Making product versions selectable

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7 years 10 months ago #241981

-- url of the page with the problem -- : morninglightmusic.org/dev/sheet-music/pr...e/under-construction
-- HikaShop version -- : 2.6.3
-- Joomla version -- : 3.5.1
-- PHP version -- : 5.6.17
-- Browser(s) name and version -- : Safari 9.0.1

Hi Hikashop. I am working on implementing Hikashop into a music store online, intending to sell PDF's (sheet music) and MP3's (recordings) of my music. The problem I'm running into, not sure how to address, is that for various pieces of my music, I've got several different versions (all-women's choir, vocal solo, Mp3 vocal recording, mp3 piano accompaniment, etc.) (A good example of what I hope to do, letting customers choose from various versions of a song from a single product page, is here: www.praisecharts.com/songs/details/25016...ot-alone-sheet-music . The structure of their site is what I hope for - choose a song on a category page (by artist or topic), then choose one or more versions of that song from the product page. It seems that in Hikashop I can ADD an option to a product - but not let customers choose one or the other. I'd like them, for example, to be able to choose the choral version of the piece INSTEAD of the solo version - rather than in addition to it. Is this possible, without having to set up separate product pages for each version?

I have attached a wireframe diagram my UX specialist (who is also a musician) created for me, which represents an ideal setup for my product pages. I found a music player extension to plug in - now just need to figure out this puzzle of how to allow customers to select the product version/s they want. Any suggestions you have on that would be appreciated.

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7 years 10 months ago #242063

Hi,

You want to use the characteristics/variants system to do that and not options.
www.hikashop.com/support/support/documen...html#characteristics
If you set the "characteristics selection method" setting of the HikaShop configuration to "list", you'll be able to have a listing of the variants of the product on the product page with one add to cart button per variant, like you want to do.
Then, it's just a matter of customizing slightly the "show_block_characteristic" file via the menu Display>Views to add the player for each variant.

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7 years 10 months ago #242153

I didn't think you could attach files for download to characteristics. That's why we went the options method. But if I'm wrong that's great!

How would you attach a file to each characteristic? What I need to do is something like this:

Song Title: Joining Hands, Joining Hearts (product)

Versions:
Vocal-Piano Sheet Music, $2.95 (pdf file (the main product file, PDF #1)
Choir-Piano Sheet Music, $4:50, or $3.50 for 3 or more copies (a different, larger pdf file, PDF #2)
Choir-onlySheet Music, $1.49 (a different, smaller pdf file - PDF#3)
Flute / Piano Sheet Music, $2.50 (still another pdf - PDF #4)
Flute Part Only, Sheet Music, $1.49 (another small 1-page pdf - PDF #5)

Vocal-Piano Recording, $.99 (mp3 file #1)
Choir-Piano Recording, $.99 (mp3 file #2, a different mp3
Flute-Piano Recording, $.99 (mp3 file #3, another separate mp3)
Piano Accompaniment Only, $.99 (mp3 file #4, another different mp3)

So, for this one song (product), there are 5 unique PDF files, and 4 unique MP3 files. How and where would these be input, and how would the right file be assigned to the right version and price/s? Again, the idea is for the customer to choose which version/s he wants, pay for them, and then have those particular PDF and MP3 files emailed to him.

For example,
Customer 1, a vocal soloist may just want the Vocal Piano version (PDF #1), the Vocal-Piano Recording (MP3 #1), and the Piano Accompaniment (MP3 #4) (Total purchase: $4.93; files sent - 3)
Customer 2, a choir director, may want 2 copies of the choir-piano version (PDF #2)), 50 copies of the choir version (PDF #3), 1 copy of the choir-piano recording (MP3 #2), and 1 copy of the Piano Accompaniment recording (MP3 #4) (Total purchase $85.48; files sent: 4)
Customer 3, a flute player, may want 1 copy of the Flute-piano (PDF #3); 1 copy of the Flute-only part (PDF #5); and the Flute-Piano Recording (MP3 #3) (Total purchase: $5.08; files sent - 3)
Customer 4, a teenager just listening to music on her iPhone, may just want the Vocal Piano Recording (MP3 #1) (Total purchase: $.99; Files sent: 1)

