How can my Category Tabs be ON....when they're OFF??

I'm a bit stuck.

I've turned my category tabs off in admin. Up until a few hours ago, they were off and nowhere to be seen - which is how it should be.

However, after a few minor tweaks today with the header and logo file, my category tabs are back, but upon checking the setting in the layout pages in admin, they are still set to off.

I have turned it on and off and on again to see if that would reset (that's about as technical as I get I'm afraid)

It has been suggested that the category tabs were always there and were being hidden by my logo...but I don't think this is the case, as the logo only went onto the site yesterday. Before that, it was blank and I had turned the category tabs off only a couple of days earlier.

So that's my question. How can my category tabs be ON when they're OFF!

Thanks,

NattyCat:

So that's my question. How can my category tabs be ON when they're OFF!A couple of things to add to NattyCat's post.

This is an extract from this thread> I think this is a minor bug in the 1.3.0.1 release.

includes\templates\template_default\templates\tpl_ modules_categories_tabs.php

Code:

change <?php if (CATEGORIES_TABS_STATUS == '1' && sizeof($links_list) >= 1) { ?> to <?php if (CATEGORIES_TABS_STATUS == 1 && sizeof($links_list) >= 1) { ?>Are there circumstances in which the former syntax could cause problems such as those being experienced by NattyCat. Unfortunately the thread wanders off in a completely different direction and never addresses the bug issue.

Also, NattyCat uses better categories, does that ever touch CATEGORIES_TABS_STATUS?

Finally, NattyCat, it occurs to me that irrespective of what the Admin chooses to do, you can suppress the display of the category tabs by simply adding the following to your stylesheet> #navCatTabsWrapper {display:none}This isn't an ideal solution, but in one soothing step will allow you to relax and free you to move forward with the development of your shop.

well I could certainly do with soothing steps right now, my brain hurts. I wish I could wake up tomorrow and it all be finished and ready for me to start inputting my proper product photos, but alas, I have more issues I've not even touched upon yet such as:

a) due to my competitors having rubbish websites, and me not wanting them to copy my lovely new one or find out how I did it - I'd like to remove "powered by zen" on the footer

b) I have my "more info" box which I plan on using to list all the different fragrances I offer, broken down by category. At the moment there are pages 2, 3 and 4 (I'll need to change those) but I need another 10 pages like that because I have 13 different categories of fragrance. When the customers clicks on the heading, I will either have a list of all my fragrances in that category which they then choose and type manually into a blank text attribute box (or there will be a link that opens a pop-up) but ideally, I'd like them to be able to click on a fragrance and it automatically populates the text attribute box. Is that possible? And how do I add new pages anyway? And how do I edit the 3 that are already there?

c) how do i get rid of the qty column when I click on a category and the products in that category show up - I already turned off the "show qty" but it seems to be showing.....

I have lots more issues - but issue b is my most pressing one after the column tab one.

Nat

Nat,

Here are some answers -

1. http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/faq.php?s=&do=search&q=powered+by&match=all&titlesonly=0

2. http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/faq.php?s=&do=search&q=ez+pages&match=all&titlesonly=0

3. Please tell me more about what you want here.

Also, it is now time for you to graduate to using the search function of the forum. The two answers above took 60 secs each to open new tab, open faq search, enter search term, copy url, switch back to your questions, post url in reply.

Since you are so graciously loaning me your fabulous green I am happy to assist. However, the time will come when you have a mind numbing problem and I will be busy working at my real job. Kuroi will be hurriedly coding CSS. What will you do?

It will seem that lightning has struck your brain as you recall the Search funtion! Try the FAQ first, if no joy try searching the forum.

Before long your sense of design will only rivaled by you ability to reduce complex knotty problems into simple syntax.

Thank you for the reminder Bruce. I do use the search function, and i've used it extensively which is how I got my site like it is in the first place when I have the programming and technical skills of a retarted newt. Kobra helped me out a lot too, which I'm grateful for.

The issues I raised in this thread were simply things I knew I had "coming up" and had not attempted to fix as of yet...they were merely examples of the many new issues that I'm sure will arise as I continue on my steep learning curve and of course, when I got round to having to resolve those issues, I would have searched first. The problem I find with the search though, is being "non-zen" i have no idea what to call some of the objects.

For example - the "categories tabs" I simply refer to them as the "bits under my logos that are the same as my product groups" so it is frustrating to search for something when you are not sure of the technical term you should be searching for.

