Add "Add to Cart" Buttons to Existing Site

Is it possible to just use the "Add to Cart" button on another template? What variables does the button pass to zencart?

Not sure what you mean???

Are you asking if it's possible to have a completely different site, and just have "add to cart" on this site?

Firstly, why would you want to do this? You can build a really sophisticated site with Zen Cart anyway.

Secondly, if you want to do what I indicate above (separate website), the answer is probably "no", unless you have huge amounts of money to pay to someone to develop special functions and modules.

Well, because I'd like to have the product, size, color, etc., on one page rather than have the customer click a "more info" link in order to do so. I posted about this in another thread (http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=61176) and looks like I can't do it using ZenCart.

It just seems like a big fat middleman page to list all the products for a category without the option of adding it to your cart immediately. Is there a way for it be done? Or, am I stuck with the "more info" link?

"More Info" will appear by DEFAULT when you have given your product ATTRIBUTES.

Why is this so... ?

Common sense, really...

If you sell SHOES:-

...and you sell just One style, One colour and One Size - then you can ADD TO CART at any stage, becuase there are no variables that the customer must select.

...but if you sell a style that comes in Black and Brown, and sizes 6,7,8, then you are going to have to allow your customer to drill down to a point where these options are offered, and the customer must make desired choices.

I think I do have common sense, thank you very much. And I really don't think it's insanity to want to select colors and sizes from a dropdown menu and add it to the cart from the product listing page.

That aside, here's another situation where I need to be able to click on the "Add to Cart" button... Certain sizes are available for certain colors. Not all sizes are available for all colors. Once the user select a color, the size menu automatically filters accordingly. From what I gather, ZenCart doesn't have the ability to accommodate this feature, so I need a button that I can add to an existing design that I can just pass the values to and it'll add the appropriate product to my cart.

So, is there a way to do this?

duckduckgoose:

So, is there a way to do this?

No, there is not.

There is no way to add the add to cart button on a separate page? Isn't the button just passing values to another script?

duckduckgoose:

There is no way to add the add to cart button on a separate page? Isn't the button just passing values to another script?

You're asking to run website A that is not running zen cart to send a script to website B which is running zen cart? You want what I assume is an HTML based site to communicate with a php driven site? How will they communicate back and forth? Zen cart is designed to work as a whole, not to be chunked up like that.

The more logical thing to do is to design your new zen cart to look like your old site.

I don't disagree, but it doesn't appear that this is possible given my products. Also, it's not a flat html site, but uses PHP/JavaScript.

The problem with "just doing it the zen way" is the filtering that is necessary in order to display the correct options to the customer.

For example:

Product Name = Akido
Product Colors = Black, Blue
Product Sizes = Black: S, M, L & Blue: L, XL

Currently, if the user selects TSHIRT, then Black, the only sizes that appear are S, M, L... if the user selects Blue, then he'll see L, XL. Since this isn't a feature that can be duplicated using Zen, how else would I be able to display the correct product options to the customer?

Okay, I'm experimenting with a way to use zen for everything, and I thought I could make just various levels of subcategories. So now, I have:

T-Shirts
|_ Akido
|____ Black
|____ Blue

Within Black, I have 3 products: Akido S, Akido M, Akido L
Within Blue, I have 2 products: Akido L, Akido XL

And no options/attributes for any of the products. I thought that this would allow the ...more info on the product listing page to go away. It didn't. Can I just add it to the cart w/o directing the user to the product info page, since there's no options to choose?

duckduckgoose:

Okay, I'm experimenting with a way to use zen for everything, and I thought I could make just various levels of subcategories. So now, I have:

T-Shirts
|_ Akido
|____ Black
|____ Blue

Within Black, I have 3 products: Akido S, Akido M, Akido L
Within Blue, I have 2 products: Akido L, Akido XL

And no options/attributes for any of the products. I thought that this would allow the ...more info on the product listing page to go away. It didn't. Can I just add it to the cart w/o directing the user to the product info page, since there's no options to choose?

Could I see a link please?

so we want to go from 1 click from product listing to product info
to
if I don't know your products I am going to click t-shirts then click akido then click blue then click large..........I count 4 clicks there.

Why not manage the attributes on the product info page by hand....when building the products only give each product the attributes available. It just means when you get more product in a color/size that isn't in the attribute list for the product you'll have to add it.....
Also the stock by attribute mod may apply here (i haven't used it) as it might turn off attributes that you don't have in stock for a specific product. Still a bunch of work one way or the other...

If you are hell bent on not moving from the product listing page to the product info page to have the customer add to cart when attributes are involved just add a "add to cart" button to your current pages and use mals ecommerce or paypal.....since what you want is not available at this time in ZC.....Hoping that it will be at some point......