The missing piece is - how do I assign a unique file to each version of the product? I only see fields for entering files into the regular Product. If I was to do that in this instance, I would enter 5 PDF's and 4 MP3's. Except that then each customer would get sent all 9, rather than just the ones he/she desired and bought. I see from the tutorials how to assign the characteristics, versions, and prices - but not unique files for purchase and download.

Thanks for your attention to this. I have many musician friends, looking for a way to share their work online, that would likewise be very interested in a system like this. -- Carrie :)

Last edit: 7 years 10 months ago by CarrieWrigley. Reason: Complete information

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7 years 10 months ago #242157

Hi,

You sure can attach files to variants of products. When you are editing the product, go in the "Variants" tab, edit the variant, and there you'll find the Images and Files area where you can do that.

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7 years 10 months ago #242460

Thanks for your guidance on this. We were able to implement your suggestions, and have a good start now using variants as suggested.

4 followup questions:
1) It appears that the variant grid appears below the description info, and the price of the original product iitem still appears above the description.. Is there any way to get the variant grid to display above, rather than below, the description? For example, if I have an MP3 version and a PDF version of a product, can I get those items with their "add to cart" buttons to display at the top of the page, with the description underneath, rather than the other way around?

2) Several default Hikashop categories appeared when we implemented the 2-level category module. I don't see these in your demo, so they seem like "dummy content" that can be deleted. But, didn't want to delete anything crucial for the functioning of the site. Am I OK to delete these? --
- Taxation category
- Order Status
- Manufacturer

3) Can you describe in a little more detail how to implement the music player, as you suggested in your first comment here?
"Then, it's just a matter of customizing slightly the "show_block_characteristic" file via the menu Display>Views to add the player for each variant."

Clicking on the link you provided, looks like this is a php file specific to the selected template. How do you plug player info into that?

4) Is it possible to create a product template, with basic description text, pricing, player code, image, etc.? so you can just fill in specific title and info, not start afresh with every product? I thought I saw something suggesting that in the description of the "Business" edition of Hikashop, but I can't seem to find that within Hikashop.

Last edit: 7 years 10 months ago by CarrieWrigley.

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7 years 10 months ago #242468

Hi,

1. Yes. You need to customize the code of the file 'show_default' via the menu Display>Views and swap the different pieces of code:
www.hikashop.com/support/documentation/1...-display.html#layout

2. No, you shouldn't delete them. These categories are outside the product categories tree. So there is no reason to delete them as they shouldn't appear on the categories module of the frontend.

3. First it depends on the player you'll use. Let's suppose that it's a joomla content plugin player which works with a content tag like that:
{mytag my_sample_file.mp3}
Then, you want to edit the variants of your product and in each, enter the tag of the sample file you want for the variant in the description field of the variant.
And the player should display automatically on the variants listing of the product page.
So in that case, it doesn't even require any code modification.

4. Sure. Once you have one product like you want, select it on the products listing of the backend and click on the "copy" button at the top and you'll get a copy of that product and its variants. Then you just have to modify the information that is different for the new product and rince and repeat for the other products.

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7 years 10 months ago #242745

Thanks for your help. We've now developed a product page implementing your suggestions. It's looking great!

Next questions that came up -

1) Is there any way of reordering the variants on the list? We're not seeing any way of doing that, other than deleting and copying and pasting. Over time we're going to be adding more variants to each song. So we're hoping there's an easier way to move variants around than cut, copy, and paste.

