Smoky Barnable

As shared hosting environments become increasing more strict about emails, flagging perfectly legitimate emails to customers as spam, can anyone recommend an email service for transactional email? If anyone has tried these services what were your experiences?

Mailchimp is great and I still use it for Newsletters, but I probably will import my mailing list into mailgun eventually to manage all emails communications in one place. As far as updating your mailchimp subscriber list I use mailchimps api to do this on create account page. // include mailchimp api for newsletter subscribers include('ext/api/mailchimp_v3/MailChimp.php'); if (isset($HTTP_POST_VARS['newsletter'])) { $newsletter = tep_db_prepare_input($HTTP_POST_VARS['newsletter']); //make api call to mailchimp to subscribe customer to newsletter list $merge_vars = [ 'FNAME' => $_POST['firstname'], 'LNAME' => $_POST['lastname'] ]; $MailChimp = new MailChimp('xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-us3'); $list_id = 'xxxxxxxx'; $result = $MailChimp->post("lists/$list_id/members", [ 'email_address' => $_POST['email_address'], 'merge_fields' => $merge_vars, 'status' => 'subscribed', ]); } else { $newsletter = false; } and account newsletter page. // include mailchimp api for newsletter subscribers include('ext/api/mailchimp_v3/MailChimp.php'); if (isset($HTTP_POST_VARS['action']) && ($HTTP_POST_VARS['action'] == 'process') && isset($HTTP_POST_VARS['formid']) && ($HTTP_POST_VARS['formid'] == $sessiontoken)) { if (isset($HTTP_POST_VARS['newsletter_general']) && is_numeric($HTTP_POST_VARS['newsletter_general'])) { $newsletter_general = tep_db_prepare_input($HTTP_POST_VARS['newsletter_general']); $newsletter = tep_db_prepare_input($HTTP_POST_VARS['newsletter']); //make api call to mailchimp to subscribe customer to newsletter list $merge_vars = [ 'FNAME' => $_POST['customers_firstname'], 'LNAME' => $_POST['customers_lastname'] ]; $MailChimp = new MailChimp(MODULES_HEADER_TAGS_MAILCHIMP_API); $list_id = 'xxxxxxxxx'; $result = $MailChimp->post("lists/$list_id/members", [ 'email_address' => $_POST['customers_email_address'], 'merge_fields' => $merge_vars, 'status' => 'subscribed', ]); } else { $newsletter_general = '0'; //make api call to mailchimp to unsubscribe customer from newsletter list $MailChimp = new MailChimp(MODULES_HEADER_TAGS_MAILCHIMP_API); $list_id = 'xxxxxxxxx'; $subscriber_hash = $MailChimp->subscriberHash($_POST['customers_email_address']); $MailChimp->delete("lists/$list_id/members/$subscriber_hash"); } if ($newsletter_general != $newsletter['customers_newsletter']) { $newsletter_general = (($newsletter['customers_newsletter'] == '1') ? '0' : '1'); tep_db_query("update " . TABLE_CUSTOMERS . " set customers_newsletter = '" . (int)$newsletter_general . "' where customers_id = '" . (int)$customer_id . "'"); } $messageStack->add_session('account', SUCCESS_NEWSLETTER_UPDATED, 'success'); tep_redirect(tep_href_link(FILENAME_ACCOUNT, '', 'SSL')); }

I just set up Mailgun with phpmailer a few days ago and love it. Many shared hosts are using Spamexperts now to protect their server reputations, but I have found them to be much too strict.

I'm planning on using bootstrap tabs on my product pages and wondering about any seo issues. I have read in the past that google considers tabs as hidden content and can penalize you for such. Anyone have any experience regarding this?

Would be cool to have a message on the product page that displays if the customer already has the product in their basket and in what quantity. I've seen this on other sites and it's quite helpful.

So it is impossible to checkout even though the out of stock item is still shown in your cart?

Cool! Just checking.

I'm pretty sure the product stays in inventory until checkout. So two or more customers could have the item in their carts or saved carts until someone actually complete purchase, then the item should be removed from all saved carts and session carts.

On a related note, has anyone thought about if two customers checkout out at exactly the same time with the same product in their cart? For example, if you only have 1 in stock and both customers attempt to checkout at the same time. I'm not sure what the default code is but I remember a few years back I wrote code to address this. After the first customer checks out the item would disappear from the others cart. All saved carts would be adjusted to available quantities in real time. Hopefully that is the default logic now...haven't checked in awhile.

The message regarding order history is not relevant to this post. This idea is for shops that tightly control their inventory and sell only available stock. It would only be a helpful message to let the buyer know how many items they currently have in their cart, if any. Just saves the bother of having to check the cart if customer can't remember if they added it or not...and in what quantity.

