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#1 2007-09-19 18:59:02
- Logoleptic
- Plugin Author
- From: Kansas, USA
- Registered: 2004-02-29
- Posts: 482
JumpStart Auction Procurement
A client of mine launched a new Textpattern-powered site Monday morning: JumpStart Auction Procurement.
About the Site
Arsetta, Inc. is an application service provider whose Web-based software, ReadySetAuction, is designed to help non-profit organizations plan and conduct online and/or live charity auctions. ReadySetAuction has gotten rave reviews from its users. Unfortunately no software can, by itself, solve a fundamental problem of fundraising auctions: how to get high-value items to sell, without asking to have them donated from the very constituency who will be bidding on the auction.
JumpStart, an adjunct service to ReadySetAuction, was created to resolve this paradox for Arsetta’s customers. They can reserve vacation packages to sell at auction with no risk and no charge — the organization holding the auction only pays if the items they’ve reserved are successfully sold.
How It Uses Textpattern
The site is organized as a directory/catalog of auction items, sorted into categories. This is easily accomplished with Textpattern, and was made even easier with the rss_unlimited_categories plugin.
The reservation process is where things get more interesting. Because the auction packages are free unless successfully sold, the shopping cart metaphor — which has a strong association with “checkout” and payment — was a poor one for handling the reservations. Instead, the site uses zem_contact_reborn to provide a simple reservation form. ZCR’s extensive styling hooks helped make this form as user-friendly as possible:
A bit of JavaScript takes care of storing and pre-filling the form values after the first reservation is submitted, so every additional reservation only requires one mouse click. A combination of asy_wondertag and chs_if_urlvar lets Textpattern “remember” what was reserved and provide special instructions for each auction package on the form’s thank-you page.
This same combination allows the package descriptions for the auction holders, the descriptions shown to online auction bidders, and the data entry instructions for the ReadySetAuction application to all be pulled from the same Textpattern article and displayed with appropriate formatting. Arsetta staff members only need to enter a package’s information in one place.
Other plugins that were used for this site:
- asy_jpcache helps keep the site speedy
- aam_zcr_clearcache, which I wrote during the project to sort out compatibility problems between zem_contact_reborn and the caching plugin
- chh_if_data helps provide friendly error messages in certain edge cases
- upm_image and upm_image_popper make maintenance easier for my clients and their staff
- wet_link, for easy linking both within the site and off-site (using the
linkidattribute) - and probably more that I can’t remember right now
My thanks to Coke Harrington, Mary, Ruud, Noam Samuel, Sencer, Wet, Zem, and anyone else I may have forgotten. You guys help make Textpattern great, not to mention making my job a bit easier ;-).
Last edited by Logoleptic (2007-09-20 11:21:20)
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Re: JumpStart Auction Procurement
i always appreciate these types of details of how sites were specifically built using txp. thanks!
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#3 2007-09-19 19:18:48
- Logoleptic
- Plugin Author
- From: Kansas, USA
- Registered: 2004-02-29
- Posts: 482
Re: JumpStart Auction Procurement
iblastoff wrote:
i always appreciate these types of details of how sites were specifically built using txp. thanks!
Oh, good. :) I was worried that I was rattling on for too long.
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