countries. This is a simple hack to reduce the number of countries that you sell to but allow you to add them back very easily in the future. It creates a new show_country field in the countries table in your database to indicate whether or not the country should be listed in your country drop down lists. Then the code that creates that drop down list is edited to look at this field. Optionally you can also tweak the default country that shows up in the drop down list via another simple hack that tweaks the code that displays the country drop down list. Based upon the following tips and tricks thread: http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=85405 GM1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Step 1 - Which Countries ------------------------ (inspired by post by bluepony) i) edit countries.sql (included in this contribution). read the comments/instructions and add in the countries you desire. Note in the example that you can either specify the country id (which you can determine by browsing the countries table via phpmyadmin) or you can specify the country name in quotes (which you can determine by exactly copying the country name that is displayed in the drop down menu on the oscommerce default install - check oscommerce site if yours is not displaying all countries). Add as many countries as you like by simply copying and pasting the ADD line and changing the country id or name in each line. For reference here is the contents of countries.sql: #uncomment the next line if running for the first time, comment it if show_country already exists (ie if you have run it once already) ALTER TABLE `countries` ADD `show_country` TINYINT (1) UNSIGNED DEFAULT '0' NOT NULL; #use either of the following to add via country name or via country id #add as many countries as you like this way by adding more lines UPDATE countries SET show_country=1 where countries_name="Canada"; UPDATE countries SET show_country=1 where countries_id=223; ii) via phpmyadmin: 1) select your database 2) click on the import tab 3) browse to countries.sql 4) click on go if all goes well you should have the new column show_country added to your countries table and the countries you wish to use have a 1 in that field. You can add more countries in the future by modifying the countries.sql file and re-running it in phpmyadmin. For subsequent runs remember to comment out the line which creates the new show_country field. Step 2 - Which Countries ------------------------ Now you want to tweak the code that builds the array of country names. For database queries you want to add "where show_country=1". If there already is a "where" in the query you will have to add it like "where show_country=1 AND where..." Edit catalog/includes/functions, find tep_get_countries and comment it out and replace with the following (merge in any changes you have in this function if appropriate). Note the lines preceded by # are the original versions prior to the hack which simply adds the "where show_country=1" to them. // Returns an array with countries // TABLES: countries function tep_get_countries($countries_id = '', $with_iso_codes = false) { $countries_array = array(); if (tep_not_null($countries_id)) { if ($with_iso_codes == true) { #$countries = tep_db_query("select countries_name, countries_iso_code_2, countries_iso_code_3 from " . TABLE_COUNTRIES . " where countries_id = '" . (int)$countries_id . "' order by countries_name"); $countries = tep_db_query("select countries_name, countries_iso_code_2, countries_iso_code_3 from " . TABLE_COUNTRIES . " where show_country=1 AND countries_id = '" . (int)$countries_id . "' order by countries_name"); $countries_values = tep_db_fetch_array($countries); $countries_array = array('countries_name' => $countries_values['countries_name'], 'countries_iso_code_2' => $countries_values['countries_iso_code_2'], 'countries_iso_code_3' => $countries_values['countries_iso_code_3']); } else { #$countries = tep_db_query("select countries_name from " . TABLE_COUNTRIES . " where countries_id = '" . (int)$countries_id . "'"); $countries = tep_db_query("select countries_name from " . TABLE_COUNTRIES . " where show_country=1 AND countries_id = '" . (int)$countries_id . "'"); $countries_values = tep_db_fetch_array($countries); $countries_array = array('countries_name' => $countries_values['countries_name']); } } else { #$countries = tep_db_query("select countries_id, countries_name from " . TABLE_COUNTRIES . " order by countries_name"); $countries = tep_db_query("select countries_id, countries_name from " . TABLE_COUNTRIES . " where show_country=1 order by countries_name"); while ($countries_values = tep_db_fetch_array($countries)) { $countries_array[] = array('countries_id' => $countries_values['countries_id'], 'countries_name' => $countries_values['countries_name']); } } return $countries_array; } Optional Step 3 - Default Country --------------------------------- (thanks to post by scranmer) This step makes a very simple tweak to set the default country that shows up in the country pull down. In this example it sets it to the constant STORE_COUNTRY which is defined in your admin panel under configuration/my store/country. But you can change this to any valid country id say 223 (USA) if your store was in Canada but you wanted the default selector to be USA for example. Again country ids can be browsed via phpmyadmin. This should be obvious: you must have show_country=1 (see above step 1) for the country you set up as default if you have done the which countries hack (steps 1 and 2 above). Note also that this tweak is independent from the which countries hack above so if you just want default country, skip steps 1 and 2 and just do this. Edit includes/functions/html_ouptput.php and find tep_get_country_list and add the three line tweak shown below (or comment out your old function and add this one in its place): //// // Creates a pull-down list of countries function tep_get_country_list($name, $selected = '', $parameters = '') { #default country hack begin if ( strlen($selected)==0 ) $selected = STORE_COUNTRY; #default country hack end $countries_array = array(array('id' => '', 'text' => PULL_DOWN_DEFAULT)); $countries = tep_get_countries(); for ($i=0, $n=sizeof($countries); $i<$n; $i++) { $countries_array[] = array('id' => $countries[$i]['countries_id'], 'text' => $countries[$i]['countries_name']); } return tep_draw_pull_down_menu($name, $countries_array, $selected, $parameters); }

Any comments on how this "Endicia Dazzle XML" contribution compares to the other Endicia contribution called "Order Integrator": http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contri.../search,endicia I haven't found any discussion of "Order Integrator" which appears to be an app that runs on your home pc and accesses your oscommerce server, downloads the orders, allows printing of Endicia labels, updates the order status on your server. In addition it will load info into quickbooks if you like. And if you are also selling on Ebay and Amazon it will suck those orders down too. So it isn't a traditional mod your catalog contribution but an open source project hosted on sourceforge that runs on the pc in your warehouse/spare room rather than logging into admin on your oscommerce store server. Sounds like a good solution, but I haven't seen any discussion of it in these forums and there is very sparse info in the contribution and on the sourceforge site. I haven't installed it yet but it would be cool if it saves having to purchase the $300 Dazzle software. B) Anyway, comments feedback on Order Integrator and how it compares to Dazzle XML would be welcomed if you have any. Also, is there a test sandbox for Endicia that anyone knows about. Didn't see any mention of one on their site. Contribution of "Dazzle XML" (this thread) is of course here: http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contri.../search,endicia

Thank You! Great work Nate. Installation was a snap! Question: Is there a way to configure ( or point me to code to hack) such that when you click on a heading which has sub-categories, it simply opens or closes the category and doesn't go to a page (which gives you the same sub-category choices on it). The click simply toggles the category open and closed (same as if you clicked on the + or - icon). So only leaf nodes open a new page when the link is clicked on, folder nodes simply open or close the folder without a page request. For example if you go to http://demo.oscommerce.com/ and click on "hardware" it opens a new page showing categories of hardware and new products for hardware. I'd like the Dynamenu version to stay on the home page when you click on hardware and simply toggle open to show the sub-categories of hardware in the categories sidebox. My apologies if this has already been discussed. I skimmed prior posts quickly but didn't hit on anything relevant. Gord. My config if you are interested: $menu_type = 2; $show_dmcats_as_box = true; $menu_use_titles = true; $menu_icon_file = ''; $menu_icon_width = 16; $menu_icon_height = 16; $menu_fwdarrowimg = 'forward-arrow.png'; $menu_downarrowimg = 'down-arrow.png'; $show_full_tree = true; $menu_tree_current_path = true; $menu_layer_offset = array (0,4,4); $GLOBALS['dm_tree_folder_icons'] = false; $after_nobox_html = ''; $divide_subcats = 0; $divide_subcats_text = 'more...';