Can't get PP Express Checkout button to show in some cases

I’d like some help with a frustrating matter, and I’m counting on someone who can point me in the right direction. You know who you are.

I have modified my cart to avoid thrashing between the product_info page and the shopping_cart page, and so to avoid distracting the customer from his primary task, if you add something to the cart, you stay where you are so as to continue shopping.

A wonderful green bar appears to notify you that your item has been added to the cart as well as two new buttons appear on the product info page when the cart contains items

1. View Cart
2. Checkout.

If you click the “view cart” button FIRST, then off you go to view the cart, where the PPEC button is proudly displayed. And if you click the PPEC button (having never logged in) off you go to PayPal. Great!

BUT, what happens if after adding your product to the cart and now from that product_info page you choose to checkout, and click on the CHECKOUT button, not the “view cart” button?

You are directed to the login page. The login page sometimes exposed the PPEC button, and sometimes it doesn’t. In this particular case it doesn’t. Why?

THERE IS SOMETHING IN THE CART, and I WANT TO CHECKOUT… WITH PPEC!

It seems that the Boolean value of $ec_button_enabled is not set to true unless something else determines that it’s okay to display the PPEC button. For the life of me I have not been able to do that.

This is a job for the infamous Dr. Byte! Cure me of this illness. See URL below

Zinfandel:

I have modified my cart to avoid thrashing between the product_info page and the shopping_cart page ...please explain in more detail what you mean by "modified my cart".

Hello Dr.Byte,

admin>config>MyStore>**Display Cart After Adding Product = false

**This lit up the green alert bar when a product is added, instead, which I then moved to just above the add-to-cart box. At the same time, if the cart contains one or more items, I expose a "view Cart" button and a "checkout" button just to the left of the add-to-cart box. These will not appear if there is nothing in the cart.

You're more than welcome to take a look.
http://www.christianbazaar.com

My basic question is... does it not make sense to expose the PPEC button (if PPEC is enabled) on the login screen when there is something in the cart without having to pass through the view cart page to set the $ec_button_enabled boolean? Which is what seems to be the case.

It appears that you've altered your login page template so that it does not offer the split-page login choices, and in the process you have also removed the built-in code that displays the PayPal Express Checkout button.

The PayPal Express Checkout button automatically appears if the cart has one or more items in it, provided you haven't changed the code that calls for it. ie: the $ec_button_enabled is automatically set if the cart contents and purchase amount is greater than 0.