2) The shopping cart is acting a little wierd. I installed the RN Stop template, which is one of those you reference on your site as being optimized for Hikashop. However, when you add an item, it goes to a popup saying the item was added to the cart (a function of the template - I'd prefer it not show this, but just directly show the change in the cart.) Then, it doesn't show the addition of the item in the sidebar cart module. Instead, the little cart module in the header expands to show the items in the cart (as it should in the sidebar cart.) After you reload the page it appears like it should - with the top header cart icon reflecting just the cart image and the total price of items in the cart, and the sidebar cart listing all the items by name. But it takes a while to get there.

It's looking like this anomaly may be a conflict between Hikashop and the template optimized for it. Any suggestions for getting these two modules to "play nice" with each other?

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7 years 10 months ago #242774

Hi,

1. The variants are automatically ordered based on:
- the order of the characteristics of the product in the characteristics listing of the backend
- the order of the values of each of these characteristics when you edit them in the backend
- what you selected in the "Characteristics values ordering" setting of the HikaShop configuration.
So make sure that these are what you want and the variants will display in the order you want.

2. It's not really a problem of the template. The issue is that the AJAX add to cart of HikaShop doesn't support several cart modules refresh. So either display only one module, or turn off the "Use AJAX when possible for add to cart buttons" setting of the HikaShop configuration and that will work.
We're working on a new cart system for the next version of HikaShop which will handle these properly in ajax mode.

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7 years 10 months ago #242852

I finally found the "Use AJAX when possible for add to cart buttons" setting you referred to (in "Main/Advanced Settings" of the Configuration. ) Turned it off - but the problem remained the same, unaffected at all by turning off the setting. :( Really hoped that fix would work. Guess for now I'll turn off the template cart module, and replace it with a static icon, so I can keep Hikashop's sidebar cart. Makes me sad - I really like them both, and hoped they'd work well together. Any idea when this new version of Hikashop will be available, with this hoped-for fix?

Regarding variant ordering: For my purposes, with the variants, I was hoping over time to add more and more versions of different file types (MP3 recordings, and PDF sheet music) Are you saying that when I add others, it will cluster all the MP3's and PDF's together, for example, in the order I input them? Or that there's no way to change order - you just have to input each product in the order you want it to appear on the page, without the flexibility to change it later when you add more versions? Any chance at all that ordering variants after input will ever be possible in Hikashop? It would certainly make it much more useful for those of us selling downloadable products.

One last questions - So far it appears that my products are not appearing as results in the Joomla "Search" module - though products from my previous shopping carts do display in Search. Is this a fixable problem? With as much content and time that goes into these product pages, it would sure be nice to have them searchable. Hopefully I"m just missing something in product setup to accomplish this.

Despite these issues, I am really enjoying Hikashop. Looking forward to the update, for an even more powerful version. But what's here now is already amazing. :)

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7 years 10 months ago #242861

Hi,

1. It has to work with that option turned off.
If it doesn't, then it might be related to your Joomla template.
Try to have two cart modules, with that option turned off with the default Joomla template and you'll see it works.

The next version with the new cart system is scheduled for the end of summer.

2. The ordering can be changed at any time. Look at the "order" column that I talked about in my previous message on the listings of characteristics and values. There is an input field for each element so that you can change the value at any time.

3. Did you enable the HikaShop Products search plugin and configured it via the Joomla plugins manager? If you didn't, it's normal that the products don't appear in search results.

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7 years 10 months ago #243432

Hmm --- I"m not seeing the ordering list you're talking about. Really want to understand this. Could you point me to the "order" column referred to in your message?

"2. The ordering can be changed at any time. Look at the "order" column that I talked about in my previous message on the listings of characteristics and values. There is an input field for each element so that you can change the value at any time."

I looked back through my previous messages from you, and don't see what you're referring to.

Also, am trying to understand characteristics and variants better in general. We've created a "characteristic" that consists of "PDF" and "MP3". The first type of product contains one of each (1 PDF - Vocal Piano Sheet Music; and one MP3 - a Vocal recording.)

