Extraneous Hyphen, Product Listing Heading

[KenBaker]

For my product listing page,

I have three columns following the default layout: Product Image, Product, Price. The Product column (center column) has exactly this heading: Product- I don't know where the hyphen is coming from. I know, of course, that the heading is defined in my english.php file, but the hyphen isn't generated by this definition. In other words, I've changed the column heading in my english.php, and the changes reflect perfectly, but always followed by that dratted hyphen.

If this were just a matter of my OCD imp acting out, I would tell her to go talk Holy Hyphen with Batgirl. I am, though, presently working to understand how the product-listing.php, tpl-modules-product-listing.php, and tpl-tabular-display.php all work together to produce the product listing page. I thought that perhaps knowing the source of this hypogean hyphen might point me to a part of the system that I'm presently overlooking.

Thanks,

Ken Baker

[twitchtoo]

Can you post a pic? It sounds like you're talking about the sort ascending+ descending- heading titles... click them and see if they change ;)

[stevesh]

Yup, probably Admin - Configuration - Product Listing - Product Listing Descending [Ascending] Sort Order

[KenBaker]

Well, twitchtoo,

Of course you hit the nail on the head. Partly I'm glad that the solution turned out to be so simple, but the simplicity sure makes me look stupid, or at least careless in my studies. Live and learn, laugh or cry. Now that I know that the hyphen really carries meaning, I'm rather fond of the function, though I did change it a bit to make its meaning clearer to the less observant/more careless among us.

You can see it here, if you're so inclined. This website isn't active at present, as I'm just now putting it together for a friend. He's in no hurry, so I'm being quite a bit more adventurous dinking about with this site. I began my first (and so far only) Zen Cart site almost exactly a year ago, and for the past year I've been mainly terrified of changing the dot on an i or the cross on a t. With this new site, I'm not quite so timid, mainly because I've learned to protect myself fairly well from my blunders.

Thanks much for the help, again,

Ken Baker

[KenBaker]

For crying out loud, stevesh,

I spent a good two hours this morning and another hour or so this afternoon trying to corral this errant hyphen. I must have looked at that Product Listing configuration page at least a hundred times over the past year, but the sort order characters just never registered. Most lamentable, I knew that the column heading was a button that flip-flopped the sort order; I'd just never noticed that the hyphen (a minus sign, I now know) changed to a plus sign on clicking. Now that I understand the function, I'll hang onto it.

I appreciate your direction. In fact, unbeknownst to you, you've helped me quite often over the past year (my time working with Zen Cart). Like Savoir-Faire, you seem to be everywhere when it comes to providing direction and advice.

So thanks again,

Ken Baker

[stevesh]

I like your addition. Makes it a lot more useful for the customer.

[KenBaker]

stevesh,

Just now I discovered a bit of a complication. The values that I entered for Configuration > Product Listing > Product Listing Descending [Ascending] Sort Order appear in both the Item Name and the Price columns. I didn't realize this fact at first, as the values are hidden when a column isn't selected, and the Item Name must be the default column for the initial appearance of the values. At any rate, the "sorted A to Z" and "sorted Z to A" make no sense in the Price column, so I shortened the values to just the up and down arrows, and I'll trust that shoppers will figure it out. I only offer this update in case other ZC users might come across this exchange.

Cheers,

Ken Baker

[gjh42]

I noticed that back when you posted it, and found it comprehensible if a bit odd-looking. "A-Z" to me means first to last or lowest to highest, even if not literally applied to alphabetic data. I think people would understand it especially as they will see it applied to the name first.

[KenBaker]

gjh42,

Best wishes on SPD!

I realize this matter of the sort label is quite trivial, but studying it does help me understand some key principles in the operation of the ZC programming. I suppose for the time being I'll just leave the up/down arrows, as I just *know* that the world's filled with people like me, whose first and enduring reaction to the "A to Z" part would be: Land sakes! That shopkeeper doesn't know his ABCs from his 123s!

I do know now exactly how the sort labels come to be what they are and where they are, so I know that *in principle* I'll be able just to whip out a simple function to provide different, appropriate labels for the price column. Of course I'm not about to attempt that task at present. A year ago, when I first began working with ZenCart, the only PHP I knew was Penelope Helene Peirson, and I hadn't seen her since grade school. I do plan, though, to work at this little task as a way to develop my PHP coding knowledge, so if anything comes of it, I'll drop you a follow-up note.

Sláinte,

Ken Baker