Shipping Problem

[Nick1973]

I've also got another problem now in that there will be around 100 products in one of the categories. This means that I will need to have next/prev links somehow.

[Nick1973]

I don't think using the new products center box will work because I cannot have next/prev links on it.

So how would I list all sub category products in a top level category?

[Ajeh]

The Prev/Next is not designed for use on the Centerboxes ...

What is it you really want?

Do you need a New Product Centerbox with a buy now button?

Do you need a New Product Centerbox that shows ALL of the New Products?

If you want all of the features New Products page, can't you use the New Products page?

I am afraid that I am lost on what it is you are trying to do now ...

Type really really slow ...

[Nick1973]

Hi Linda, thanks for the reply.

I thought the products new center box would be sufficient to handle showing all products from sub categories in a top level category. That has now been totally destroyed as a solution as the person I'm doing the site for has now told me there could be a 100 products in the chemicals category.

What I really need is a way to list all the products from sub categories displayed in a top level category while keeping the category tree intact because of the postage issue which we resolved earlier in this post.

The problem is that I don't want customers to see the sub categories on the site and I need all sub category products listed in a single category.

[Nick1973]

Linda what about Plan B.

Would it be possible to create a switch in the admin that selected which postage should be used?

[Nick1973]

I've just been told that product_extra_fields will do the job so how would I go about this?

[Nick1973]

Linda I've just found your post here about a multiple products duplication tool.

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showth...=180447&page=1

Did you get this fully developed?

If this works then I can duplicate each product to the top level category which strictly I'm aware you shouldn't do as Zen Cart hasn't been built to handle products and categories within the same category. However it seems to work so if you can let me know that would be great.

Thanks

Nick

[gjh42]

If you duplicated the products to the top category, they would all officially be in the same master category and your subcats would be pointless. I didn't want to mention the practice of linking the products into their top cat unless it was determined that there was no better way. That does have the possibility of search or pricing issues, and especially if it's for someone else, I don't think it's a good idea to risk it.

It would have saved time in discussion in your other thread if you had mentioned that you already had extensive work on the shipping issue in the forum.
A straightforward method of handling this if only one category is involved is to make two top categories for flammable and non-flammable chemicals. You don't have to name them so blatantly, but with over 100 products, a breakdown into two distinguishable groups might even be beneficial. Is there anything that users would readily see as differences in kind between flammables and non? Why would it be bad for customers to see the chemicals in two categories? I can imagine that they would want to know that certain chemicals required special handling.

[Nick1973]

Hi Linda I've finally managed to get to the bottom of this and have a workable solution thanks to your mass duplication tool. It works great by the way so hope you plan to develop further.

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showth...=180447&page=1

I firstly downloaded and installed your tool.

Then I moved my first class and track and trace categories to a category which is switched off called Chemicals Admin Category. First Class and Track and Trace are switched on inside this category as are all the products listed inside them. Then all products listed inside my Chemicals Admin Category have been duplicated to another category called Chemicals (the category where the products should all display). This means that all the products inside my First Class and Track and Trace categories are now mixed in the same category but when I put them through the cart it selects the correct postage method for the product in the cart. This is because my shipping/table1.php (first class) has code in it telling the cart to switch off first class if a Track and Trace item is added to the cart.

Its maybe not the best of fixes but its a workable solution and thats all that matters.

It would be good to have some way of selecting postage/shipping methods from the products description admin in a future release of zen cart as I'm sure there are other people that come across this issue particularly when they are selling chemicals, some of which require a shipping method with insurance. In my situation the insurance is within the shipping price so thats what made it ultra difficult. Otherwise I could probably have used the Optional Shipping Insurance Mod found here http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?ma...roducts_id=348

Anyway thanks for sticking with me on this thread, at least I have a solution that works and thanks for all your help.

[gjh42]

The plan of hiding the "admin" top category and linking the subcats' products into another top cat neatly avoids the potential issues with the first suggestion. As long as your client can continue to link any new chemical products correctly, it sounds like it should work fine.