If I want to have multiple MP3's as variants on a single product (for example, a CD product, containing 12 separate song MP3's; or a collection of sheet music containing multiple sheet music PDF's ) do I have to create a different characteristic for each combination of PDF's and MP3's? Or can I just choose "Duplicate" to create another PDF or MP3 variant, giving it a different title etc?

Last edit: 7 years 10 months ago by CarrieWrigley. Reason: misspelled word

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7 years 10 months ago #243449

Hi,

When you edit a characteristic you can change the order of the values:
take.ms/wIGTAf
And when you edit a product, you can drag'n'drop the characteristics to change the order of the characteristics themselves on the product page:
take.ms/GM6XD

Regarding the duplication, it's really handy for reduce the workload. I didn't really get what you meant with the pdfs and mp3s and what is for what. So let's take a simple example:

You sell a shoe and you have 3 colors and 3 sizes. So that's 2 characteristics with 3 values each for a total of 9 variants.
The simplest is to do like that:
First you add the color characteristic. You add the 3 variants and you set the image for the corresponding color for each variant so that when you change the variant selected on the product page, it changes the color of the image of the product.
Once that's done, you add the second characteristic for the size, and there, you can use the duplicate mechanism to duplicate the 3 variants for the other sizes. That way, the system will automatically generate the rest of the variants based on the one you already have with the correct image for each without having you to setup each variant.

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7 years 10 months ago #243530

Ah - now I see the ordering lists. Thanks for the screenshots! I now understand that you can change the order of variants by editing the characteristic; and that you can have multiple characteristics, and by editing the product, can change the order of how these characteristics appear on the product. Great customizability - thank you!! What a great product! :)

Now, having understood what you are saying about creating characteristics and variants for shoes (physical products), I'm hoping to expand your understanding of what I'm trying to do with downloadable music. Not only to help me - but hopefully, to help forge the way for other musicians looking for a way to effectively share their recorded and printed music (MP3's and PDF's). This is a great unmet need in the Joomlaverse, and on the internet in general. I've been hunting for a solution to this for years, as have many of my musician friends and many others I've run into on forums etc. In a changing music industry, the need for a DIY store to make one's own music available is expanding every year. I think Hikashop has powerful potential to meet that expanding unmet need. :-)

So, moving from selling shoes to selling downloadable music, here's what I need to do, that I need your guidance on.

Question 1- Five Music Product Types - How best to create and display them in Hikashop:
On my site, I need to sell 5 different product types, each requiring characteristics and variants, as follows:

Product Type One: Music CD (MP3 files available for purchase and download, as on iTunes, Amazon, CD Baby. EG: www.amazon.com/Speak-Now-Taylor-Swift/dp...ords=cd+taylor+swift . Or www.cdbaby.com/cd/lsullivan , or any iTunes Album page.) For example:

CD Title: Carrie's First CD:
1. Title-Song One (MP3) 3:50 > Preview .99 Add to Cart
2. Title-Song Two (MP3) 2:57 > Preview .99 Add to Cart
3. Title - Song Three (MP3 5:13 > Preview .99 Add to Cart
4. Title - Song Four (MP3) 3:30 > Preview .99 Add to Cart (and so on, usually around 12 tracks per CD)
5. ALL TRACKS (MP3) 45:00 10.00 Add to Cart

(and so on. "Preview" is the code you told me before to input into HTML to display a music player with a preview of the song. "Add to Cart" of course serves up the MP file that had been uploaded into the variant. "ALL TRACKS" delivers all 12 or so MP3's as part of that single download purchase (I'm guessing for that one, you upload all 12 files into the "ALL TRACKS" variant?)

CD's of course vary in how many songs are on them, from 1 to 24. The question is - for a "CD Characteristic" - since I have multiple CD's, each with distinct content, each with a different number of tracks (i.e. songs, which are mp3 files) - do I need to develop a different "Characteristic" for each CD? Or can I use the same Characteristic for all of them? If the same one, do I have to put the maximum number of variants (for the songs/tracks / mp3's) into the characteristic (say, 24?) Or, in each CD product, can I just hit "Duplicate" to add another track, then another, till I have enough for all the tracks on that particular CD?

