zen cart for contact lenses?

Having a look at some of the code in the flexible attributes mod I am currently running in includes/modules/MY_TEMPLATE/attributes.php

I see there may be the possibility to double the attribute call by adding php which creates a clone of the attribute arrays, and displaying that cloned call instead of the **duplicated call **I am currently using, within the form_post. (does that make sense?)

This would work on all of the contact lens attributes, possibly even the quantity factors, ideally.

The attribute setup is this, everything is called from the database separately as it is, causing a lot of queries.

BC / DIA |** POWER | CYL | AXIS | QUANTITY
2 BC / DIA | 2 POWER **| 2 CYL | 2 AXIS | 2 QUANTITY

What I need to happen is eliminate the extra database info for the attributes right? Is there a more efficient way to approach this?

On a positive note, we have signed up with a much better host, so with tuning, this won't be that much of a problem, but is worth revising, so once we do get busy, it doesn't become a further issue.

Suggest that you create a test install to do your tweaking with so as not to take down your live site in the event of an issue

Just make good notes on what you alter and where possible use the template override system

yea, i've set up a local server with Wamp, but there are some issues running the site without ssl as it comes to testing locally. I've been keeping track of my modifications, and of course the override is great

Setup a test install on your server

How can i emulate ssl locally? Or should I just disable it for the local server?

Or should I just disable it for the local server?
You can not using wamp - - so disable it

K, simple enough. How goes the server stuff?

Update:

We've managed to migrate the site and database to our new host, turning a 15 second page load into a 4 second load. (Thanks Kobra!) Still a bit high, but a significant improvement.

We are in the process of transferring our SSL certificate, so the site has been put in maintenance mode for that duration to ensure client privacy (we don't want anyone signing up while SSL is down)

I've set up a private server using Wamp, which runs very slowly on my machine at home - but it allows me to make severe alterations without messing up the live site.

I've been studying the core files which have been altered in any way, comparing directories with win-merge - which allowed me to find a few remnants of the lightbox3 plugin which were causing parse errors - removing these improved the parse time, but only slightly.

The battle continues.:bigups:

Transfer is complete now. We ran into several unexpected issues, such as the email settings in zen cart (was sendmail - needed to be php)
:oops:
One I didn't expect was conflicting mailservers - both godaddy and pimahost had copies of catchall emails for @opticalnow.ca, so until I figured this out, emails were not being recieved or sent correctly, and I wasn't being notified. Deleting the email account at godaddy resolved this, all is well once again.
:flex:
Now that it's all working again, I can get back to working on the parse time situation. Query time is now very good - 3801 queries in 0.37 seconds!

Parse Time: 3.898 - Number of Queries: 3801 - Query Time: 0.374144333511

Model List Plugin - the answer to my navigation and SEO needs.
I also added Corner Site Seal for a new look, and removed a lot of stuff from the footer.
whatcha think? http://opticalnow.ca

An anomaly. It's like this product wants to live.

1 Day Acuvue Moist 90 Pack
Parse Time: 0.511 - Number of Queries: 3705 - Query Time: 0.316129840378

It is a product on "special" so price reduced a bit, but overall, it's the same as the rest of the products, only it loads 6 times faster. No other "special" products display this load speed. In fact no other products I know of display these speeds.

I have tinkered with both the database and file caching of sql requests which are set in the configuration.php files.

I have not hit all of the pages in these modes, only tested them to refresh a page a couple times and see if there was a difference. I think this could have caused a partial cache effect, but I don't really know.

Anyone familiar with sql caching modes built in to zen 1.3.9h? I usually figure it out as I ask the question but I always appreciate the input.

If you have the ability, copy the whole site, and try it on another provider. I ran into the same thing and it was 100% the host (had been with them for 3 years) after 3 weeks and hours on support chats they never fixed it, changed over to https://www.siteground.com and bam ZERO issues it would work fine for a while just when the machine was used load it was like crawling. See if you can test it somewhere, if the problem follows you then you know it is code, and not host.

Thing is, we were on a bad host to start with (godaddy), and have now moved to a much better one. On the new host, we have this one product which loads instantly, and the rest have about 3 second parsing. The really weird bit I just realized, is that the product in question is an exact copy of the 30 pack version of the product, the only difference being the base price, and the fact that this one product is on special.

Why we have a parse time of three seconds for it's clone, I cannot yet say. I think we're getting close to finding the solution though.

Good times, the model_list plugin got it's fix thanks to Glenn - I'll be posting an updated copy to the forum topic once I've cleared all the remaining validation errors I see on my site (which probably no longer apply to this mod, but I want to be sure). I'll even include the sidebox code I use.

Here's the thing, I used the Corner Site Seal mod to add the static lock image to my site, I was planning on revising the graphic shortly, but I think it's giving me java syntax errors. There doesn't seem to be a support thread for this plugin, so I suppose I will have to correct it myself if possible.

I'm down to 9 errors now from the 133 we had before the correction of model_list - my favorite plugin.

As well, today I have to make some corrections to the database - and I'm confronted with a sort_order issue. Is zen cart capable of decimal based sort orders? I need to put about 20 values below "1" and I'm pretty sure using negatives doesn't work.

As well, today I have to make some corrections to the database - and I'm confronted with a sort_order issue. Is zen cart capable of decimal based sort orders? I need to put about 20 values below "1" and I'm pretty sure using negatives doesn't work.
Sort orders and your negative attribute values have nothing in common

Make your sort order for the as needed in positive numbers

yeah, I discovered I can't use negatives or decimals in sort order, and I didn't leave myself any room at the front of the attribute set for additional negative values. Basically I'm forced to make a new set and start my sort order at 1 for -20.00D. I'd like to do this without wiping out all the currently set product values, so I'm considering making a new set for the one product that uses this range.

You could update your existing sort orders with:

UPDATE products SET products_sort_order = products_sort_order * 100;

I didn't leave myself any room at the front of the attribute set for additional negative values. Basically I'm forced to make a new set and start my sort order at 1 for -20.00D.
For attributes, you can just change the order number of those that exist and not have to recreate them

Just give your -20 value the sort order of 1 and increment the others using 10, 20 ,30,40...

This will allow you some room for any future insertion sort order

Ajeh:

You could update your existing sort orders with:

UPDATE products SET products_sort_order = products_sort_order * 100;

this is close but not quite the code I need specifically.  Could someone tell me how to make an sql patch to alter the sort order of attribute name: power range?

If all of your Sort Orders need changing, there are things to help ...

For the Option Name, look at the Catalog ... Option Name Sort Order ...

For Option Values, you could reset the default Option Value Sort Order in the Catalog ... Option Value Sort Order ... and then apply those to the whole catalog to resort everything in the Tools ... Store Manager ...