Issue 2 is, to me, a big issue and I have already searched on it but found no results - I saw your links to ez pages, but that doesn't answer the Q about automatically populating a text attribute box from another page - but I shall leave this issue for now as my head hurts.

Nat

Nat,

You have done an amazing job. So if my weak attempt at levity made it seem otherwise please accept my apologies. :blush:

It is typical that New Zenners do not know how to search for the right terms and do not recognize the correct answer when they see it. (He says speaking with the voice of experience) The cart does have a unique vocabulary.

I try to do what others did for me. Provide answers AND point people to the FAQ and search functions. I have a very small niche in which I answer questions. Recently, I answered a post that insisted that the answer to the question was not in the forum. I checked my threads and had answered it myself many times.

I will presume that #1 is okay for now.

As for #2, I misunderstood what you were asking. Instead of creating new pages, are you trying to create new products or create variations of one product? When you are ready to go further with this perhaps you could post an example of what you would like to happen. I know you can, for example, have one product with many 'attributes.' This can be color, scent, size, etc. I do not deal with attributes much in my own shop so I will not be much help. This is a fairly common question though and Ajeh's tutorial is a good start -http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/faq.php?s=&do=search&q=attributes+product&match=all&titlesonly=0. You will want to search on 'product attributes.'

Give me some more info on #3 when you are ready.

Keep up the good work.

the fact that you're bothering to reply at all is a blessing which I do appreciate, so you're well within your rights to gently steer me towards the search button!

Anyway, issue 2 is as follows in my best attempt at describing what I need:

OK, I make candles. I make them to order and the customer can choose the colour and fragrance. I know I can add attributes, and have seen how to do it and have added a sample attribute for colour to my "large snap clasp jar" candle.

Now, about the fragrance. I have over 200 fragrances that the customer can choose from, so a drop down list with 200 attributes is just not funny. It would be very messy indeed.

All of my fragrances are broken down into categories - like Fruits, Floral, Bakery and Beverages.

On my old website, created in frontpage, I had a page that had 10 little pictures that were relevant to each fragrance, which people clicked on and it opened a brand new page with a list of fragrances for that category. To better understand, take a look at my old website at https://www.scentopia.co.uk/SAMPLEWEBSITENEW and click on fragrances in the menu, and then you can click on "fruits" and see all the fruit fragrances that the customer can choose from.

On my old site, I simply provided a text box for the customer to type in the fragrance that they wanted.

On my new zen cart website, I am trying to find out the best way, and the easiest way for a customer to a) view all the fragrances I offer and b) choose one of those fragrances.

I had thought that I would use the More Info box - I would create a separate page in the More Info box for each category of fragrance, and when the user opened the page, the list of fragrances for that category would be displayed. They would then choose the one they want, go back to the product they were interested in and type it in the text attribute box.

The issues so far are:

a) If they click on a fragrance category in the "more info" box and it opens a page to show the list of fragrances, how do they get back to the product they were interested in buying in the first place

b) Having 13 pages in the More info box is going to make that info box HUGE - almost as big as the main categories box. Would it be worth having just ONE link in the "more info" box called "fragrances" and when the user opened that page, it had a series of links that opened pop-ups, similar to the way my https://www.scentopia.co.uk/SAMPLEWEBSITENEW works.

c) You never can trust the intelligence or web experience of any user (just look at me!) No matter how large I write the instructions, some customers are just NOT going to understand that they manually have to type their fragrance choice into the text attribute box that I will provide. Therefore, I was wondering whether there was any way of populating that atttribute box with whatever the user clicks on.

So, for example, if in my "more info" box there is an EZ page called "fruit fragrances" which, once opened will have a list of fragrances available in that category. If the use clicks on "strawberry" then that "strawberry" automatically populates the attribute text box that I have provided for the product they are interested in buying....which then leads me back round to wondering how they get back to the product they wanted to buy in the first place - if they click on the candle they want and it says "click on the fragrance list to choose a fragrance" they then have to navigate AWAY from the product to the EZ page sitting inside the "more info" box.

Is this making sense?

Issue 3 - in the layout editor in Admin, I turned off "show product quantities" but if you click on "glass jar candles" in the categories box, and then "snap clasp jars" you'll see 3 products. There is a QTY column that I don't want and dont know how to get rid off. I don't have "stock", but I do know that I need to specify a quantity when I'm creating the product otherwise zen says it is "sold out" A while ago, the qty did disappear, but now it's back and I don't know how to get rid of it.