Product Type Two: Songbook - Sheet Music (PDF)
(PDF files available for purchase and download.) For example:

CD Title: Carrie's First Songbook:
1. Title-Song One (PDF) PDF Preview 2.95 Add to Cart
2. Title-Song Two (PDF) PDF Preview 2.95 Add to Cart
3. Title - Song Three (PDF) PDF Preview 2.95 Add to Cart
4. Title - Song Four (PDF) PDF Preview 2.95 Add to Cart (and so on, #'s of songs variable in each songbook)
5. ALL SONGS (PDF) 19.95 Add to Cart

In this instance, the products being sold are various PDF's of printed sheet music, with each individual song a "variant" of a "Songbook" characteristic. Here, the "PDF Preview" is a JCE lightbox display of Page 1 of the song; and the product is a PDF of the written music for the song. Same question - with a variety of songbooks over time, do I need a different characteristic for each songbook, customized to how many songs are in each songbook? Or, can I use a single "Songbook" characteristic, duplicating within each product to get the number of songs I need in each?

3 - Product Type Three - Combo MP3 and PDF of the same song - Simple (one of each file type)

CD Title: Carrie's First Song:
1. Vocal Recording (MP3) < Preview .99 Add to Cart
2. Sheet Music, Vocal-Piano (PDF) PDF Preview 2.95 Add to Cart

This type of product blends file types, to make both versions of a single song available to a customer on a single product page (with lyrics and descriptive info about that particular song) So, from the same page, a customer can order the MP3 recording of "My Song" to play on their iPhone; and also a PDF copy of sheet music to play and sing from their piano.

4 - Product Type Four - Combo MP3/PDF of the same song - Multiple versions of each file type

CD Title: Carrie's First Song:
1. Vocal Recording (MP3) < Preview .99 Add to Cart
2. Piano Accompaniment (MP3) < Preview .99 Add to Cart
3. Sheet Music, Vocal-Piano (PDF) PDF Preview 2.95 Add to Cart
4. Sheet Music, Vocal Duet (PDF) PDF Preview 2.95 Add to Cart
5. Sheet Music, Women's Choir (PDF) PDF Preview 3.50 Add to Cart
6. Sheet Music, Men's Choir (PDF) PDF Preview 3.50 Add to Cart
7. Sheet Music, Full Choir (PDF) PDF Preview 3.95 Add to Cart
8. Flute / Piano version (PDF) PDF Preview 2.95 Add to Cart

This, again, is to display and sell multiple versions of the same song - but now there's different, multiple versions of MP3's and of PDF's. For reference and a model, a Christian music store did this kind of thing here, for each of their songs, including this one: www.praisecharts.com/songs/details/26279...ou-sheet-music/video . I really like on that site that they separate the "Sheet Music" from the "Audio Tracks." If I were to do the same, would I create a different "Characteristic" for Sheet Music and Audio Tracks, and then add however many variants I need to each characteristic?

5 - Product Five - Musical Production (different file versions of different songs - most complex product type):

CD Title: Carrie's First Musical Production :
1. Song 1- Vocal Recording (MP3) < Preview .99 Add to Cart
2. Song 1, Sheet Music, Vocal-Piano (PDF) PDF Preview 2.95 Add to Cart
3. Song 1, Sheet Music Choral (PDF) PDF Preview 3.50 Add to Cart
4. Song 2- Vocal Recording (MP3) < Preview .99 Add to Cart
5. Song 2, Sheet MusicVocal-Piano (PDF) PDF Preview 2.95 Add to Cart
6. Song 2, Sheet Music Choral (PDF) PDF Preview 3.50 Add to Cart (and so on, for all the songs in a production)
7. FULL MUSIC CD (All Songs) (MP3) 16.95 Add to Cart
8. FULL PRODUCTION SONGBOOK (PDF) 24.95 Add to Cart
9. FULL CHOIR SONGBOOK (PDF) 34.95 Add to Cart-

Ultimately, I have multiple products to input, in each of these product types - each of which contains multiple variants. So I'm hoping from the getgo to plan my product input process in the cleanest, most effective way possible.

