Slim down the USPS packaging description?

[d0ugparker]

USPS's description block of their own products is huge, and I want to make the descriptions smaller without breaking zencart in the process.

For example, invoices show:

Order Number: 20054
Date Ordered: Thursday 16 June, 2016
Click here for a Detailed Invoice
Products

75 x Welcome Home (Silver) (8090) $53.25 USD
---------
Sub-Total: $53.25 USD
United States Postal Service (Priority Mail™ Small Flat Rate Box (5-7d)): $7.10 USD
Sales Tax: $0.00 USD
Total: $60.35 USD

I already changed the

United States Postal Service

to

USPS

but can the stuff in red in the parentheses be shortened?

Can a zencart shipping plug-in button be added to cut the length of the different shipping option descriptions so it formats nicer on screen, doesn't overlap, and uses less space but retains its unique description of the different choices?

Can USPS be contacted to suggest adding code to their plug-in to give users the option to use long, medium, or short description lengths?

[DrByte]

Unfortunately USPS is known to not play well with others when it comes to this sort of thing.

What I've usually seen people do is simply uncheck most of the USPS offerings so that the list of available options causes very few choices to display, and hopefully is also limited to those with shorter names.

[d0ugparker]

Unfortunately USPS is known to not play well with others when it comes to this sort of thing.

Yup, agreed.

How can the USPS be engaged (can they be leveraged?) to
help by providing a link to their live person doing their
programming in an effort to refine some of the process,
provide an FAQ, or add a display customization tab, etc?

This is truly maddening for everyone. Let's jump start this
and move it forward, and let it see the light of day.

Does Zencart have any relationship with the USPS that
might give some headway?

...just brainstorming.

--Dr Doug

[mc12345678]

I thought that when new changes were proposed for testing that all existing USPS subscribers were provided related link information where such testing could be performed. Those notified would have also received a route of feedback related to it. Sure, safety in numbers and that type of thing. But it seems that such a communication path continues to exist even outside of the period of pre-release.

[d0ugparker]

I thought that when new changes were proposed for testing that
all existing USPS subscribers were provided related link
information where such testing could be performed.

I don't remember seeing anything, frankly.

Those notified would have also received a route of feedback
related to it.

Okay...

But it seems that such a communication path continues to exist
even outside of the period of pre-release.

The short answer is, "Let's get the USPS to join the forum, here."

The long answer is:

Were I the USPS, and based on the way most businesses run, IMHO
I would put as little time and energy into my shipping updates as
possible.

As USPS, I wouldn't ignore Zencart nor its modules, but I would have
little interest in paying someone to fiddle with Zencart's module's
features or its display methods, nor would I pay that same programmer
to develop options for end-user customers to customize their
implementation of Zencart requiring the USPS shipping module.

I'm not complaining, but hoping I'm coming across as a motivated
end user and administrator, attempting to make rational arguments
toward getting USPS to join in, listen to some common sense wish-list
requests, and actually implementing the best of them. It's not an
unreasonable fantasy, dream, request. At a minimum, start their own
FAQ on the shipping module. I don't see one anywhere!

As it stands right now, I manually record my settings, I shut down the
module, the new USPS shipping module's plugged in, I activate the new
module, I repopulate my settings in the new module, and once the
new shipping module is plugged in and reset, there's zero customization
possible.

What I'd like to see might be a feature to have the outgoing, old
module write its values to a local XML file, mark itself as OLD only if
its successor is in place, and once the old file is marked OLD, enable
the radio button on its NEW replacement version to activate the NEW
version, all in the same window.

[mc12345678]

Umm.. So from that perspective of "options" the USPS module used in ZC is not "written by USPS" but by ZC related people. I'm pretty sure that they have or will swing through here, but two things further come to mind. Offer support to make it happen or use other tools that support database export/import in order to maintain the settings or modify the code based on comparing the old and new so that the new initial settings match the old existing settings... Thought there were also some notifier that could be taken advantage of to support a similar action that then upon the next install/upgrade could be used to continue to maintain the same settings if they continue to exist.

From some of the discussions of core team members it is possible that plugins such as USPS may allow reinstallation through an upgrade process that doesn't remove the previous settings but instead add new ones or modify existing that have changed.

Further, there are already some modifications made by the USPS module to the data provided back by the USPS to support/improve display possibilities, seems that provided either the USPS doesn't have issue with some of the modifications either text could be "compressed" (ever seen the screen in the USPS where they use/might use "acronyms"?) or css related tags could be used to shrink the overall space that the text occupies though that too could affect readability.

[mc12345678]

Possibly I was wrong about the "everyone gets notified" part... Visiting the USPS Webtools page, there is a link to click on in order to receive notifications about maintenance. Wouldn't surprise me that I signed up if that were the only way to get notified especially that I did so at the onset of using ZC and wanted to try to learn as much as possible about anything involved. :)

[d0ugparker]

IMHO, it's a steep learning curve. (-:

I believe you're right that there's table data, and php code. I did a
Developer Tools lookup and found both when I searched for "First-
Class Mail Letter" in php and css files in the admin side. AFAICT,
there's no css code involved.

When the DT search showed the table data insertion code and the
php code, my first thought was:

1. Oh Boy!
2. Edit the table data
3. Change the php code
4. Done!

... but I'm not that dumb. Without input from USPS, I don't know if
changing table data will munge up the module's lookup on the USPS
servers. I don't know if there's one text constant for

"First-Class Mail Letter"

that's used for both display on screen and used for lookup on the
USPS servers, or if there's two constants:

USPS_LOOKUP_TEXT_FIRST_CLASS = "First-Class Mail Letter"

lookup value and a

ZENCART_SHIPPING_OPTION_FIRST_CLASS = "First-Class Mail Letter"

display value.

I could experiment with a little used shipping option and reverse
engineer things, but that's not a smart way to work. Especially
since there's no USPS programming on board the thread yet, and
Paying it Forward, I'd rather put the effort first into getting that
USPS connection established for the ZC community, by getting a
USPS code writer to be a liaison to this thread and this list. In
the long run, EVERYBODY would benefit from the effort.

Meanwhile, I'm frustrated because first off, I'm not a programmer,
secondly there's nobody jumping in from USPS yet, and thirdly, I'm
soooo frustrated by it all.

Were I king, well, I'd... nah, I won't go into it. (-;

[RixStix]

Another thing is that shipping integrators use the USPS coding as well as shipping info from zencart. If the two dont match, then a new can of worms is opened. Rules & filters are based upon USPS specific classes.

My guess is that zencart is an extremely small piece of the USPS puzzle.

That being said, if you want a shorter line, change United States Postal Service to USPS and turn off the delivery times which are next to useless.

[d0ugparker]

change "United States Postal Service" to "USPS"

Thanks! Yup, already done! (-:

... and turn off the delivery times which are next to useless.

I have to laugh, because where ours gets used, times are crucial
and essential!

I did shorten "day" to "d," and "days" to "ds." Every little bit helped.

I still wish I knew enough to know how to (or how NOT to) shorten
the remaining copy. That time will come--the ball has been started.