Storing the 'Products Decription' in a seperate file

**brettb76** · 22 Jul 2010, 12:19 PM

On my website I have a lot of items that have an identical Product Description. At the moment if I want to change something in the description I need to edit each item and that takes a long time.

I would like to be able to save the text into a separate file and have it loaded when the product is viewed.

Can this be done? (easily....lol)

**stevesh** · 22 Jul 2010, 01:39 PM

Not easily, no. You might look at swguys boilerplate mod:

http: //www.thatsoftwareguy.com/zencart_php_in_description.html

**brettb76** · 23 Jul 2010, 11:29 AM

What about using an IFRAME e.g.

In the Products Description box I can put this ...

Code:

<iframe src ="http://www.mysite.com/some_text.htm" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" width="676" height="235">
  <p>Your browser does not support iframes.</p>
</iframe>

and the text will fill the frame. Obviously I need to adjust the height and width to suit.

Are there any problems with using IFrames?

**stevesh** · 23 Jul 2010, 11:44 AM

Far as I know, there's no problem using iframes in Zencart as long as they don't come anywhere near the payment processing.

By default, Zencart strips HTML out of the product listing, but that should work for the product info page. Give it a try and let us know if it works.

**schoolboy** · 23 Jul 2010, 01:31 PM

I hate IFRAME ... but I do admit to using them in some zencart stores. As Steve says, keep IFRAMES away from all processes requiring user interactivity (sign-up, login, checkout, contact us, etc).

I can see no practical reason why an IFRAME in your product description text will not do what you are after.

Scott Wilson's Boilerplate mod may help... but I think it will apply universally... ie: not product-specific.

**brettb76** · 23 Jul 2010, 01:48 PM

It works, however to get consistency in the text I had to set up my external text file like this.

Code:

<head>
<style type="text/css">
body {
	margin: 0;
	font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
	font-size: 62.5%;
	}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div style="font-size: 1.32em; line-height: 1.4em; text-align: justify; font-family: verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; color: #363636">
{Insert Text Here]
</div>
</body>

Then in the product description I insert the html code for the Iframe like this ...

Code:

<iframe src ="http://www.my-site.com/some_text.htm" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" width="676" height="235">
  <p>Your browser does not support iframes.</p>
</iframe>

The productDescription div will expand to allow for an Iframe of any height (Did not check width) but the height does need to be entered into each Product so if I change the text in the external file then I would need to change the height value in each of the products anyway.

**gjh42** · 23 Jul 2010, 01:49 PM

If you know basic PHP you can wrap a test around the boilerplate code to apply it only for specific produsts or categories.

**brettb76** · 23 Jul 2010, 02:11 PM

I tried to be creative. I searched the web and found this page http://www.codeproject.com/KB/script...me_Height.aspx

I inserted this script into the includes\templates\[my template]\jscript\jscrip_main.php

Code:

<script type="text/javascript">
	function getElement(aID)
	{
		return (document.getElementById) ? document.getElementById(aID) : document.all[aID];
    }

    function getIFrameDocument(aID){ 
        var rv = null; 
        var frame=getElement(aID);
        // if contentDocument exists, W3C compliant (e.g. Mozilla) 
        if (frame.contentDocument)
            rv = frame.contentDocument;
        else // bad Internet Explorer  ;)
			rv = document.getElementById(aID).document;
        return rv;
    }

    function adjustMyFrameHeight()
    {
        var frame = getElement("myFrame");
        var frameDoc = getIFrameDocument("myFrame");
        frame.height = frameDoc.body.offsetHeight;
    }
</script>

and modified the Iframe code to ...

Code:

<iframe id="myFrame" src ="http://www.my-site.com/some_text.htm" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" width="676" onload="adjustMyFrameHeight()">
  <p>Your browser does not support iframes.</p>
</iframe>

This worked perfectly in Firefox but Internet Explorer does not work properly.

Also leaves me with missing text if a vistor to the site has javascript disabled.

Will go back to changing them one at a time I think.

**brettb76** · 23 Jul 2010, 02:12 PM

Originally Posted by gjh42

If you know basic PHP you can wrap a test around the boilerplate code to apply it only for specific produsts or categories.

I have the boiler plate link on my list to look into next. Time for bed.

**etilyeti** · 31 Oct 2010, 06:50 PM

Originally Posted by brettb76

On my website I have a lot of items that have an identical Product Description. At the moment if I want to change something in the description I need to edit each item and that takes a long time.

I would like to be able to save the text into a separate file and have it loaded when the product is viewed.

Can this be done? (easily....lol)

I have the same problem. Can I add a php include in the Products Description. And if yes, how?

<?php include 'instructions-adult-en.php'; ?>

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