The core question, cutting across all 5 of these product types, is - For each unique product, consisting of different combinations of PDF and/or MP3 files, do I have to create a unique Characteristic for each product (such as, each separate CD or Songbook?) Or, can I "Duplicate" within each product to create the various tracks or songs? If I do the latter, is there still some way to reorder the variants for just that product? Or, can you just reorder the variants across the board for all the products using that Characteristic?

Question 2: Expandability of Product:

Here's the next question. Let's say I start with a "Type 3" (1 PDF, 1 MP3) product of a song - but later I write a Choral arrangement (a 2nd PDF) or a Flute-Piano recording (MP3) I want to add later. What would be the best way to add additional variants to each product over time?

Previously I used a button-based shopping cart extension (Quicksell.) This had a very simplistic cart and checkout process, which is why I am upgrading to Hikashop. The one good thing about a button format, though, was - as I created new versions, I'd just type in a new line on my Joomla document or table, plug the MP3 or PDF files for the preview and product into Quicksell, and voila - suddenly had a new file became available for sale, on my prior page. What's the best way in Hikashop to handle such product expansion over time (adding new versions / variants of each song)

Question 3 - Button functionality in Hikashop?

Because of the freedom the "buttons" in the old shopping cart gave me (I just plugged those buttons freely into Joomla articles or Tabulizer tables) I wondered if you have developed, or (for pay of course) you would consider developing a button plugin for Hikashop, that would work in a similar way - plugging in preview and product files that would be accessible from anywhere on the site, and dumping those "buttoned" products into Hikashop's shopping cart for checkout and email delivery?

Question 4 - Brainstorm - New Hikashop Add-on Idea : Hikashop Music Store

I noticed you've developed special add-ons for Hikashop Auction, Subscription, Multi-Vendor, etc. I assume that these were developed to meet the expressed needs of Hikashop users. I wonder if it would be possible / desirable to develop essentially a "Hikashop Music Store" Add-on, plugging in the functionalities (like music players and previews) and layouts I've described here?

The whole music business is moving more and more to online outlets rather than physical CD/sheet music sales. Many musicians I know are trying to find ways of sharing their music online, in ways that allow them to control their own content and payment. Also there are few if any places online that make sheet music and recorded music available under the same cyber-roof. (Even for major mainstream artists like Taylor Swift. You can find their recorded music on iTunes, their sheet music on MusicNotes - but never in the same place, and never under artist control.)

With the vast customizability already built into Hikashop, I bet it wouldn't be a far stretch to build an add-on like this, for artists like me to use in building their own store to present and get compensated for their own work. I'm working with a local developer to develop custom html code to serve these described functions for my site - but it's vastly outside normal WYSIWYG format, and is time-consuming and cumbersome. I'd love for example to see a way to easily plug in a "preview" file (1 page PDF sample, or 30-second MP3 sample played in a music player.) Right now, we're plugging these codes in via html, in the HTML editor, in "Description." It would be so much easier to do it the way you've provided for product files and images, by simple selection and upload.

I have many musician friends who like me have been looking for years for a way to effectively input and sell their music online. I'd be happy to help pay for development costs, if you think this is something you'd like to pursue - in the spirit of continued Joomla and HIkashop development, like those other add-ons you've created previously. Just a thought.

If not, of course, I'll just keep working on my own site and customization, with my local developer. But if possible, I'd prefer to spend some of this development budget and time in something that would benefit more than just my individual little site. Not just musicians, but anyone selling downloadable products (videos, ebooks, articles, games, etc) could benefit from such an add-on. Benefit for them - a whole new untapped market for you. Just thought I'd throw that question out there. Your thoughts?

