Creating an add-on "product type book" for ZC 1.5

[suportafaceri]

I manage (the easyest way that i found) to put the extra info on separate tabs (I also use Tabbed Products Pro v1.10) by using the moving the extra info from the tpl_product_bookx_info_display to a custom tab so that is probably why it's working in that manner.
Unfortunatly i keep trying to cut conrners and maby that is way I scramble things up.

[nikerymis]

Hi phil,

Thank you for all your hard work on this! I've been testing it out over the last few days and absolutely love the extra flexibility it will give me. :-)

I do have a couple of questions -- I'm not sure if these are bugs or if I've screwed something up, and I apologize in advance for the length of this post. I'm using the beta .92 version from SourceForge, on a test environment running zen 1.5.1.

When I installed, I ran into the error "WARNING: An Error occurred, please refresh the page and try again." Everything seemed to install okay, as all the listings showed up correctly under the admin Extras menu and also under Product Type. When I checked my logs, I found this:

[27-Jan-2014 11:28:14 America/Denver] PHP Fatal error: 1064:You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '(configuration_title, configuration_key, languages_id, configuration_description' at line 1 :: REPLACE INTO (configuration_title, configuration_key, languages_id, configuration_description, last_modified, date_added)
VALUES
# settings for product type bookx only
('Artikelliste: Artikelnummer anzeigen', 'SHOW_PRODUCT_BOOKX_LISTING_MODEL', 43, 'Artikelnummer in der Artikelliste anzeigen.', now(), now()),

It goes on with a bunch more German settings, and ends with:

; in /home3/lesstha1/public_html/ztest/includes/classes/db/mysql/query_factory.php on line 120

I'm not sure if this affected anything or if it's related to any of the other issues I've encountered, but I figured it couldn't hurt to mention. The biggest problem I've run into is that the filter links don't work for me. The syntax is correct, so far as I can tell -- /index.php?main_page=index&typefilter=bookx&bookx_genre_id=6 -- but I get that same "WARNING: An Error occurred..." message when I click any of the links. Is there something I need to turn on for this? My site's design doesn't use sidebars, so if I need to turn on something behind the scenes, let me know. The log for this says:

[27-Jan-2014 11:43:41 America/Denver] PHP Fatal error: 1054:Unknown column 'm.manufacturers_name' in 'field list' :: SELECT p.products_image, pd.products_name, m.manufacturers_name, p.products_quantity, p.products_id, p.products_type, p.master_categories_id, p.products_price, p.products_tax_class_id, pd.products_description,
IF(s.status = 1, s.specials_new_products_price, NULL) AS specials_new_products_price, IF(s.status = 1, s.specials_new_products_price, p.products_price) as final_price,
p.products_sort_order, p.product_is_call, p.product_is_always_free_shipping, p.products_qty_box_status, prodt.type_handler AS product_type_handler FROM products p
LEFT JOIN products_description pd ON (pd.products_id = p.products_id AND pd.language_id = "1")
LEFT JOIN specials s on p.products_id = s.products_id
LEFT JOIN product_types prodt ON prodt.type_id = p.products_type
LEFT JOIN product_bookx_extra be ON be.products_id = p.products_id LEFT JOIN product_bookx_genres_to_products gtp ON gtp.products_id = be.products_id
LEFT JOIN product_bookx_genres g ON gtp.bookx_genre_id = g.bookx_genre_id
LEFT JOIN product_bookx_genres_description gd ON gd.bookx_genre_id = gtp.bookx_genre_id AND gd.languages_id = "1" WHERE p.products_status = 1 AND g.bookx_genre_id = "6" order by p.products_sort_order, pd.products_name in /home3/lesstha1/public_html/ztest/includes/classes/db/mysql/query_factory.php on line 120

One of the other things I've run into is that when I update a product with the Bookx product type, the description disappears after I save it. This used to be an issue for me before I upgraded to 1.5.1 and PHP 5.4, but I haven't encountered it in ages. The products still assigned "Product - General" type don't have this problem.

Other, more minor things -- I can't get the series to display on the product info page, no matter what I do, and when adding multiple authors to a product, only one (the last one assigned) is saved (going back in and adding another is fine -- it only saves one per edit). (I had no problem adding multiple genres works fine.)

If you need any more information or want me to test anything, let me know. Thanks again!

