Urgent help: product catalog?

ricoschette · 2006-08-10 15:06:15

Hi,

I am working on this project and suddenly my client wants something I am not sure can be done in TXP.

Is it possible to do that in TXP or not?
I mean it should be also easy for a client to update the content and add new products…
If it is possible, could you please tell me how?

I can do it another way, like this
But table-based layout… ??

TNX a lot for any suggestions :)

P.S. I am already looking for some e-commerce solution that could be used for that purpose and hopefully associate with TXP.

(Edit: please provide useful subject titles for your questions. -Mary)

Last edited by ricoschette (2006-08-10 15:10:40)

Walker · 2006-08-10 15:21:24

Hypothetically? Yes, it could be done.
Custom forms for different listings. Then categories and sections for types of items and items.
Then use joe_gcart for purchasing. Althought, you might need to get joe (or someone) to do some custom hacking on his plugin for you.

It’ll be some work. You’re charging a reasonable amount?
Somewhere in the range of $3000 I should think, just for the product catalog development. But more if you can swing it.

Oh, and that second link you gave was textpattern based. So yes, that could be done.

Last edited by Walker (2006-08-10 15:22:21)

ricoschette · 2006-08-10 15:28:52

Tnx Walker,

Well my client actually doesn’t want an online shop. He just wants it to look like one.
Very stubborn client, he is very-very difficult to negotiate with…daaamn.

I will take a quick look at the joe’s cart.

About money… as we started this project in January and then he couldn’t give me info for a 4 months (he was in France) I asked much less than 3000 USD. So, now this website tends to expand and it BS big time :(
Sry, I am little mad.

Walker · 2006-08-10 15:42:41

That is something that everyone discovers whenw trying to do freelance and self-employed web development. When you must actually earn a living off of it, you see the people coming to you for a website as an expense rather than a paying client.

Many people:

Fail to grasp the value that a website can bring to their project, identity, or company, and so don’t wish to pay.
Fail to comprehend or acknowledge the time and know-how involved.
Are not looking to or know how to manage scope. There’s always “1” more little thing to change or add.

On that last one, with the internet, there is always “1 more thing”. It’s the internet for crying out loud. It’s supposed to be fluidly changing and evolving. Those are extras, though.

I hope that you find you can explain to this guy that you must earn a living and that valuable work is just that…valuable.

good luck

ricoschette · 2006-08-10 15:47:56

yes, in here, Estonia, it’s not easy to ask reasonable fees (so one can live fulfilling life) for webdesign.
I mean for example, a simple website costs around 500 EUR, smaller corporate one ~1000 EUR. That’s ridiculous.

And about making it clear to my client why I ask so much… that’s useless, because he’d say I will see another designer. It’s sad…

jakob · 2006-08-10 16:39:25

yes, as walker says, that should be no problem using custom article list forms and sections/categories with each product as its own article. If a table make sense – in a sense it is a tabular price list – then go ahead and use it. There are some uses for tables and it’s not invalid or anything. Without the shop (the whole ordering setup) it’s a lot easier.

Alternatively use something like a definition list, e.g. dt = product-title, dd class=“image” for the pic and a second dd for the description and then float the individual elements so that it has the look of a table. It requires a bit of trickery to switch the order of image and title but if you have or can glance at a copy of Dan Cederholm’s “Bulletproof Web Design”, there’s a tutorial on styling up dl-lists (if there really is no chance of you being able to see it a bookshop, library or similar, send me an email through the forum). The “info” box on the right is technically not really necessary as it does the same as the product title.

I don’t have any personal experience of Estonia, but we did have an Estonian guy working over summer in the office (architect’s office in Germany) and even at student rates, he said he earned about 5x what he would have earned in Estonia. But he also said the cost of living, particularly rent, was a fraction of what it is in Germany.

ricoschette · 2006-08-10 16:55:48

You mentioned Dan Cederholm’s “Bulletproof Web Design”
Well, it’s pretty impossible to buy it from a bookstore. At least I haven’t seen it. There’re some of those Dummy-series, but smth useful, no.

I will think about the use of definition list etc. It’ll be a long night :)
Btw, I’ve just installed the osCommerce and thinking about implementing my xhtml code into it.

ricoschette · 2006-08-10 21:34:20

osCommerce is not what I am looking for, for starters it’s just so ugly :)

So, I’ve installed BossCart and it gives me more what I need: link
…

Last edited by ricoschette (2006-08-30 12:08:31)

ricoschette · 2006-08-30 12:16:43

damn, I’ve taken too much work on my shoulders lately and haven’t committed to this project…

Could anyone give me here in-depth-tutorial exactly how should I build this thing up?
I know it sounds pretty lame to ask that, but I could do smth in return.