Last edit: 7 years 10 months ago by CarrieWrigley. Reason: fix typo

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7 years 10 months ago #243531

Hi,

1.1 You want to have one characteristic with one value for each track of the CD with the most tracks you're going to sell + 1 value for the "all tracks" variant where you would add all the mp3 in the variant.
Then, after you add the characteristic to the product, just add the number of values you need for that CD.

1.2 Same as point 1.1, just one characteristic is necessary for all these products.

1.3 and 1.4 For both types, I would create one characteristic with one value for each version of the songs possible. Then, when you create products of the type 3, you just add the 2 variants you want, and when you create products of the type 4, you add all the needed variants. You don't want different characteristics for mp3 and sheets. Just one is enough and the order of the variants on the page will depend on the order of the values in the characteristic, so it's easy to setup.

1.5 As for points 1.3 and 1.4, you could actually combine points 1.1 1.2 and 1.5 and have one characteristic with all the versions of songs for the CD with the most tracks as values and then after you add the characteristic to the product, you would just have to select the values you want for the generation of the variants.

1.6 So you don't need a unique characteristic for each product. The reordering will be accross the board so if you need different variant order for different products, you'll need different characteristics, one for each order.

2. If you do like I proposed in 1.3 and 1.4, you could just add the necessary variant to the product. So easy to do.

3. Are you talking about something like that:
www.hikashop.com/support/documentation/1...-product-insert.html
This allows you to have add to cart buttons for HikaShop products added in Joomla articles, or anywhere else on your website.

4. Then this doesn't require a new component. Just a small HikaShop plugin should do the job to add some piece of interface to the product edition page to handle the upload of the file and then to handle the display where and when needed. Your developer could potentially work on that and sell it to others.
www.hikashop.com/support/documentation/6...r-documentation.html

On our end, we already have a lot on our plate with improving the core of HikaShop and providing solutions which are the most requested.
Sales of videos, ebooks, games, etc are already possible by default with HikaShop. mp3s too. And the preview can be added to the product quite easily as you saw with the content tags and potentially small modifications, so I don't see so much of a need for a specific component.
So I don't think we'll work on that. But remember that HikaShop is open source and that we provide a lot of ways for third party extensions to plug in with HikaShop. So if someone sees a way he could benefit from developing such plugin, it's not a problem. We'll be happy to advertise it on our list of integrations, like we did we many others already there.

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7 years 10 months ago #243574

Nicholas, thanks so much for your detailed and helpful response. This is exactly what I need to build even my most complex products. More every day, I am impressed by the power and customizability of Hikashop. Amazing product!

At first glance, yes, it looks like the "product in article" function would serve the button function I referred to. I'll look into it tomorrow. Nice to know that you've already incorporated that feature.

I didn't see that, or much about variants, on any of the tutorial videos I watched (on your site, or on OS Training, who referred me to you. What process do you recommend for learning most effectively and thoroughly about Hikashop programming?

Thanks again for a fantastic product, and even more fantastic support. :)

Last edit: 7 years 10 months ago by CarrieWrigley. Reason: add paragraph

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7 years 10 months ago #243585

Hi,

1. Here are some pages of documentation relative to variants/characteristics:
www.hikashop.com/support/support/documen...ct-form.html#variant
www.hikashop.com/support/documentation/2...isplay-by-color.html

2. If you want to learn about HikaShop programming, the two first pages you want to look at are these:
- www.hikashop.com/support/documentation/1...ize-the-display.html explains how to modify the CSS and the views of HikaShop.
- www.hikashop.com/support/documentation/6...r-documentation.html lists the triggers available, provides the database structure, and some code examples.
- Then HikaShop being open source, you can directly look at what's already in there by default by searching in the code of HikaShop for the triggers you might want to use.
For example, if you want to create a plugin which adds a new view on your checkout, you want to use the "checkout" API, and thus, you'll find the "envoimoincher" plugin which uses that API and is a good example. If you want to add elements to the product edition form and on the products listings, you want to look at the Display API: www.hikashop.com/support/documentation/6...ntation.html#display
you'll find also information on these triggers also on forum and if you have questions, we'll be happy to answer them.

