[Done v1.3.9] new products listing not random

The New Products box on the main page isn't randomly picking new products to display. As I add new groups of items, I have repeatedly noticed that the New Products box always groups the products together. For example, in the last 30 days I have added PowerBlocks, lifting straps, and cable attachments. Whenever you see any cable attachments, you'll see 9 of them at once, not mixed in with other new products.

See a current example of this at my site: www.adamantbarbell.com.

If you keep doing refreshes, you'll see what I'm talking about.

The randomizer will be better in v1.3.8 when it is released to give a better variety ...

Be sure that you have also defined the date period for what New Products are in the Maximum Values ...

Nice looking site btw ... :smile:

I'm guessing 1.3.8 could be months away. I see that the code for randomizing the new products listing would have to be in includes/modules/new_products.php, though I can't determine how to modify it. Any suggestions?

I think it would have an impact on my sales, as customers might see 9 different types of products that would attract their attention instead of 9 different sizes of rubber olympic weight plates that they don't want anyway. :)

You appear to either not have the New Products limit set or an old version of Zen Cart ...

Configuration ... Maximum Values ...

New Product Listing - Limited to ...
Limit the New Product Listing to
0= All Products
1= Current Month
7= 7 Days
14= 14 Days
30= 30 Days
60= 60 Days
90= 90 Days
120= 120 Days

Yes, I have that setting correct and the newest version of zencart. The limit setting isn't a problem. The problem is that the 9 new products displayed each time on the index page show in groups of either the order I added them or the category they're in - I'm not sure which, but either way, you see what I mean? It isn't obvious on every refresh, but for instance I just did a refresh and it shows 8 weight plates from a particular category and one weight plate from another category. I did another refresh and it shows 2 exercise balls, 2 weight plates, and 4 weight sets. On another refresh it shows 6 weight machines and 3 weight racks. So it mixes them up a little, sometimes, but not really.

In your first reply in this thread I think you understood my issue, but that was a month ago so that might add to the confusion.

bump

Can anyone help with this?

Your site appears to have images that are changing and being displayed in random order on the products ...

Have you fixed this?

What I've been trying to explain in this thread is different products do come up for every refresh, but no, they aren't random selections from among the products that qualify as new. They are heavily grouped by either the category or the date I added them - I can't tell which, because I often add a whole category at the same time.

Here are more examples on each refresh, showing 21 new items on the main page:

• 20 fixed pro-style barbells and 1 weight vest
• 13 pro-style rubber-encased dumbbells and 8 vinyl coated dumbbells
• 8 fixed pro style curl barbells and 13 fixed pro-style rubber encased barbells

If it were random, the products displayed would usually be spread out proportionally. They never are. The problem is that it doesn't help anyone to see 13 different weights/sizes of the same exact barbell, when that space could have been used to actually pick another random product instead of taking a huge chunk from a single category. And I'm not asking to pick only one product per category - What I'm saying is that if it were actually random, the selection process would not come up with what it does.

Let me explain another way. Here's what I think it's doing (wrongly): Say I added 400 new products over the past month. Say the products are gathered into a list sorted by date/time added, with the most recent added being number 400. The program picks a random number from 1 to 400, settling on 212. It then displays 21 products, items 212-232. It randomizes the order that these products display, but all 21 items are still the 21 barbells that I added on 2/4. The next time it goes through this whole process, it displays in random order 21 of the sequential items that were added on 1/30 and 1/31. Does this make sense? I don't know that this is the way it actually works, but based on the results I've gotten for the last several months it seems to be something very close to this.

I'd be happy to try to fix this myself with my limited PHP skills, if someone can point me to what section of code is responsible.

I seem to be experiencing the same sort of thing with the featured products. I am using the scrolling featured sidebox mod which is set to scroll 10 featured products.

I have 10 catagories on my site and I would like to make all items featured and have it randonly pick 1 item from each catagory. I could just make 1 item from each catagory featured but then it will be the same all the time.

The way it is working at the moment is it will pick a random product and then display that and the following 9 products which in most cases are variations of the same item.

