Adding extra details about the manufacturers

[Wilbo]

Hi there,

My shop will sell art and so obviously my manufacturers will be artists. I want to be able to add more info about each artist and then have a page where you can view it, is there a mod I can download to do this?
If not, is there another way of creating such a system and then linking it to the manufacturers id?

Thanks

Wilbo

[schoolboy]

Yes, this is possible (with a bit of "cheating"!)

1.
Set up all your artists as "manufacturers", using :-

ADMIN>>>CATALOG>>>MANUFACTURERS

2.
Create an EZPage for each of your artists, where you describe them and their work

3.
(You may - or may not - at this stage, decide to give each of these EZPages a displayed link via the various EZPages link display options. Let's assume you do not give these pages visible links - so prevent the links from displaying by making sure that they are all disabled. You'll make sure of this disabled status in the EZPages management frame by ensuring all the all the little square icons are RED, not green).

4.
Determine the PATH to each artist's EZPage. This is simply a case of seeing (in the EZPages management frame) what the ID is of each page (look at the LEFT of the screen in the ID column).

Then, on a bit of paper, write down the following:

index.php?main_page=page&id=20, where...

20 ... is the ID of a particular artist's EZPage ID.

So, if you have 5 artist's pages, you'll get a list that could look like this:

index.php?main_page=page&id=20
index.php?main_page=page&id=21
index.php?main_page=page&id=22
index.php?main_page=page&id=23
index.php?main_page=page&id=24

(Make sure you know WHAT url applies to WHAT artist!

5.
Go back to:

ADMIN>>>CATALOG>>>MANUFACTURERS

Then, in the edit console for each "manufacturer" (now "artist"), you'll see an input field in which to insert the Manufacturer's URL.

For each of your artists, input the various EZPages URL's written on your list.

6.
Go to: ADMIN>>>TOOLS>>>LAYOUT BOXES

... and ACTIVATE the manufacturers.php and manufacturers_info.php sideboxes, giving them an appropriate column selection and sort order.

NOW...

You will have a sidebox dropdown of your "manufacturers" (artists), and ALSO... when a customer views a specific "product" of an artist, there will be a sidebox just for that artist with a "more info" link. This link will be INTERNAL to that artist's EZPage !!!

You may also like to use (for the manufacturer's image) a little thumbnail of one of their pieces of work.

[schoolboy]

To alter the descriptions of the links that appear... eg: to change "manufacturer" to "artist", you will need to edit the DEFINES in various LANGUAGE FILES...

[Wilbo]

Thanks a lot schoolboy!
This is just what I'm after.

This is my first time using zc and I was quite suprised that this functionality wasn't already built in. Oh well, maybe in the next version.

Thnaks again!

[cliffvt]

Schoolboy, great bit of explanation here. I was searching the forum for almost this, but what I want to do, is put an EZ Page link into the manufacturers side box, So essentially I want the sidebox to contain:

1. Logo (which it does)
2. Their www. page (proper one - which it does)
3. Other products by this manufacturer (which it does)
4. A link to their EZ Page (this is the challenge)

Is there a way to do this? May need some PHP changes - any ideas?

Cheers

Cliff

[cliffvt]

Just realised, after looking at "manufacturer_info.php" and "tpl_manufacturer_info.php", that what I asked would require major code change... :)

I read in the tutorials somewhere that you can make an EZ Page display based on some criteria - can't find any material on HOW to do that though - anyone know how to do this? What I could do then is display an EZ Page based on the manufacturer being displayed only.

Cheers again

Cliff