All set to go... some comments on:

[FixItPete]

Hi,

 

I'm looking for some serious input on what you think. I am especially interested in the speed of the site. How are load times? What can be done to help.

 

Any input would be very much appreciated!

 

Thanks!

 

Link:

 

The Best Candles

[invasi0n]

That's a very nice site. It loads very fast I like it :thumbsup:

[FixItPete]

Thanks... anything you would change about it?

 

Thanks agian,

 

Pete

[tastar]

Yeah, your site looks really good. I like the descriptions that you added for each category - it's a great way to convey information about the products that you have.

 

A few comments:

 

Your what's new section shows 1580 items, which sort of makes it impractical to view (I'm sure that that will go away over time). Also, the 1580 items are significantly composed of the same items in different colors - like the Crumbie Bake Candles or the stick candles. It would probably make it easier to navigate your site if you used product attributes to define stuff like this rather than having a bunch of different products. Like you have to drill down 6 levels to purchase a pillar candle, and if you had attributes, you would only need to drill down 5 (and that still seems like too much). And, if you had a buy now button in the Product Listings, then you would only need to drill down 4 levels to make a purchase.

 

I think that some of the photos of candles don't reflect their quality. Like the standard base candle photos look too dark and odd (very narrow and tall images on dark backgrounds). If you used attributes, you could do a more attractive setting and then show color swatches or even use a More Pix contribution to show the various colors.

 

Your breadcrumb trail includes both Top and Catalog, which are redundant.

 

You might want to consider a purchase without account, since you sell small dollar amount items. And, your shipping add-on (that should probably have prices sorted from low price to high price so that people don't have to go to the bottom of the list to find the least expensive option) takes out a bunch of the mystery about e-commerce purchasing, so the purchase without account would extend that ease.

 

But, the real reason that I'm commenting is that I would like to know how you did the shipping info box. Is it a contribution?

 

Great job with the site.

 

Tony

[FixItPete]

Yeah, your site looks really good. I like the descriptions that you added for each category - it's a great way to convey information about the products that you have.

 

** I think the the category descriptions are a must have! **

 

A few comments:

 

Your what's new section shows 1580 items, which sort of makes it impractical to view (I'm sure that that will go away over time). Also, the 1580 items are significantly composed of the same items in different colors - like the Crumbie Bake Candles or the stick candles. It would probably make it easier to navigate your site if you used product attributes to define stuff like this rather than having a bunch of different products. Like you have to drill down 6 levels to purchase a pillar candle, and if you had attributes, you would only need to drill down 5 (and that still seems like too much). And, if you had a buy now button in the Product Listings, then you would only need to drill down 4 levels to make a purchase.

 

** I agree, I ported the db from another site of mine... and that's why it is like this. I think the next site will work as you indicated.

 

I think that some of the photos of candles don't reflect their quality. Like the standard base candle photos look too dark and odd (very narrow and tall images on dark backgrounds). If you used attributes, you could do a more attractive setting and then show color swatches or even use a More Pix contribution to show the various colors.

 

** Actually to be blunt, I think the photos (some of them) just are not that good. People get the candle and are floored by how nice they are compared to the photo!

 

Your breadcrumb trail includes both Top and Catalog, which are redundant.

 

** How can I get rid of that?

 

You might want to consider a purchase without account, since you sell small dollar amount items. And, your shipping add-on (that should probably have prices sorted from low price to high price so that people don't have to go to the bottom of the list to find the least expensive option) takes out a bunch of the mystery about e-commerce purchasing, so the purchase without account would extend that ease.

 

** YOU HAVE NO IDEA how much I want that!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 The problem is that the contribution I've found requires you to copy over files... I can't find a way to do it by editing my already heavily modified files... but if you have an idea... I would *LOVE* it!!! :) :) :) (This is why I did the estimated shipping box.) :)

 

But, the real reason that I'm commenting is that I would like to know how you did the shipping info box. Is it a contribution?

 

** No problem. I used this: http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contri...search,estimate Now, you're going to have to fiddle with it a bit to get it like mine... I played with it over and over... one of the things I can't get shipping to do is put the amounts in ascending order... I have one post that the member here told me how to do it, but I didn't understand exactly how to implement it...