Oh and I'm using zen cart 1.3.8a if that makes any difference.

Thanks

Well I'm glad someone else notices what I do, even if it hasn't been officially acknowledged as a bug yet!

You would need to write some customized code for this ...

Might take a bit of coding to grab 1 product of each category and add the random twist to it ... but it could be done ...

Thanks for the reply linda,

I'm not really good enough with php to write my own code but I have a work around for now, I installed the featured sorted mod and gave every products a sort order so that they display in that order, the only downside to this is it will display exactly the same everytime, but it works for now.

fakeDecoy & Phil020782:

This is a real shot in the dark here as I am very new to Zencart (and so far loving it) but is it possible the items that are being 'grouped' together in your problemed 'randomizing' are all very similarly named?

Wondering if the names are similar...maybe it is pulling them as a group that way (for whatever reason).

When I say simillar names I mean:

pro-style rubber-encased dumbbells red
pro-style rubber-encased dumbbells blue
pro-style rubber-encased dumbbells green
pro-style rubber-encased dumbbells yellow
pro-style rubber-encased dumbbells orange
pro-style rubber-encased dumbbells brown
pro-style rubber-encased dumbbells white
pro-style rubber-encased dumbbells black
pro-style rubber-encased dumbbells pink

..and so on. That for whatever reason Zencart is taking all names together that are very close to being the same and THEN it goes on to the next random product.

Just a stab in the dark... :shrug:

In my case they are very similar but that's because they are from the same catagory, I pretty sure the randomizer doesn't care about the names it uses the products ID assigned to the items. It will randomly select an item (say ID number 21 for example) then display items 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 etc.

Whereas I would like it to pick all random so it's something like 21, 74, 5, 127, 69, 90, 101, 35, 25, 99 etc

Phil020782:

In my case they are very similar but that's because they are from the same catagory, I pretty sure the randomizer doesn't care about the names it uses the products ID assigned to the items. It will randomly select an item (say ID number 21 for example) then display items 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 etc.

Whereas I would like it to pick all random so it's something like 21, 74, 5, 127, 69, 90, 101, 35, 25, 99 etc

Awesome, you've explained the problem much better than I did!

I'd be happy to try to rewrite that part of the code if anyone knows what file it's in. It shouldn't be too hard - I could just keep pulling random item numbers of items that qualify as "new", instead of doing random once and then the rest sequentially.

Phil020782:

It will randomly select an item (say ID number 21 for example) then display items 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 etc.

Ahh...I see. This post here explains the problem perfectly. Yeah that doesn't sound right at all if it is doing that.

Unfortunately I haven't added products to my shop yet but can others confirm that this happens to everyone? If so thats a horrible 'random'. :yuck:

Ahh...I see. This post here explains the problem perfectly. Yeah that doesn't sound right at all if it is doing that.

Unfortunately I haven't added products to my shop yet but can others confirm that this happens to everyone? If so thats a horrible 'random'.

Yes... this happens to me too!
But I am not as unlucky as fakeDecoy because I don't have that many variants of products displayed separately.

My site: www[dot]ews-store[dot]com

@fakeDecoy
For now I have identified that some command like 'ExecuteRandomMulti' is used to randomize the first number. You may perform a text-search in the Developer's Toolkit to find which pages have this line of command. Good luck!

BTW.. your site looks good. :)

I hope this Helps,

I had the same issue... I changed Admin -> config -> New Listing -> Display Product Display - Default sort order it was originally set to date desc, I changed it to 2 product name desc, and it rotates better. You can change it and see which one works for you.

Selling Upstate.com (this is the one I changed)
flatfeetaxes.com (in progress)
321dine.com (in Progress)

Has this problem been fixed? I have the same problem.

I have the same problem as well.

I wouldn't call what sellingupstate said a fix because it doesn't work for sites that sell products that begin with very similar names at the beginning. I still have a problem with the rotation. Can anyone suggest a post from somewhere else that can help or direct us in the right direction?

Much Appreciated,
Jason H.