Banners Display and Functionality

[pricediscrimination]

What a major disappointment with how the banners work. I have been searching for days for a solution to this.

What I am trying to do is have a bunch of banners stacked upon one another, but each time the page is refreshed they should rotate in a way that shuffles them randomly.

Unfortunately it appears that the banners that are coded into zencart only allow for one single banner image to be displayed at one time. Except for the Banners-All sidebox which will display all but not shuffle the images.

How can I get what I am trying to do?

[stevesh]

Not exactly sure what you're asking. You want, say, 4 images to display in one banner location at all times, but the order in which they appear to shuffle randomly ?

[pricediscrimination]

Not exactly sure what you're asking. You want, say, 4 images to display in one banner location at all times, but the order in which they appear to shuffle randomly ?

Yes. Similar concept would be ad squares on a blog. The random shuffle is crucial so that the appearance is slightly different on each visit to the site. This is why department stores are always moving stuff around, so that customers will see things they haven't seen before - hey! Just like the new/featured/special product modules in zencart :)

[stevesh]

Zencart can't do that natively, as you've found, and I'm not programmer enough to offer an answer, but it would require custom coding.

Another question is whether advertising other sites makes sense on an ecommerce store. Blog, yes, I think. Zencart store, no. You're offering your potential customers an easy way to leave your site to buy elsewhere.

[pricediscrimination]

Zencart can't do that natively, as you've found, and I'm not programmer enough to offer an answer, but it would require custom coding.

Another question is whether advertising other sites makes sense on an ecommerce store. Blog, yes, I think. Zencart store, no. You're offering your potential customers an easy way to leave your site to buy elsewhere.

Thanks for the help but I never said I was advertising other sites. And while it's a sincere point, the lack of flexibility in the banner manager is still very disappointing.

It does not seem like something that is impossible since most blog type sites have this function. The admin banner manager is amazing and useful, however the front-end display of the banners is limited and not as friendly.

[Ajeh]

You could customize the tpl_banner_box_all.php with a minor code change using your templates and overrides:

  $sql = "select banners_id from " . TABLE_BANNERS . " where status = 1 " . $new_banner_search . $my_banner_filter . " order by Rand()";

[pricediscrimination]

You could customize the tpl_banner_box_all.php with a minor code change using your templates and overrides:

  $sql = "select banners_id from " . TABLE_BANNERS . " where status = 1 " . $new_banner_search . $my_banner_filter . " order by Rand()";

That sounds excellent! But if banner_box_all is already being used in the sidebar, what should be changed to apply the code to a banner group on the main page or anywhere else in the template?

[Ajeh]

You lost me ...

To use the Banners with multiple banners at the same time, you use the banner_box_all.php and tpl_banner_box_all.php to control it ...

If you want more that work in this manner, then you would need to clone these to make new sets that work like the Banners All sidebox ...

All of the other Banner display as a single banner ...

[pricediscrimination]

You lost me ...

To use the Banners with multiple banners at the same time, you use the banner_box_all.php and tpl_banner_box_all.php to control it ...

If you want more that work in this manner, then you would need to clone these to make new sets that work like the Banners All sidebox ...

All of the other Banner display as a single banner ...

I guess I was confused because I only knew of the BannersAll sidebox. So based on your advice, I will leave the BannersAll sidebox alone, clone the two files and place the new setup where I need it in another location of the template.

But The only thing I'm still confused about is that when I clone those two files, will a new Banner Display Group option be available in the Admin to assign something like BannersAll2?


banners

[Ajeh]

You might read this thread:
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showth...ht=BannersAll2

with tips on cloning the Banners All sidebox ...