[Old] Royal Mail Modules

SilverKop:

Try looking at this.... https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=204 Hope that helps.

:cheers: mate

steve

right everything is fine for the uk, i have just had a customer on the phone he does not have a shipping option from northern Ireland ? how do i insert zones manually , i have read the ukzr installation.pdf that comes with the moduel, but i dont know how to install them

Zone 1 you should have United Kingdom and Scotland, Wales and England if you have
Scotland, Wales & England installed. The easy way to tell this is to try and buy something and
check is Scotland, Wales or England appear in the drop down ( i only have the uk):jawdrop:

For Zone 2 you should have insert these zones manually: (as mentioned above there is no way to
predicating which ones you have installed i.e. “Ross & Cromarty” as one zone or seperately as
“Ross-shire” and “Cromartyshire”). ( i dont understand how too ?)

i cant add a subzone as the country doesnt appear in the drop down , if i try to add norther Ireland as a country it asks for ISO CODE 2 and ISO CODE 3 and ADDRESS FORMAT how do i find out what the isocode 2 and iso code 3 are ?

same for Scottish highlands.

steve

Steve I am just running into a few issues with the postal zones myself. I have got the cart running and practically configured without having to resort to additional help, I find I learn the subject better that way. I have to admit defeat on the zones however as the shipping estimator is reporting errant charges. Here is my background. This module has helped greatly with my setup which I am concentrating on the UK only at the moment.

I have all the countries listed and they include, UK, England, Wales, Scotland, N. Ireland, RO Ireland, Isle of Man and the Scilly Isles.

I have the UK zone with everyone in the UK listed except RO Ireland. These places are then repeated in additional zones for their respective areas, England, Scotland, Wales, Cannel Islands, N. Ireland, RO Ireland, and Isle of Man.

OK the Zone definitions, are set up as per the instructions I think :blink:
UKZR: Zone 1: United Kingdom, Scotland, England, Wales. all set to "all zones"
UKZR: Zone 2: Scotland, with all the outer regions specified AND because they are also listed in the United Kingdom list there is a duplicate list with the same outer regions of Scotland in the Country "United Kingdom"
UKZR: Zone 3: Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, Isle of Scilly with "all zones"

OK when I use the shipping estimator I get the following:

Country: United Kingdom, State Province: Glasgow - UK Zone 1 and the correct fee.

Country: Scotland, State Province: Glasgow - UK Zone 1 and the correct fee.

Country: United Kingdom, State Province: Bute - UK Zone 1 and the wrong fee.
(the Bute region is in my zone 2 listing with Scotland and United Kingdom countries)

Country: Scotland State Province: Bute - UK Zone 2 and the correct fee.

So clearly there is something wrong with my logic and I would appreciate some input to correct my error.

Naturally I can see where the errors are coming from, but I thought there was some logic looking at the zones when it's conducting the calculations?? I don't really know so I will stop before I make a fool of myself :D

Thanks in advance.

Nigel

OK to further qualify what is going wrong I see the error coming from the way the Scottish highlands are part of several zones.

Using Bute as an area in the Highlands and therefore should be part of a postal zone 2 charge. It receives postal zone 1 charges currently because (I think) it is also included in the United Kingdom area zone, also the Scotland area zone.

So
UKZR Zone 1 Mainland UK. Includes the United Kingdom area zone, and the Scotland zone, both of which include Bute in their listings.

UKZR Zone 2 Scottish Highlands. only includes the regions of Scotland that are in the Highlands.

When I was setting it up I followed the instructions to the letter or so I thought :lamo:

I really would appreciate a pointer here to resolve this dilemma!

Regards.

Nigel

If anyone has answers to my issues above I would be grateful. Is there another thread more active than this one per chance??

Regards

Nigel

I'm a little confused. Is the Big Royal Mail a development of this module? The installation for Big Royal Mail does not specify any SQL patch to be run but 3 are included in the download. However, it is not clear which, if any, one should use. Can someone please clarify? Thanks.

There is a text file in the root of the folder "install.txt" use that and the adobe pdf file in /Docs to install. You don't actually need to run any of the scripts, it all depends on your zen version and the way you have your countries set up.

Details are in the pdf file.