Natasha

Very good explanation. One of the devs or other Zen masters will soon notice that I am impossibly over my head on this issue and they will assist you with a workable if not elegant solution. Attributes are just not my thing.

Now, about the fragrance. I have over 200 fragrances that the customer can choose from, so a drop down list with 200 attributes is just not funny. It would be very messy indeed. Yikes. You have a gift for understatement.

I do hope one of the super guru/developer/zen gods read this, as I have searched and searched the forums to see if this sort of issue has been discussed and I've not found anything. I'm sure this is an issue outside the "standard" issues raised on Zen - and could possibly be something that is added to a later release?

If a super guru/developer/zen god and generally fabulously helpful person is reading this, and would like to really get their brain cells working on how this could be achieved, I would really appreciate hearing from them.

Regards,

Natasha

Take loo at the contrib for attribute controller - http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=36671

Might help

The attributes controller mod looks great, though not necessary for Natasha's situation. Since all her products will have the same attributes, the existing bulk copy functions will work fine once the first set is done.

My thoughts on a way to handle the multiple scents is with a block of 13 dropdown attribute boxes in each product info page. Properly styled and grouped, they wouldn't have to take up too much space. There are several ways to proceed and they all require some code modification for foolproofing. There must be a way to require one and only one final selection from among the scent dropdowns.

Make the default selection in each box be display only, either a blank or "Select" or the name of the class like Fruit, Flower, etc.
Ideally, when any "real" selection is made, all other classes would be reset to default.
Otherwise, the system could require all but one class to be set (back) to default before proceeding with the Add to Cart.
Also, this block of attributes only would need to be allowed to go through with the display only option selected.

This requires a coder to chime in with some ideas. I know the steps I would take to do this but not the code to execute those steps.

Hope this helps give some direction!

i did think about this...but having 14 dropdown boxes for one product would be overkill don't you think? One for colour and then 13 for the different fragrance categories?

Also, with my blank text attribute box, I could also give the customer the opportunity to choose 2 or 3 scents if they are buying multiple candles. For example, if they buy 1 votive candle, then they choose 1 scent. If they buy 6, then they can have 2 scents and with 12 votive candles, they can choose 3 scents.

This is easy enough if there is a blank text box they can type into, I'm not sure how it would work with your method?

This is becoming quite an interesting puzzle which I'm sure others have an opinion on!

Nat

I have two suggestions:

1. Seek out user = Clydejones. He is wise in the ways of Zen and has a similar shop with similar products.

2. Read the book "Blink." Especially the chapter that basically says, "giving people too many options dramatically reduces sales."

Best wishes.

just remembered, 13 dropdowns wont work because I need to provide a description of each scent.

I understand the "too many options" thing, but my business revolves around providing candle scents that you just can't buy in the shops - that's why so many of my customers come back to me, because they love trying out all my different fragrances. If i just offered the stock scents such as vanilla, lavender and rose then my sales would drop drastically. I am very successful in my sales so far, I have several shops who stock my products and it is the more unusual scents that sell first with the boring ones not selling - because people can get those fragrances from cheap shops and supermarkets.

I may cut my fragrances down and remove those that have not sold in, say, the last 3 months but that would still leave me a large list!

Started to say you might try a bestsellers list. Before it got to my fingers my brain translated that into a "Top 100" scents drop-down box. GRROOOAAAANNNNN. Not much help there.

One of the things we do here is toss out ideas until lightning strikes somebodies brain and actually solves the problem. Sounds like you have a wonderful niche market and my view of it was ... limited. (Such a kind way of saying I had no idea what i was talking about)

Really suggest you talk to Clyde. He was discussing this same topic in another thread and mentioned 70 scents.

Don't know why I keep trying to solve problems I don't understand. WAIT! It is that marvelous green. It keeps calling to me.

Good luck. I'll be watching.

lol - thanks for taking an interest. You are probably right, someone will come in with a completely different way of doing it that none of us thought of but works beautifully.

The gist of this conversation, for anyone new reading it is this:

How do you allow customers to choose one, two or three fragrances from a list of 200, and how do you get their choice of fragrance to appear in an attribute box for the product they want to buy.... Bearing in mind that each fragrance must be listed with a description of the fragrance.

Nat