Sasha

[philou]

Hi Sasha,

the warning during install seems to be caused by a missing table in the SQL statement. That table name is supposed to be inserted by means of a variable, so I suspect this is not working due to ZC version 1.5.1. Unfortunately I am away from my development environment at the moment, so I can only look into this again next monday.

The statements after the failed SQL statement are not crucial for the BookX plugin operation, but they should be executed, which they are not in your case due to this error. If you want to fix this urgently, you could comment out this step in the Bookx installation script. If you don't see what I mean by that, then maybe you better leave it until I can check it out next week :-)

The filter seems to have another SQL problem, maybe I had disabled display of manufacturer info in my dev shop and therefore never encountered this bug? Whatever the reason, you may be able to circumvent this by disabling the display of manufacturer info in product listings for now until I find the bug.

Disappearing product description and missing display of series are bugs which I am aware of and which are already fixed in my current development version.

I really hope to be able to publish this soon!

Best regards,
p.

[nikerymis]

I found the SQL statement and managed to comment it out without killing anything. That ran successfully, with just a warning about my template overrides (which were done on purpose in the name of testing out some product display formatting, so the warning is valid ;3).

For the filter, I tried turning off the manufacturer on the bookx and then onall other product types, but I'm still running into the error when I click on any of the filters. I get the same error in the log, too.

If there's anything you want me to test or try for you, let me know, I'm more than willing to help out. (Also, no rush on my behalf; I'm looking forward to implementing, but it's not time sensitive or anything, and I appreciate the work you're putting into it.)

Thanks again!

Sasha

[philou]

Hi Sasha,

fine. I forgot to adress the problem of only the last author being registered in the DB when editing productinfo, this problem is new to me indeed, as it has worked here without problems. I will let you know if I don't succeed to replicate the error.

So more on all this in a weeks time.

Regards,
p.

[philou]

Hi Sasha,

the manufacturer error is really a bug. Here is how you can fix it until a new version is out.
in [YOUR_ZEN_CART_INSTALLATION]/includes/index_filters/bookx_filter.php you have to change the code around line 76
from this:

LEFT JOIN ' . TABLE_PRODUCT_BOOKX_EXTRA . ' be ON be.products_id = p.products_id';

to this:

LEFT JOIN ' . TABLE_PRODUCT_BOOKX_EXTRA . ' be ON be.products_id = p.products_id
LEFT JOIN ' . TABLE_MANUFACTURERS . ' m ON m.manufacturers_id = p.manufacturers_id';

That should make the error go away.
I am stil looking into the installation script, but this way you can keep working.

Regards,
p.

I'm not sure if this affected anything or if it's related to any of the other issues I've encountered, but I figured it couldn't hurt to mention. The biggest problem I've run into is that the filter links don't work for me. The syntax is correct, so far as I can tell -- /index.php?main_page=index&typefilter=bookx&bookx_genre_id=6 -- but I get that same "WARNING: An Error occurred..." message when I click any of the links. Is there something I need to turn on for this? My site's design doesn't use sidebars, so if I need to turn on something behind the scenes, let me know. The log for this says:

[nikerymis]

That did the trick! Everything is working for me now, and I'll probably implement on our live site later this week. Any chance I could get the fix for the disappearing product descriptions? I can use my workaround if not (updating product descriptions in the database directly), but that's probably the biggest remaining issue, user-flow-wise for me.

Thanks again!

Sasha

[philou]

Hey Sasha,

many thanks for the donation, that is very kind of you and much appreciated!

I am considering to release yet another Beta version, even if I was hoping to make the jump to 1.0 directly. I'm worried that giving you some files from the next release will introduce other problems when combined with files of a previous version, so i prefer not to do it that way.

I'll see what I can do...

Regards,
p.

[nikerymis]

Hey Phil,

No problem! :)

I'm pulling for another beta release, but I can also hold my horses and wait for a 1.0 release. Whichever you want to do, I will still be using. :)


Sasha

[philou]

Sasha,

could you give me more details about the disappearing product descriptions: Are you saying that when converting products from another product type to bookx the descriptions are lost? Or do you mean that after your created a new product of type Bookx and entered a description, this description is somehow lost if you edit the product again and save the changes? I can't reproduce the problem in my development shop running the 0.9.2 version you are using.

Best,
p.