Nigel

Your zones look right to me. - Your rates are not getting screwed up by the Tare value or some other stupid addition that Zen Cart makes in the background, by any chance?

Also, I don't mean to add to your headaches with the BRM contribution (which is a really nice update), but letters can only be 240mm x 165mm and not more than 5mm in thickness, whilst large letters can only be 353mm x 250mm and not more than 25mm in thickness.

I have tried to add length and width (in place of thickness) values to Zen Cart but cannot get them working, and then there is the added problem of integrating them with BRM.

I also investigated the possibility of adding a filter to the BRM so it would not use certain postage options with filtered category/product IDs and the possibility of expanding the contribution so you could specify that certain postage services not be used in the product listing details page for serious fine tuning of the postage services. - Both of these would have the added advantage of not needing to add length or width variables into Zen Cart and the database.

Discovered another problem with BRM: it does not seem to work with the Google Checkout mod.

• The mod picks up on the BRM modules no problem, but lists each as not being configured even when they are.

I'm not sure what needs to be done to fix this, but I would guess that the values being passed to the checkout are not in a recognised format because the PayPal Express Checkout seems to have no problems whatsoever recognising them.

It does work with googlecheckout you just have to put the shipping tables that you use into the shipping_methods.php file (or replace it with shipping_methods_uk.php ,will have to add ukzr manually) and make sure that the API callback is going to https://<url-site-url>/googlecheckout/responsehandler.php

If you have any luck in getting filtered categories/products then that would be a great help

Evening all,

So if there a problem with the module ? It's been a long time and I saw that it was maintained well. One thing woud have been easier though. When I wrote it and then left, I was in the process of working by increment, so that the SQL calculations for postage say for "signed for" could be worked out as "first class weight + 0.98 pence" or whatever the current value is, then when the rates changed there would be a "base set of values" say from April 2008 and all the installation program would do is go, right we're now on version XXX so we need to split the stored values by : and comma loop through them and add 19 pence. There would be special cases for exampled when 21p is added rather than 22p, but a few sql statements was a lot easier than manually having to add each value (because I did it about 17 times and it's an onerous task).

So who's in charge now and what's the problem ? If the data is being posted out to one payment method, but not to another, the best thing would be to dump the data in the payment module causing the problem and work out if it is actually still there, or being lost on Google's side of the net.

Regards.
Philip

Just to confirm, this is really me, my old bouncingltd account actually still works, but I prefer the other one.

The short story is I disagree with the ZC moderators on certain topics and so left.

I'm disabled and my rehab team suggested I try and do something to take my mind of it. Along came someone with a question on Big Royal Mail, who didn't know I'd left (I'm very surprised this account still works) and while I was looking through his code I found a security hole in a payment module.

I fixed that bug and now am sort of developing that module, the same person that dragged me back in, mentioned there appears to be something going on with this module and payment modules, so I might be able to help. I'm just as tetchy as ever, but I'm not looking to tread on anyone's toes, I just thought I could help with the debugging if need be,

is Pixxi still around ? I never worked out if it was a he or she, but they were always very capable.

Philip.

Thanks, topcat24, I will look into that.

I am just finishing the my webstore installation off to try and get things going before Christmas, but I really want Google Checkout on my site, so hopefully that will be on the cards over the weekend between walking and finishing off some orders.

bouncingltd, - so you are thinking of taking up the torch on this mod? - Good luck! - I don't know about pixxi, but I do know that the mod could use some kind of filtering in the product lists or the addition of length and width/thickness in order to get letter and large letter postage working properly.

• At the moment I have had to remove the functionality of those modules because I sell 1m threaded rods and cannot have people being able to buy these with a 36p postage charge because the weight is less than 100g!

Re: philip_darke post:

Why would you do this? - The seperate module approach seems to handle most situations well without incrementation.

The only problem area (for me, and topcat24 it would seem) is not being able to remove certain postage options per product, eg: on the product listing pages, and not being able to limit letter and large letter by the length and width/thickness of the item(s) to be posted.

I'm not saying that incrementation is not necessary, - I'm simply not certain what issue it would be addressing, save possibly as an alternative to having multiple postage modules, when some things could possibly be handled by a smaller number of modules.