Yes, of course they can click on the their cart to check. My set up is a little different in that I only display available quantity and if customer adds all that i have in stock to their cart and navigates back to product page they will see an out of stock message, because they have all that is available in their cart already.

How does the PayPal App connect to the PayPal servers? In other words, I notice occasionally the connection times out on the shopping cart page and the express payment button is not displayed. Same issue if using PayPal login, none of the login methods load if a connection to PayPal can't be established. Does the PayPal App cycle through all ip/domain addresses as described here? https://www.paypal.com/us/smarthelp/article/what-are-the-ip-addresses-for-live-paypal-servers-ts1056 The long timeouts are the concern to me. Perhaps something more robust can be coded up.

Thanks for this fix, it works for me. I notice when the login box pops up the background redirects to homepage.

The Login with PayPal function no longer works. It currently returns an Invalid authorization code error when a customer attempts to login using their PayPal credentials. On the developer site it states: It's called "connect with paypal" now and I notice the login button looks different.

Great idea...I was hoping the same.

@gadlol created the great Alternate Administration System that would do what you need. I'm not sure he is still supporting it but you could ask him. https://apps.oscommerce.com/YfzFh&alternative-administration-system-v0-3

Today a customer brought to my attention that if he put spaces when entering his credit card number, which many people do - a space between every 4 numbers, an error is thrown: “This transaction cannot be processed. Please enter a valid credit card number and type.” The customer figured it out but I'm guessing some people would just give up and the sale would be lost. I'm sure this is an easy fix. I just thought I would mention it because I see it as a fairly serious bug. Now that I think about it, the box where you input payment information is pretty primitive....could do with an update.

Just block Moldova .

I think being able to change delivery and billing address via a popup modul on the checkout_confirmation.php would be a good idea.

Thanks guys! Very helpful. I'm going to try out some of your ideas on my test site today.

Very nice. I like being able to tweak stuff in the admin. May I suggest also a way to turn off the product title/name.

Here is his config file without the database credentials. <?php /* osCommerce, Open Source E-Commerce Solutions http://www.oscommerce.com Copyright (c) 2003 osCommerce Released under the GNU General Public License */ // Define the webserver and path parameters // * DIR_FS_* = Filesystem directories (local/physical) // * DIR_WS_* = Webserver directories (virtual/URL) define('HTTP_SERVER', 'https://www.bibbtool.com/'); // eg, http://localhost - should not be empty for productive servers define('HTTPS_SERVER', 'https://www.bibbtool.com/'); // eg, https://localhost - should not be empty for productive servers define('ENABLE_SSL', true); // secure webserver for checkout procedure? define('HTTP_COOKIE_DOMAIN', 'bibbtool.com'); define('HTTPS_COOKIE_DOMAIN', 'bibbtool.com'); define('HTTP_COOKIE_PATH', ''); //define('HTTP_COOKIE_PATH', '/shar'); define('HTTPS_COOKIE_PATH', '/'); define('DIR_WS_HTTP_CATALOG', ''); define('DIR_WS_HTTPS_CATALOG', ''); define('DIR_WS_IMAGES', 'images/'); define('DIR_WS_ICONS', DIR_WS_IMAGES . 'icons/'); define('DIR_WS_INCLUDES', 'includes/'); define('DIR_WS_BOXES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'boxes/'); define('DIR_WS_FUNCTIONS', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'functions/'); define('DIR_WS_CLASSES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'classes/'); define('DIR_WS_MODULES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'modules/'); define('DIR_WS_LANGUAGES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'languages/'); define('DIR_WS_DOWNLOAD_PUBLIC', 'pub/'); define('DIR_FS_CATALOG', '/var/www/vhosts/bibbtool.com/httpdocs/'); define('DIR_FS_DOWNLOAD', DIR_FS_CATALOG . 'download/'); define('DIR_FS_DOWNLOAD_PUBLIC', DIR_FS_CATALOG . 'pub/'); define('USE_PCONNECT', 'false'); // use persistent connections? define('STORE_SESSIONS', 'mysql'); // leave empty '' for default handler or set to 'mysql' ?>

You are going to have to change your database password now.

@JcMagpie These are your addons and support threads and the community will benefit from them. Please reconsider offering public support. I know it can be distracting having to read posts from "professionals" that feel threatened by you, but I think it's best to not take the bait and simply ignore/report inappropriate posts.

Yes, I followed these instructions but I didn't need steps 15-17. You can use the compatibility add-on or hard-code the variables that aren't defined in frozen. I just included these files in includes/application_top.php // include the list of project database tables require('includes/database_tables.php'); // include the list of project filenames require('includes/filenames.php');