'Continue shopping' link in shopping cart

Hi,

Regarding the 'continue shopping' link in the shopping cart: What would be involved to make this link return you to the page of the category you were viewing before adding a product to the cart. A client has stated that it is confusing for users, and they would rather be returned to whatever category page they were previously viewing rather than the product they just added.

I understand this could be a problem as the continue shopping link also appears when you view the cart without adding anything.

Anyone know a way around this?

much appreciated

See if this list of fixes is of help to you for v1.3.8 ...
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?p=559864#post559864

Ajeh,

thanks for that, but is there any way I can make that function go back two pages?

In this instance, a person adds a product to the cart, and clicks the link which returns them to the product they just added.

What I require, is to make them go two steps back, which would return them to the category page they were viewing.

We aren't using EZpages or anything like that across the site so I can only see that the 'back' button is used in this case.

thanks again

At this time, there is not a simple method for this as you don't know did they come from the listing or a sidebox or what to get to the product _info page ...

Ajeh,

maybe I haven't made it very clear, apologies.

It is only the 'continue shopping' link in the cart I would like to go two steps back, regardless if the person has just added a product or for example, gone to the contact page then to the basket.

is this possible?

There isn't a function to manage how many navigation links to go back ...

The function that handles that is:
zen_back_link

located in the functions_general.php file ...

Perhaps you can use the existing one to customize something for the Continued Shopping on the shopping_cart page ...

Just to verify, as it stands right now, there is no way to return a shopper to the category they last viewed when the 'Continue Shopping' button is pressed, correct?

I agree that returning them to the product they just purchased is annoying for some and confusing for many.

You can always change the logic to look for the master_categories_id of the product added and go to the listing with the right page loaded ... it just takes re-working the logic ...

However, if I came from New Listing or Featured Listing and went to product _info to add the product and then was brought back to the Category products listing on the page for that product ... what help was that to me, as a customer? :unsure:

Imagine you are on a site with ten categories, each category has 200 products. You have browsed through category '1' up to product number 57. You decide to add 57 to your cart. When you click 'Return to Shopping' you are returned to the product you just decided to purchase with no way to return to your previous location other then re-browsing the entire category again...

I would much rather have my customers returned to the product category, regardless of how they go to the product, then be returned to the product and thus be forced to re-browse the entire category to return to where they were before.

I hope the above scenario makes this problem clear.

Ajeh:

You can always change the logic to look for the master_categories_id of the product added and go to the listing with the right page loaded ... it just takes re-working the logic ...

As much as I would love to implement this solution, I know almost nothing about programming. I was happy just to get my cart working :)

I am saying it can work the way you want as described ...

I am cautioning you that when adding the product in any other way than coming form the product listing ... to the product _info ... hit add to cart ... go to shopping_cart ... click continue ... going to the product listing for the given category for the product and to the specific page on the pretense of "continuing from where you left off" will not always be "where you came from" ...

If you were panning through other listings then forcing the category listing could be a problem ...

However, you can always get something like this written and as you do not feel you wish to tackle this on your own, as it is not a simple slam dunk, then you may want to post in the commercial help wanted ...

There are also a could other ideas on this concept to give the customer a few other choices on where to go next from the cart ... but that would take a long time to break them all down etc etc. for someone else to write ... :smile:

You could try something like this in your functions_general.php file, function "zen_back_link()" at around line 994.

replace:

$link = '<a href="' . zen_href_link($_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['page'], zen_array_to_string($_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['get'], array('action')), $_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['mode']) . '">';

with:

$temp_string = explode("&", zen_array_to_string($_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['get'], array('action')));
if (substr($temp_string[0], 0, 5) == 'cPath') {
  $link = '<a href="http://www.yourdomainname.com/index.php?main_page=index&' . $temp_string[0] . '">';
} else {
  $link = '<a href="' . zen_href_link($_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['page'], zen_array_to_string($_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['get'], array('action')), $_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['mode']) . '">';
}

This is what I wrote to accomplish the task... basically if there is a "cPath" at the start of the $_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['get'] variable, I return to it, otherwise it continues as normal. Replace "yourdomainname.com" with your domain obviously. There is a better way to put the website name in there, but I was lazy :-P. Maybe I'll go do that now...

Make sure you test extensively, I run a simple website with most things disabled, no sidebars, etc.

Hope that helps. Use at your own risk, make backups, etc. :-)

Lightus

This worked for me. Brings me back to the point where I was in the listing:
replace(line 994ish):

$link = '<a href="' . zen_href_link($_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['page'], zen_array_to_string($_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['get'], array('action')), $_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['mode']) . '">';

with:

      $temp_string = zen_array_to_string($_SESSION['navigation']->path[0]['get'], array('action'));
      $temp_string2 = explode("&", $temp_string);
      if (substr($temp_string2[0], 0, 5) == 'cPath') {
        $link = '<a href="http://'.$_SERVER[HTTP_HOST].$_SERVER[PHP_SELF].'?main_page=index&' . $temp_string . '">';
      } else {
        $link = '<a href="' . zen_href_link($_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['page'], zen_array_to_string($_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['get'], array('action')), $_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['mode']) . '">';
      }

Anyone here that can help me get this code working for 1.3.9? I get PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_ELSE in /includes/functions/functions_general.php on line 1016.

Thanks :smile:

Nevermind.

I replace the code lightus suggested but it just broke.
javaman code didn't break but doesn't work either.

Does any one solve this problem? Or simply can't do it?

For me it seems work, I am using 1.3.9h
I am using the javaman mod, but I had to change something to it, otherwise I was connected to http://mysite/<a href

here it is (javaman's code with a little mod):

$temp_string = zen_array_to_string($_SESSION['navigation']->path[0]['get'], array('action'));
      $temp_string2 = explode("&", $temp_string);
      if (substr($temp_string2[0], 0, 5) == 'cPath') {
        $link = 'http://'.$_SERVER[HTTP_HOST].$_SERVER[PHP_SELF].'?main_page=index&' . $temp_string;
      } else {
        $link = zen_href_link($_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['page'], zen_array_to_string($_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['get'], array('action')), $_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['mode']);
      }

PS: Thanks for the solution, Javaman! :clap:

minor update

$temp_string = zen_array_to_string($_SESSION['navigation']->path[0]['get'], array('action'));
      $temp_string2 = explode("&", $temp_string);
      if (substr($temp_string2[0], 0, 5) == 'cPath') {
        $link = 'http://'.$_SERVER[HTTP_HOST].$_SERVER[PHP_SELF].'?main_page=index&' . $temp_string;
      } else {
        $link = zen_href_link($_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['page'], zen_array_to_string($_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['get'], array('action')), $_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['mode']);
      }

(changed & by & in the link)

luciano9876:

minor update

$temp_string = zen_array_to_string($_SESSION['navigation']->path[0]['get'], array('action'));
$temp_string2 = explode("&", $temp_string);
if (substr($temp_string2[0], 0, 5) == 'cPath') {
$link = 'http://'.$_SERVER[HTTP_HOST].$_SERVER[PHP_SELF].'?main_page=index&' . $temp_string;
} else {
$link = zen_href_link($_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['page'], zen_array_to_string($_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['get'], array('action')), $_SESSION['navigation']->path[$back]['mode']);
}

> 
> (changed & by & in the link)

How would I get this working on 1.5.5e please?

Nick1973:

How would I get this working on 1.5.5e please?
Given that the code is pretty much the same, you'd make the same change, but the code change is at line 1033.

(I've not tested it, but that's where the code has moved to, and if the change worked "before", the same change should work in v155 too.)