Update your shopping cart without leaving the products page?

What I'd love to be able to do is to click the "add to cart" button for a product and have it update the cart sidebox without leaving the page. This way, I could shop for product easily while being able to see everything in my cart.
Also, is it possible to have a "checkout" button on the cart sidebox so that I can simply click this to proceed to the checkout process?
I think this is a much clearer way of shopping and one that will be less confusing to the customer.
Just hoping somebody has done this already and can show me how.
Thanks for your help,
Bearaman

I have not seen this but with some custom coding should be possible

as far as the first thing you said, if you turn off the Go to shopping cart after adding product to cart then it wont switch over to the shopping cart view each time and your cart on the sidebar will update.

You could just turn this feature on in the Configuration ... My Store ...

Display Cart After Adding Product
Display the shopping cart after adding a product (or return back to their origin)

true
false

er ... umm ... yes, what gardengirl said ... :smile:

Fantasic! Zen-cart amazes me with it's abilities and options everty time I ask "Is it possible to...".
Thanks,
Bearaman

Hi Thanks for the easy answer.

However, when a customer adds an item, there's no indication that it has been added to the cart. Is there a way to have them see a message somewhere?

TIA,
Tatiana

The message is already built into Zen Cart when you add to cart but are not taken to the shopping_cart ...

If the define is blank then this will not show ...

/includes/languages/english.php

Line #388 : define('SUCCESS_ADDED_TO_CART_PRODUCT', 'Successfully added Product to the cart ...');

Line #390 : define('SUCCESS_ADDED_TO_CART_PRODUCTS', 'Successfully added selected Product(s) to the cart ...');

Thanks for the quick reply Ajeh,
Those messages are not blank, they're exactly as you quoted..

Does this mean you do or don't see them on your site?

If not, check if you are missing them in your overrides file for languages or switch to Classic Template and see if they show ...

If they show in Classic and not your template then your template is missing code and/or out of date ...

Sorry I meant to say that the english.php override has the proper code but there is no message showing when I add to cart, it just adds it without any indication that it;s added.

I switched to Classic, it's not showing up there either.

Thx,
Tat

I would use a program like Beyond Compare from scootersoftware and check the differences of a clean Zen Cart v1.3.7.1 and your existing site ...

Also check the date on your file:
/includes/classes/shopping_cart.php

And make sure that you see the code using the defines for:
SUCCESS_ADDED_TO_CART_PRODUCT

approximately 5 places use it ...

I checked through developer's tool kit and SUCCESS_ADDED_TO_CART_PRODUCT always has a message, ie not blank.

For winmerge, you mean check the entire zencart??

As for dates of shopping_cart.php, it is 2003-2006.

...

Tatiana

For winmerge, you mean check the entire zencart??
Yes and you can do this in batch mode not file by file

tatiana77:

I checked through developer's tool kit and SUCCESS_ADDED_TO_CART_PRODUCT always has a message, ie not blank.

For winmerge, you mean check the entire zencart??

As for dates of shopping_cart.php, it is 2003-2006.

...

Tatiana

The date on the shopping_cart class is:

• @version $Id: shopping_cart.php 4884 2006-11-05 00:32:55Z ajeh $

Ajeh:

The date on the shopping_cart class is:

Hi Ajeh,

I'm having the same problem as Tatiana, the success message isn't displaying anymore. It used to and now it doesn't. The messages are defined in both my override/english.php and the regular english.php files, and I re-installed the original classes/shopping_cart.php. I'm running 1.3.7.1 and my cart is heavily modded. It's still working on my test server but I haven't added eveything to it that I have on the live server, there's a few extras that I added right to the live site, and I never noticed when it stopped working so I don't know what might have happened. I tried changing back to the default template but that didn't do it.

My question is, is the success message only called from classes/shopping_cart.php? Do other functions call classes/shopping_cart? If I can figure out the logic trail it would really help me to figure out what file got altered. I have winmerge but for some reason when I ftp my live site files to my computer it must change the structure(or something) a bit so that in winmerge the entire file is considered different as one big block, so I can't tell what is really different and what isn't.

Thanks for any input!

Matt

lankeeyankee:

Hi Ajeh,

I'm having the same problem as Tatiana, the success message isn't displaying anymore. It used to and now it doesn't. The messages are defined in both my override/english.php and the regular english.php files, and I re-installed the original classes/shopping_cart.php. I'm running 1.3.7.1 and my cart is heavily modded. It's still working on my test server but I haven't added eveything to it that I have on the live server, there's a few extras that I added right to the live site, and I never noticed when it stopped working so I don't know what might have happened. I tried changing back to the default template but that didn't do it.

My question is, is the success message only called from classes/shopping_cart.php? Do other functions call classes/shopping_cart? If I can figure out the logic trail it would really help me to figure out what file got altered. I have winmerge but for some reason when I ftp my live site files to my computer it must change the structure(or something) a bit so that in winmerge the entire file is considered different as one big block, so I can't tell what is really different and what isn't.

Thanks for any input!

Matt

Nevermind, I figured it out. I have Magic SEO URLs installed and that is what has stopped the success message from displaying, it was one of the mods that I didn't install on my test server. So for all folks using Magic SEO we'll have to wait for a bug fix.

Matt

I have another version of this "problem". I want the shopping cart to be updated, but I do not want to be directed either to the product_info or shopping_cart page. I want to stay on the same page where I clicked the buy button :smile:

Any tips on how to achieve this?

If you have turned off the Display Cart when adding to cart, this should work from everywhere ... and whether you are on the product_info or a listing, you should stay where you are at ...

Could you give a hint as to what is happening?

What version of Zen Cart are you using?

What happens if you switch to the Classic Template?

What happens if you turn off any SEO/rewrite that you might be using?

Have you an URL that we could perhaps peek at? :unsure:

Hi,

I'm using Zen Cart 1.39h, switching template does not help.
Display Cart is set to false, but when I choose a category, and click the buy button, I'm redirected to the product info page for the product I've bought. I don't want that. I want to stay on the same page where I clicked the buy button, and continue shopping :smile: . The page is under construction and requires login. If you don't understand what I'm trying to accomplish, I'll send you a link and instructions later...

Regards,
Dexter

Ajeh:

If you have turned off the Display Cart when adding to cart, this should work from everywhere ... and whether you are on the product_info or a listing, you should stay where you are at ...

Could you give a hint as to what is happening?

What version of Zen Cart are you using?

What happens if you switch to the Classic Template?

What happens if you turn off any SEO/rewrite that you might be using?

Have you an URL that we could perhaps peek at? :unsure:

Kinda vague for resolving an issue that could be caused by a number of things ...

What are your settings in the Configuration ... Layout Settings ... for the:

Categories - Always Show on Main Page
Always Show Categories on Main Page
0= off
1= on

Main Page - Opens with Category
0= Top Level Categories
Or enter the Category ID#
Note: Sub Categories can also be used Example: 3_10

Categories - Always Open to Show SubCategories
Always Show Categories and SubCategories
0= off, just show Top Categories
1= on, Always show Categories and SubCategories when selected

Does this happen just from the Product Listing or also from the New Products, All Products and Featured Products?