Changing display of product references

[Goz]

I am building a site for a client who uses Sage Line 50 (and we'll be using Actinic Link) and has all his products already set up there. He has set his product references up to be a 3 character manufacturer code followed by the manufacturer's product code. Due to the nature of his business, his customers recognise the manufacturer's product code and it is this that my client wants to display instead of the full product reference.

I've thought of 2 ways of doing this.

1. Set up a Custom Property; then, somehow copy the required part of the Product Reference into the Custom Property and then use the Custom Property to display on the HTML pages rather than the Product Reference.

or

2. Go into Design | Text, search for Phase -1, ID 65 and put some kind of display mask over the %s.


Having looked at both of these options, I feel like I'm barking up two wrong trees simultaneously.

Anyone got any suggestions?

Thanks

Andy

[Jan]

Could you change the HTML to strip off the 1st three characters of the product reference when it displays it?

Regards,

[Goz]

Hi Jan

I did think about this but it's probably beyond my HTML capabilities at the moment. If I could figure it out, I guess I would have to apply it to all the templates that display the product code?

regards

Andy

[Mike Hughes]

If it's just a display thing, then this could be done by covering over the first three letters with a white (or whatever) image.

i.e. display the reference, then use relative positioning to go back to where the reference started and display a small blank image that covers the first three letters.

Mike

[jont]

If you simply hide the 1st 3 characters the full reference will still pass through to the cart which may cause some problems with "I ordered a 123456 but the cart and your invoice says ABC123456".... similarly if the back end invoice shows the full manufacturer reference and not the ref that the customer thinks they have ordered - probably best to get all refs to be the same.

If your client wants to retain the manufacturer code could he not introduce this at the end of the product ref if the customers are familiar with the codes .eg : 123456_ABC?

Just a thought....

[Goz]

Thanks Jonty - we'd thought this one through (thankfully). The manufacturers code is the first three letters of their name, so my client is quite happy for this to show on the cart, desptach notes and invoices etc. Personally, if he's happy for them to appear on that documentation, I'd prefer that he shows it on the product pages as well (but that's not a battle I'm winning at the moment - the customer is always right and he is paying!).

I'll try Mike's suggestion and see how it looks.

thanks for the replies.

regards

Goz.