Zen Cart as shop simulation

I have set up a Zen Cart (1.38a) shop on my school intranet to give students some online shopping experiences, using make-believe products. I've spent many hours changing files and settings to suit needs but I'd desperately love some advice on any of the following:

We do not use email. I've changed some files to bypass registraering and login need for email. Can I get the final stage of the checkout process to direct to another page (ie, a receipt page), as the email error message takes over. The sale goes through but there's no confirmation and the items remain in the shopping cart.

I'm trying to use Gift Certificates disguised as Credit Card numbers for students to use. This works fine to some extent but is not ideal. For instance, I've had to set up a payment option of check/money order but this means students can buy whatever they like regardless of their available balance. Can I bypass the "Payment Method Required" message? Or, better still, does anyone know of a way to simulate credit card payment using any of the included modules.

When there is not enough balance available on the gift voucher or discount coupon, can I simply get a message saying "insufficient funds", and allow cancellation of the order?

It may be a tall order but I'd really like to be able to implement the shop so that it reflects real life as closely as possible, and suggestions on the above would be great.
Many thanks
Niven :smile:

I would imagine that you could use "fake" email addresses, so even if you don't have a genuine email system, when your students register, they could just insert a "fake" address:

[email protected]

There would be no need to alter any code at all.

zencart analyses the FORMAT of an email address and (unless you configure it to recognise REAL addresses) it should happily allow a fake address to go through.

All your students need to remember then, is their "fake" address and their password, and this should then allow login and full transit through the purchase process.

If you apply CHECK/MONEYORDER and OFFLINE CREDIT CARD modules, they could choose either as a payment option.... and the students can then "practice" the process of of inserting a credit card number that complies with the LUHN ALGORITHM.

This in itself could be an interesting and exciting Maths Lesson (LUHN ALGORITHM) and one of the tasks you could set students is to create a 16-digit credit card number that will pass the LUHN test.

Google for LUHN ALGORITHM (also known as the MOD - 10 ALGORITHM) for details on how it is used to verify the validity of a NUMBER.

(Note that the LUHN algorithm does NOT validate a card for its "financial" legitimacy - it just applies MOD 10 to a number and if the number passes the test, it allows it to proceed.)

You could even get the students to "make" their own cards (in conjunction with their art teacher or DT teacher), where their "Luhn-compatible" numbers are featured.

This would be a lot of fun for them, I'm sure.

See also the embedded notes in the Offline CC module for using "test" digits and dates.

... just to add...

Because you do not have a functioning email system, it is important that you keep a written record of the fake email addresses and their corresponding passwords.

There will be no way of retrieving /resetting forgotten passwords! (unless you hack the MD5 code in the database)

Thanks for the replies. Sorry [:blush:] I didn't make it a bit clearer about the lack of email. It's because we are on a firewalled intranet that we cannot (are not allowed, even if we could) access a mail server, so that even in the early testing when we used fake email addresses as the login, the email error was coming up any time that the system wanted to send an email. So I really need to bypass any attempt by zen cart to send an email so that 'normal' processes can continue.
The other issue (again, sorry not to make it clearer) is that my school is a Primary School and students using the shop are in year 5 and 6 (10-12 yr olds), so I'm trying to make things as simple and automatic as possible while still maintaining a 'real-life' experience.
Setting the gift vouchers as the credit cards is working fine at a basic level, just the need to tighten up the system so that the alternative payment method required by zen cart - in my case I've used cheque/money order because it doesn't need verification - doesn't end up offering a bottomless pit of money for students to spend.
Hope that clarifies things and that there are still some possibilities for me to try.
Niven

Admin - Configuration - Email Options - Send Email to false should fix the email errors.

mccrie:

in my case I've used cheque/money order because it doesn't need verification - doesn't end up offering a bottomless pit of money for students to spend.

... but that's real life! We all spend a bottomless pit of money. 99% of the reason why there's a financial crisis. :D

Did you try setting "sending emails" to FALSE as stevesh suggests?

stevesh:

Admin - Configuration - Email Options - Send Email to false should fix the email errors.

Many thanks. That solves that problem.
:smile:

In regards to using the credit card module you could always use the industry standard fake card number - 4111111111111111 - enter this as your card number and any future date for the card expiry and it should act as if you've entered real details except, obviously, there will be no payment taken.