zen cart for contact lenses?

[thedjphat]

Having a look at some of the code in the flexible attributes mod I am currently running in includes/modules/MY_TEMPLATE/attributes.php

I see there may be the possibility to double the attribute call by adding php which creates a clone of the attribute arrays, and displaying that cloned call instead of the duplicated call I am currently using, within the form_post. (does that make sense?)

This would work on all of the contact lens attributes, possibly even the quantity factors, ideally.

The attribute setup is this, everything is called from the database separately as it is, causing a lot of queries.

BC / DIA | POWER | CYL | AXIS | QUANTITY
2 BC / DIA | 2 POWER | 2 CYL | 2 AXIS | 2 QUANTITY

What I need to happen is eliminate the extra database info for the attributes right? Is there a more efficient way to approach this?

On a positive note, we have signed up with a much better host, so with tuning, this won't be that much of a problem, but is worth revising, so once we do get busy, it doesn't become a further issue.

[kobra]

Suggest that you create a test install to do your tweaking with so as not to take down your live site in the event of an issue

Just make good notes on what you alter and where possible use the template override system

[thedjphat]

yea, i've set up a local server with Wamp, but there are some issues running the site without ssl as it comes to testing locally. I've been keeping track of my modifications, and of course the override is great

[kobra]

Setup a test install on your server

[thedjphat]

How can i emulate ssl locally? Or should I just disable it for the local server?

[kobra]

Or should I just disable it for the local server?

You can not using wamp - - so disable it

[thedjphat]

K, simple enough. How goes the server stuff?

[thedjphat]

Update:

We've managed to migrate the site and database to our new host, turning a 15 second page load into a 4 second load. (Thanks Kobra!) Still a bit high, but a significant improvement.

We are in the process of transferring our SSL certificate, so the site has been put in maintenance mode for that duration to ensure client privacy (we don't want anyone signing up while SSL is down)

I've set up a private server using Wamp, which runs very slowly on my machine at home - but it allows me to make severe alterations without messing up the live site.

I've been studying the core files which have been altered in any way, comparing directories with win-merge - which allowed me to find a few remnants of the lightbox3 plugin which were causing parse errors - removing these improved the parse time, but only slightly.

The battle continues.

[thedjphat]

Transfer is complete now. We ran into several unexpected issues, such as the email settings in zen cart (was sendmail - needed to be php)

One I didn't expect was conflicting mailservers - both godaddy and pimahost had copies of catchall emails for @opticalnow.ca, so until I figured this out, emails were not being recieved or sent correctly, and I wasn't being notified. Deleting the email account at godaddy resolved this, all is well once again.

Now that it's all working again, I can get back to working on the parse time situation. Query time is now very good - 3801 queries in 0.37 seconds!

Parse Time: 3.898 - Number of Queries: 3801 - Query Time: 0.374144333511

[thedjphat]

Model List Plugin - the answer to my navigation and SEO needs.
I also added Corner Site Seal for a new look, and removed a lot of stuff from the footer.
whatcha think? http://opticalnow.ca