confusion about override system

[abdulmueid]

Good day everyone...

I am new to Zen Cart and would like to make some changes to how my Zen Cart works, however I need someone more experienced to point me in the right direction.

I am currently using Zen Cart version 1.3.8a and havent installed any modules.

Here is what I would like to accomplish:

On the products listing page, I would like to add an addition filter that filters the products based on the price range in addition to manufacturer and Items starting with a certain alphabet.

Now here's the catch: I want to make the price filter Ajax'ed so that the customer can see the products in his/her price range in real time.

I have worked with functionality like this previously using JQuery and plain PHP. But in this case I would like to have this functionality integrated with Zen Cart.

My observations:

- Currently the only way to search the price range is to use Advanced search.
- I have to somehow use the overrides to accomplish what I need.

I have no clue as to where I should start. Everything seems too scattered.

Ideally what I would like is to have the Advanced Search Result return the data in:
- XML, or
- JSON

I can then implement the AJAX calls to advanced search in product listing so that as the user types his/her price range, the advanced search result returns relevant data to the JS code in products listing page and I can then place that data in the products listing table.

All this sounds easy enough in theory but so far all my timkering has led me to dead ends..

Once again, I just want someone to point me in the right direction or quickly explain what needs to be over-ridden in order to make the relevant changes.

I appreciate any help that anyone has to offer :)

Thanks for taking your time to read this post.

[stiggy100]

Welcome to Zen,

I think your best bet for something such as this would be to post in the commercial help wanted section.

I think this is a pretty in depth task and it would be something that would take substantial time effort and work.

I haven't seen much that isn't do-able with Zen so I'm sure it is, but its not a function of Zen Cart and usually at this point it becomes commercial for more complicated programming...

If I'm wrong on this I'm sure another member of the forum will correct me...

Good Luck

[abdulmueid]

Thanks for the reply stiggy100. I agree that this task is in depth. I have however managed to get it working. Took me a while to figure it out though.

I am planning to write up a tutorial on how to move the data back and forth on a page using AJAX.

Here is a link that solved half of my problem

http://www.webextremecustomiser.com/...d=17&chapter=3

and the rest was mostly trial and error...

Have a great weekend!