Okay I'll just write using this account as I'm trying to manage another module. Okay I'm not here to take over or anything. I am thinking of whomever is maintaining the project, when I first did this I had to manually enter those weight:price colons for 17 different modules (approx) and then they changed the prices, and it is a hell of a bad job for whomever is the maintainer. After having done it twice, I was moving towards have a base set of values, then when RM change their prices it's a lot easier just to go "right add 20p to everything" because you can also key it on a date, so if they change on April 23rd then you can tell the system to activate the increment then.

Believe me, filling in those text boxes so that you lot can use the module is really really boring. I seriously don't envy that part of the module maintenance.

Now Next Point: (I'm working backwards). Apparently in a japanese modification of ZC there is the ability to put dimensions in, I was going to investigate this but never got around to it because of the abrupt way I left. Yes, I felt it was needed when things went by dimensions but it would be very difficult although the benefit would be that then there would only be one first class module that would shift pricing if the purchases reached a certain dimension, that would be very cool.

Easy Removing of Postage options, one could add a non-displaying attribute to each product, as a flag for the modules, like Attribute: SKIP_FIRST_CLASS_LETTER and then key that into the modules. That would be an easy fix (assuming that one can set attributes to non-displaying). I thought when I left it, that the modules did disable themselves on weight though ? It's been a long time anyway.

Hi!

On the shipping section, is there a way of limiting shipping
options on each product to one. For example, at the moment lightweight items could be large letter or small packet depending on size, but I don't want large letter rate to come up if they have to go as a small packet, as customer would obviously try to use the cheapest option.

Hope you understand what I mean.

Thanks!

basically no, it's been under discussion for a long time, I was the original author, someone's taken it over, but so far there is no way of limiting size attributes.

bouncingltd:

Just to confirm, this is really me, my old bouncingltd account actually still works, but I prefer the other one.

The short story is I disagree with the ZC moderators on certain topics and so left.

is Pixxi still around ? I never worked out if it was a he or she, but they were always very capable.

Philip.

Hi Philip! :-)

Glad to see you're still up and fighting :-)

This thread (and module) has really missed your expertise, attention, and knowledge - big time.

Some people have gallantly stepped in and updated the postage rates (and whatnot) in your absence, but it would seem that you are the only person that has the ideas and capacity to develop and sustain what you initially created.

No, it's still 'your' mod - other people have just stepped into the breach (as it were) while you were away, to try to keep it usable for all of the people in the UK who really need a Royal Mail shipping mod.

Glad to see you back - people here need your skills and experience! (just ignore ...) ;-)

Best wishes

Pixxi

Oh you bottom kisser you, but you've got to admire whomever did update the postage rates because that was a really unpleasant job.

I'm not back, at least not yet, I never stopped programming, just did it for myself, then my rehabilitation team suggested I start "work" again, and a guy from here Carl happened to ask a question about the module, so I fixed that, and when looking through his payment gateway code (he had another problem) I found a security hole you can drive a truck through. DrByte suspended the module in question and the developer fixed it, I modded it, and now am really working it through to give it some performance. The same security hole exists over ot osCommerce, so I go over there, get flamed, find out that there's been holes outstanding for two years, I've been banned from posting now for five days over there for pointing out that one of my flamers (?) blatently stated he knew about at least one hole but has been installing the shops for people. the GPL covers the developers for no warranty but I'm pretty sure that trading standards would have something to say about a bloke installing faulty shops under the "fit for purpose" laws.

I have a lot of "work" to do as I've got to finish off the module here, then try and persuade them over there that they really should fix the exploits, and then I may just make it back over here to see what's been going on. My memory is full of holes because of the medications over the years, but I thought we'd agreed that we'd increment the SQL so that no poor sod had to do what we had to do all those years back and type in weight:postage amount, hundreds of times and then check them all ?

I promise that once I've tried to put some security into the payment modules, that I will have a proper look at attributes, see if I can reduce the modules down into incremented versions and then (optionally because someone won't configure their catalogue correctly) key them into sizes. I don't even know what username I'm signed in under. Because it's me, I've also had to fix three people's servers over the last few weeks, because they'd misconfigured things.

What more can I say ? I've certainly missed you, it was an almighty relief to see you pop up again, because maybe we can get cracking again in the near future.

I actually have no idea why I should be doing this, it just looks like someone has to ;-)