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7 years 10 months ago #243830

Nicholas, thanks so much for your help over these weeks of implementing Hikashop into my site. It's coming along beautifully; however, I'm running into a few issues I wonder if you could help with:

1) IMAGES - I have a number of images already installed to my site, that clearly show in the Media Manager, stored in the Images folder. However, it appears that none of these are accessible when I try to select an image within Hikashop. I guess I can jerry-rig it by dragging the image in from FTP or saving a copy elsewhere first. But that seems like a lot of extra work, since the images already exist in the folder structure of the site (in the Images folder.) Is there a way to get Hikashop to access those images that are already stored in the site folders?

2) SUBCATEGORY ASSIGNMENT - On several of my categories, I installed subcategories, which I later realized were more appropriate to a different category. When I tried to reassign the "Parent" it didn't display properly. I finally deleted the Subcategory and started over, selected the correct "Parent" category from the beginning. This initially seemed to work, finally displaying the right structure both in my Side Menu and also in my Product Tree structure on the back end. But then, when I go to select categories for products, it still shows the subcategory assigned to the original (wrong) category. What am I missing here?

3) MULTIPLE PLAYERS ON PRODUCT PAGE - SLOW IF EVER TO PLAY - I took your suggestion for my CD pages to embed code of a sample of each song for my player on each variant (CD Track) on my CD product pages. It looks really pretty - but is very slow to respond. On some computers and browsers I tried, I couldn't get the samples to play at all. At other times or in other browsers, it would finally play if you waited a long time and/or hit "Refresh" or "Reload" enough times. Clearly, though, that's not a satisfying customer experience. These same samples play just fine on individual product pages displaying only one sample. These same mp3 samples also play fine as previews in my old shopping cart CD page, with all the previews installed to a single page. Any insights on that?

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7 years 10 months ago #243841

Hello,

1) Images in media manager are available from HikaShop only in Media manager in a specific dedicated folder :
Path : Media folder => com_hikashop => upload
You can change this default path, in Components => HikaShop => Configuration, Files part find the input : "Upload folder" and write your required folder path.

Note : If you have already define some picture with HikaShop, that will "cut" the link from this first picture group, you have to pick already defined pictures and drop them into your required folder.

2) Do you try to use the rebuild function, in Components => HikaShop => Categories ?



3) I'm afraid that this part we have no solution because players isn't from us, I guess maybe some parameters can be change or other version will better fit your needs, especially if you have several player in the same page...
I can invited you to contact the player developer to learn more about what can be done from your needs.

Regards

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Last edit: 7 years 10 months ago by Philip.

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7 years 10 months ago #243903

NEED URGENT HELP!

Suddenly, none of my new test orders are including download links anymore. And test orders previously that worked to deliver downloadable products, that worked as recently as 9 hours ago to download products, are no longer doing so.

My developer was trying some new settings in the Checkout portion of the Config, such as "Guest Registration." Now, we can't seem to get anything working, to deliver these downloadable products we have spent weeks inputting. Our entire Hikashop store is based on delivering downloadable products - so this is truly distressing and scary.

Nicholas, I see that you are online. Could you help figure out what's gone wrong? I'm hoping you can spot the problem and help bring about a solution. PS - I bought Hikashop Business for my site, partly because the advertising talked about email support. I'd like to access that if possible for this problem (to send admin login info etc.) but am not sure how to do so.

Last edit: 7 years 10 months ago by CarrieWrigley.

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7 years 10 months ago #243910

Oh - also I found and attempted the "Rebuild" fix that Philip suggested. No change. :-(

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