ProductCart Modification: Catalog On Demand®For ProductCart®
Answers to the questions you may be concerned about:
What exactly does this do?
Catalog on Demand for ProductCart (CoD4PC) provides access to site-visitor publications, as well as the ability to push the products in your store over to Catalog on Demand.
Site-visitor publicatons:
Once this code is installed in your site, the visitors to your store will be presented a button on the pages listed below.
Category listing
Search results
Wishlist (saved items)
Best sellers
New arrivals
Specials
Featured products
When the visitor clicks the button, a popup wildow invites them to submit their e-mail address. Minutes later they will receive an e-mail with whatever products appeared in the page from which the clicked the CoD publication button.
Custom catalogs and brochures:
After exporting your store's product data to Catalog on Demand, you may log in to your account at CatalogOnDemand.com. From within their control panel you may then selet products and produce custom catalogs and brochures to fit whatever
your needs might be.
What are the costs involved?
You need to:
Purchase a license ($125) and install this add-on.
What ProductCart versions does this support?
You may order v3 or v4 versions of CoD4PC. Based on the version you order, we provide pre-altered code for v3.51 and v4.03. If you are running an earlier version such as v3.11, we provide line-by-line instructions as to how to alter that version.
Do you support apparel products and sub-products?
Yes. We have fully integrated the CoD4PC code to work with Standard and Apparel versions of ProductCart. Please view this example which contains
several "apparel products" and note the format in which the various colors are arranged below the product descriptions. Additional examples coming soon.
Does it come with instructions so my web developer can install it?
Yes. We provide detailed instructions which will guide you or your developer to install our code into any ProductCart store from v3.11 onward.
In it's simplest form, installing this mod is no greater effort than installing a ProductCart minor upgrade.
The ProductCart files affected by this mod are listed below. We provide pre-altered versions of those (v3.51 and v4) files which you may simply copy into your site.
If you are running one of these supported versions, and the files (see list below) in your store are the stock versions as received from Early Impact, installation is little more than uploading the correct set of files to your store.
Pre-altered ProductCart files are currently available for the following version combinations. Additional combinations may be prepared based on demand.
v3.51 STD PPE
v3.51 APP PPE
v3.51 STD PPE SEO
v3.51 APP PPE SEO
v3.51 STD PPD SEO
v3.51 APP PPD SEO
v4.03 STD PPE
v4.03 APP PPE
v4.03 STD PPD
v4.03 APP PPD
Key:
STD= Standard
APP= Apparel Add-on
PPD= Parent Paths Disabled
PPE= Parent Paths Enabled
SEO= SEO mod installed
If the files in your store that CoD4PC affects have been altered by other mods in your store, or if you are running an earlier version such as v3.11, our very detailed instructions (including line number references from Early Impact's original code) should make it very straight-forward to insert the code necessary for the CoD4PC integration.
Once the appropriate files are uploaded or altered, the last steps are configuring the application in your store admin, and making any cofiguration choices with regard to your LayoutPak (such as color scheme, logo, lifestyle graphic and so on.)
What files are affected by this mod?
PC folder:
custquotesview.asp
showbestsellers.asp
showfeatured.asp
shownewarrivals.asp
showsearchresults.asp
showspecials.asp
viewcategories.asp
PCADMIN folder:
setdropdownmenu.asp (v3)
pcv4_navigation_links.asp (v4)
INCLUDES folder:
languages.asp
languagesCP.asp
Is it open source like ProductCart so that we can modify the code if necessary?
Yes, the code that integrates to ProductCart is written in Classic ASP, just like the rest of ProductCart, and may be altered if you find a need to do so. The code at the Catalog On Demand end is an API which we do not have access to. The folks at CoD may be responsive to change requests depending upon how wide demand for such requests may be.
Does this mod need to be reinstalled each time we do a ProductCart update?
It depends upon what Early Impact does in the future. Some of the pages in the list above may see changes with future releases, and some may not. So as new releases to ProductCart are
distributed, and those releases affect the pages altered for this mod, then the CoD4PC integration will need to be re-installed to those pages.
Additionally, we are committed to supporting future versions. If a new PC release affects this integration, we will update our release code and make it available to CoD4PC users.
What administrative controls are supported from the store admin section?
Within ProductCart's store admin section, we provide a configuration tool that allows the merchant to set their preferences.
The CoD feature may be turned on or off.
Either the long or short product description may be set as the default.
Product options may be included or excluded in publications and CoD exports.
"Not For Sale" items may be included or excluded in publications and CoD exports.
Activate "stealth mode". In this mode only you and your developer will see the CoD4PC functionality. This is ideal for that
period when you are setting up the module, refining the look and feel of your site-visitor publications, and preparing to roll out this
exciting new service.
How easy is it for us to modify the template ourselves so the look of the catalogue conforms with the look of our brand?
Each of Catalog on Demand's LayoutPak options have configurable elements, and this really is a simple process. Briefly, these are the steps:
Add personalization details such as logo and your name/address.
Upload a banner graphic.
Set your color scheme.
Set the image size for your product images.
For further details, at Catalog on Demand's Quick Start Guide you may scroll down to the heading "Update Your Profile Information".
From there you may review the instructions for tailoring your color scheme, uploading graphics, and more.
