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

[mesnitu]

Hi
Any idea how one could use image handler on authors images, etc.... in the filters result ?
In products info page, it's ok... on all authors etc page....haven't check.
But on the filters no.
This is probably a no man's land question, it's related with image handler thread , but I guess then they'll say, they dont' know about bookx product type....

[Design75]

My understanding is, as long as you use the Zen_image function, IH will automatically kick in.

[mesnitu]

Thanks
I think I sorted it out :

Actually this constants (?) , were getting no values.

zen_image(DIR_WS_IMAGES . $author->fields['author_image'], $author->fields['author_name'], BOOKX_AUTHOR_IMAGE_WIDTH, BOOKX_AUTHOR_IMAGE_MAX_HEIGHT)

So I've tested with the ones from the main image, and now Image Handler is controlling the images.
zen_image(DIR_WS_IMAGES . $author->fields['author_image'], $author->fields['author_name'], MEDIUM_IMAGE_WIDTH, MEDIUM_IMAGE_HEIGHT)


... still got to see, if the reason was because there were no values or if I have to change this extra images width / heights on bookx configs to get IH to work on all them.

Anyway, getting closer.
Thanks

[mesnitu]

Hi
Getting real hard time to have the authors description with the proper html. ( ON the admin side )

I'm using ckeditor. On products page, all html is render quite right, but when editing a author, I get a lot of this :

<p>&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;gt;Sed aliquam ultrices mauris. Sed fringilla mauris sit amet nibh.

On the books_authors, in case new:

          $author_description_textarea .= '<br>' . zen_image(DIR_WS_CATALOG_LANGUAGES . $languages[$i]['directory'] . '/images/' . $languages[$i]['image'], $languages[$i]['name']) . '&nbsp;' . zen_draw_textarea_field('author_description[' . $languages[$i]['id'] . ']', 'soft', '100%', '15', '' );
    }
/*  zen_draw_textarea_field('author_description[' . $languages[$i]['id'] . ']', 'soft', '100%', '30', htmlspecialchars(bookx_get_author_description($aInfo->bookx_author_id, $languages[$i]['id']), ENT_COMPAT, CHARSET, TRUE));
*/ 

But I've tried to do with the htmlspecialchars, but getting no good results.
I see that this is using a fucion to get the authors description. But on post , I haven't find out, how this works....

I've tried seeing the $_POST....

Thanks

[mesnitu]

Narrowing down a bit , the insert is ok, but editing, the ckeditor gets all the html tags, so on save, gets wrong......

[JRGoold]

I only just stumbled on your thread (I've only just started using the forums again).

For what it is worth, I support a heavily modified version of Zen Cart used by a publisher who sells e-books (and some “interactive books”, i.e. software). The publisher produces print versions of books as well, but that has its own website and the books are also sold through book stores (including Amazon).

I was involved in modifying ZC back at 1.3.9h and recently upgraded the site to 1.5.4 (and am working on 1.5.5a). Just some comments based on what we (and I) did. I skimmed the first page of this thread and then jumped to the last page, so I'm not certain what has been discussed in the interim. If any of what I'm about to say duplicates that, sorry!

1) I did not see any mention of ISBN numbers. Support for ISBN numbers is mandatory if you are serious about a book type.

2) We extended the "manufacturer", which in our case is an author (not the actual company running printing presses). One needs to support multiple authors for a book — many books have more than one author (especially the genre published by my client). As well, there are other people who contribute to a book (who may be authors in their own right), such as illustrators, editors, writer of a forward… I chose to treat these different roles as "types of authors".

3) If, in addition to print books, you deal with e-books (PDFs, ePUB, .MOBI…), then you may need to deal with the associated download files. Different formats of the same book each has its own ISBN number. You need to be careful with e-books because it is easy for them to be pirated.

4) You may wish to extend the concept of "reviews". Out of the box, ZC supports customer reviews, but books are often reviewed in the press and you may want to include those reviews on your site. Also, you may have another author who reviews a book, but not on your site as a "customer" (reviewers will usually get a complimentary copy) and you have to deal with entering that review on your site.

5) Similarly, if any of the books you publish win awards, you may want to introduce the concept of "awards".

Any way, good luck with your endeavours. ...John

[mesnitu]

Narrowing down a bit , the insert is ok, but editing, the ckeditor gets all the html tags, so on save, gets wrong......

Removing the htmlspecialchars() from the case: 'edit' , made things work....not sure if it's good or not.

This is probably related to http://docs.zen-cart.com/Developer_D...n_sanitization (?)

[mesnitu]

1) I did not see any mention of ISBN numbers. Support for ISBN numbers is mandatory if you are serious about a book type.

Hi
I'm using bookx module for a while, so I can talk about the experience as a user, but in terms of isbn, it's there. It actually formats the isbn in a proper way.

Multiple authors, multiple genres, condition, imprint, publisher, cover, sizes, subtitle, team authors, author types, images and description for all that ... etc, etc, all there.
A lot of configs, on what to present on product listings or product info page.

Genres acts like tags, so the shop I work , I've started to use the genres as categories, so categorie A = Genre A, but now, some times I add more "tags" to genres.
The manufactures... in this case, I use them equal as publishers.

Rewards and reviews... there's no specific field for that.... I usually add them to the book description.

But, out of the box, ( I didn't do it ), for example, I don't use imprints fields. I guess one could change the name, and use it as a rewards fields...not fancy, but I think it would work.
Or one could use the genre "tag" for rewards, and with that genre ID one could sideboxes, centerboxes, etc...

I've made some changes to the module, so that the book filter result could have metatags and schema markup. So I think it getting nice for search engines ( I think )

A part from the rewards or reviews, one thing that I'll do, it's a authors quotes. I like books, and I like quotes, and I like that "fortune cookie" on the site displaying quotes.

Also, there's a git plugin for EP4, that one can use to import all this fields in a csv file. It's working 98 % .
Actually on that import file, without a ISBN, you can't import.

It's probable that bookx module goes to git soon, so I guess one could help to improve it.

[JRGoold]

I had a quick glance back to the beginning of the thread. There was mention of using the “model” for ISBN. That could be made to work.

The problem I had when I got involved in the project was the client already had a Zen Cart site up and running. They had actually used the model column for the ISBN number, but it wasn't consistent. They still had remnants of the sample products in the database and, for some products, they had put stuff other than the ISBN number into the model column (I think free downloads were one of the ones with funny stuff in there).

Assuming it is doable, I would advise people who decide to use Zen Cart to start their “real” store with a database that has no sample stuff in it (and definitely not the music product type, etc.).

Keep the sample stuff for learning about Zen Cart — I'm sure that is what it was intended for anyway.

By the way, do you (did you) do anything special to deal with 10 versus 13 digit ISBNs?

[JRGoold]

I forgot, in my last post, to mention that the ISBN column I added to the products table referred to the print edition of the book; I also added an ISBN column (actually “isbn” in both cases) to the products_attributes table to associate the appropriate ISBN with each of the e-book versions.