 

Great job with the site.

 

Tony

 

---

 

 

Thanks for all the insight!!! :) :) :)

 

:) Pete

[tastar]

To modify the breadcrumb trail, I went to includes/classes/breadcrumb.php and, in the trail function, changed $i=0 to $i=1 to remove home from the breadcrumb trail. I'm assuming that what I did was to start at the second value in the array rather than the first.

 

Thanks for the link to the estimate shipping add-on. And, I never looked at purchase without account, so I wouldn't have a clue. But, it seems that you really know your way around this stuff, so...

 

Tony

[FixItPete]

Cool! Your breadcrumb "fix" worked like a charm! :) Thanks!

 

Good luck with the estimate ship mod. It does work, just hang in and tinker with it. I think it is a big plus to let the customer know the shipping right away.

 

Thanks again,

 

Pete

[celerityfm]

... one of the things I can't get shipping to do is put the amounts in ascending order... I have one post that the member here told me how to do it, but I didn't understand exactly how to implement it...

:blink:

 

Ahh! This is exactly what I'm looking to do! Can you, or anyone else, shed any light on how to do this? Shipping

amounts in ascending order would be so excellent! B)

[FixItPete]

Bottom of my thread here:

 

http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=209017&hl=

 

But PLEASE... if you have success... PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let me know exactly what you did!

 

Thanks,

 

Pete

[celerityfm]

Bottom of my thread here:

 

http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=209017&hl=

 

But PLEASE... if you have success... PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let me know exactly what you did!

 

Thanks,

 

Pete

 

It's a deal! I'll return with a full report, one way or another.

 

Thanks!

[FixItPete]

Thanks!

[celerityfm]

Thanks!

 

Got it working for USPS!

 

This was my methodology:

 

step 1-

opened includes\modules\shipping\usps.php

 

step 2-

searched for $this->quotes['methods'] = $methods; (it was line 113 for me)

 

Step 3-

Just above that line I added usort($methods, costCmp);

 

step 4

Add the costCmp function at the end of the file, before the last ?>, but AFTER the last }

 

// sort on cost, lowest first

function costCmp( $a, $B) {

if ( $a['cost'] == $b['cost'] )

return 0;

if ( $a['cost'] < $b['cost'] )

return -1;

return 1;

}

 

Step 5

Save the file, upload, refresh and, voila!

 

Note that I'm using CRE Loaded.. not sure if it will work without issue in vanilla osCommerce but let us know if it does. I'm going to try to do it with UPS now and will report back.

[celerityfm]

Got it working with UPS too!

 

There is a TRICK though when you start doing it with more then one module!!

 

Follow the same steps I outlined in the previous post but with the ups.php file in the same directory. EXCEPT, don't do Step 4, because the costCmp function will already loaded from the usps.php file. You only need to make sure that the costCmp function exists in ONE of the active shipping modules.

 

There is a better way to do this, but this works for now.

 

I'm just amazed that noone has taken the time to put this into osCommerce yet, the way it works now, without modification, is so foreign to me that it weirds me out every time I see prices listed the way osCommerce lists them.

 

Perhaps when I get some free time I'll look at helping to code this functionality into the main distro or something, but for now this will do the trick!

 

GOOGLE KEYWORDS: osCommerce sort shipping price ascending

[celerityfm]

ugh, that last post wasn't very coherent, sorry.

 

I was trying to say that if you want to make this modification to other modules you can do so, but you have to make a slight modification to the steps I outlined above when applying this mod to other modules. The trick is to skip step 4 for other modules. As long as step 4 has been done to ONE of the active shipping modules you'll be fine, otherwise you'll get an error.

 

Hope this helps.

[FixItPete]

Well... guess what?

 

IT WORKS!!!!

 

How friggin' awesome is that!?!?!

 

:)

 

Pete

[celerityfm]

Well... guess what?

 

IT WORKS!!!!

 

How friggin' awesome is that!?!?!

 

:)

 

Pete

 

Excellent! Glad to help. Cheers!