Convert Shipping Estimator To Stand Alone

[suntower]

My client would like to be able to use the popup shipping estimator in a 'stand alone' mode.

ie. He would like to be able to have a stand alone URL he can type in to display the popup shipping estimator, independent of zen cart... so that when customers call on the phone he can give them a shipping estimate over the phone... he wants to be able to key in a weight, country and zip with no product.

I looked at the code for shipping_estimator.php and it doesn't look -too- tough, but before I start spend a few hours figuring out how to populate the session variables and get around the fact that zen cart doesn't want this to happen, I figured I'd find out if anyone else had already done this... and had some pointers... or even an add-on.

TIA,

---JC

[schoolboy]

The algorithms used by the shipping calculator draw in their variables from the database, and some of these variables are also "temporary" - eg; the SUM of total weight of the shopping cart, which is governed by any given user session.

It also uses data from the shipping fields.

You cannot "split" the functionality of the code that drives the shipping estimator, from its key resource - the database...

It would be easier to create a stand-alone estimator - probably using javascript.