So what I was thinking:

I will create html at first using dt, dd and classes… so it looks like a table (my client insisted it looks like one);

But then… as there’s like 20 or so different products’ group (art, icons, coins etc) and then there’s subcategories like Russian art, European art. And also there should be a way to sort art by its nature (paintings, mosaic or smth)…
So it looks pretty complicated to me.

Please, please, need some urgent advice!

hamba · 2006-08-30 13:36:56

I’m after the exact same thing for my next project :/

It will be for a computer store and they don’t want an online shop just a product catalog with prices.
Its basically an online shop with out the option to buy ;)

jakob · 2006-08-30 15:17:38

I sent you a mail a few weeks ago via your homepage with some infos – I don’t know if you received it. There were some infos in there. Depending upon how your list is supposed to look, I would not get too hung up about tables or dl-lists. If the product list is tabular in nature, then an HTML-table is also an appropriate way of dealing with it – you’re not using it to fake layout but to make a table.

To say exactly how you should best set it up it would be useful to know more of the breakdown and combinations of your product groups and categories and what you’ve called its nature. You can use a combination of sections and categories to sort and filter your lists of products, but there are no subsections in txp (there has been a new plug-in lately but I don’t know if will handle this kind of thing).

A key question is what you mean by sort by: If that means list all products in a group in the order of its nature, then that’s sort by, if you mean list only those products of a particular group and nature, then I would call that restrict to. Here are two possible approaches:

If you just need to sort by the ‘nature’ of the product, you can use sections for /art/, /icons/, /coins/ etc. and txp-categories for c=European, c=Russian etc. If you declare the ‘nature’ of the product in a custom field and use txp:article or txp:article_custom with the sortby="custom_field_for_productnature" sort method, you can list your products sorted by their nature.
If, however, you need to restrict to the ‘nature’ of the product, you might be better setting up your product groups and product sub-groups as individual sections, e.g. /art/, /icons/, /coins/ and /art_european/, /art_russian/ etc. and use the ‘nature’ of your products as txp-categories, e.g. c=painting, c=mosaic … That way you can use a section/category/ setup in conjunction with txp_article to restrict the products listed to only those combinations of products.

Some other tips:

If the product list looks more or less the same whatever the product group, you should be able to use the same page template for all sections.
If you want to perhaps change the colours of the list according to product group, use CSS by declaring an ID for the body of each product group, i.e. <body="<txp:section />"> and then use body#art h1 ... and body#coins h1 ... in your css to give each product group it’s own colour.
If you want to be able to change the sortby criteria for your list on the fly, or have different display settings such as ‘show pictures’ or ‘no pictures’ you may want to look at the chs_if_urlvar and the chs_cookie plug-ins to instruct the list to appear as you wish. For example, you set up a tick-box for “show product pictures” and save this value to a cookie using the plug-in, then, in your txp form for the product listing you surround the bit of your form with the img src="..." with the conditional, if cookie exists or if cookie var=. If it’s ticked (the cookie is set) this bit of code will be processed, if not it will be ignored. The same principle applies to chs_if_urlvar but uses the url &?showpics= to tell the list how to display.<br />In general I would use the urlvar for showing the same page slightly differently (e.g. sorted in a different order) and the cookie for general site-wide settings (e.g. browse with product pictures on or off).

Last edited by jakob (2006-08-30 15:20:53)

ricoschette · 2006-08-30 20:58:16

geeez, what a post :)
tnx a lot pal!

no, I don’t remember getting an e-mail from you. Or it could’ve been that I deleted it after considering it to be spam…

it’s too late now, midnight actually, so I will read your message through in the morning.

I owe you one.

Last edited by ricoschette (2006-09-01 08:46:41)

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#1 2006-08-10 15:06:15

Urgent help: product catalog?

#2 2006-08-10 15:21:24

Re: Urgent help: product catalog?

#3 2006-08-10 15:28:52

Re: Urgent help: product catalog?

#4 2006-08-10 15:42:41

Re: Urgent help: product catalog?

#5 2006-08-10 15:47:56

Re: Urgent help: product catalog?

#6 2006-08-10 16:39:25

Re: Urgent help: product catalog?

#7 2006-08-10 16:55:48

Re: Urgent help: product catalog?

#8 2006-08-10 21:34:20

Re: Urgent help: product catalog?

#9 2006-08-30 12:16:43

Re: Urgent help: product catalog?

#10 2006-08-30 13:36:56

Re: Urgent help: product catalog?

#11 2006-08-30 15:17:38

Re: Urgent help: product catalog?

#12 2006-08-30 20:58:16

Re: Urgent help: product catalog?

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