Display Products in Product Group

[Laylah]

Our Products are listed by subject but we use a 'basket value' based discount for one product group.

Actinic helpfully tells purchasers "spend £xx more on 'product group' to receive y% discount" but purchasers have difficulty finding other qualifying products . . .

Is there a way through search, or some other means, whereby purchasers can display products within a particular product group?

[Laylah]

Perhaps this could become a wish list item for 'search' . . . clearly the product records are 'tagged' to indicate a product group so it should be staightforward?

Maybe an alternative could be export / report of products in a product group . . . then brochure pages could hold the info?

[cdicken]

When you create a product group, and create a discount on that product group, and then enter a message in the 'Presentation' tab incorporating the [GROUPLINK] variable, Actinic generates a link of the following form online:

http://localhost/cgi-bin/ss000001.pl?PG=1&NOLOGIN=1&GROUPONLY=1

This is a link to that product group. The GROUPONLY=1 refers to the ID of the product group to link to. The id can be found in the 'nID' field in the 'DiscountProductGroups' table in the database.

[cdicken]

- content deleted by cdicken -

[Laylah]

Chris

Having obtained a page of results selecting a link to other results pages i.e. 21-40 41-60 61-80 Next 20

yields the error

Missing text search join mode. Please specify AND or OR.
Please wait for your browser to forward you to the next page or click here.

which then takes you back to the original product page.

Is this a bug in the search script?

[cdicken]

It is a bug in the search script, but you can get around it in the short term by adding

&TB=A

onto the end of the product group link e.g.

http://localhost/cgi-bin/ss000001.pl?PG=1&NOLOGIN=1&GROUPONLY=1&TB=A

[Laylah]

Thanks for that Chris . . . that's two bugs in two days :-) . . . maybe I should sign-up as a beta-tester?? However,

On Discounts | Cart Contents . . . presentation tab I have

Higher discounts apply to Llewellyn Products [GROUPLINK] in 'Description for product'

'Use Link to Product Group' is Checked


Here in 'Link Text'

For each Llewellyn product in the catalogue a line appears

"Higher discounts apply to Llewellyn Products Here"

The link Here works but the problem lies on the search pages as previously noted.

I then tried your link in 'Description for product' and unchecked 'Use Link to Product Group' . The link I used was

<FONT COLOR=#6177DC> <a href="http://www.mandrake-press.com/cgi-bin/ss000004.pl?PG=1&NOLOGIN=1&GROUPONLY=2&TB=A">Search for more Llewellyn Products </a> <BR></FONT>

[at first I used !!< >!! around the html but these were ignored and appeared either side of the link]

I substituted www.mandrake-press.com for localhost, changed the script number to 4 (correct script ID no.), and GROUPONLY=2 (value from the 'nID' field in the 'DiscountProductGroups' table in the database).

This displays Search for more Llewellyn Products against each Llewellyn product but when selected, the search yields No matching products were found.


I also put the link in 'Link Text' and [GROUPLINK] in 'Description for product' and achieved the same result . . . the link is displayed correctly but the search yields No matching products were found.

Have I made a mistake in the format of the search link??

[cdicken]

Try using the '2' for the 'PG=' value and leave 'GROUPONLY=' as '1' i.e.:

http://www.mandrake-press.com/cgi-bin/ss000004.pl?PG=2&NOLOGIN=1&GROUPONLY=1&TB=A

[Laylah]

I tried that Chris . . .

<a href="http://www.mandrake-press.com/cgi-bin/ss000004.pl?PG=2&NOLOGIN=1&GROUPONLY=1&TB=A">Search for more Llewellyn Products </a> in Link Text and [GROUPLINK] in Description for Product

it finds the first 20 but selecting later pages i.e. 21-40 41-60 61-80 Next 20


yields the error Please specify words for the search.

[Laylah]

I have also tried the following combinations


PG = 2 [GROUPONLY]=1
PG = 1 [GROUPONLY]=2
PG = 2 [GROUPONLY]=2

also tried several variations without the &TB=A at the end

I have also tested the full link outsided the discount | presentation tab as a link from a catalog page (as a footer) and it produced identical results.

Any further suggestions would be most welcome

[Laylah]

Chris

We are still without a working solution for displaying more than 20 products in a product group . . . is this now officially a bug?

[cdicken]

Yes, this has been reported as a bug.

As for your problem, don't bother using the [GROUPLINK] variable. Just use the following code within the main 'Description for Product' field in the 'Presentation' tab:!!<<a href="http://www.mandrake-press.com/cgi-bin/ss000004.pl?PG=2&NOLOGIN=1&GROUPONLY=1&TB=A">Search for more Llewellyn Products </a>>!!

[Laylah]

Chris

What you suggest produces this output

!!<Search for more Llewellyn Products >!!

and selecting the link returns

20 good results but but selecting later pages i.e. 21-40 41-60 61-80 Next 20

Please specify words for the search.

Please wait for your browser to forward you to the next page or click here.

I'll give up on this point until the bug fix!!!! release

[cdicken]

Tony

Could you please confirm that you entered the code for the link into the large 'Description for Product' field rather than the small 'Link Text' field.

When I do it, it definitely appears without the embedded HTML marks (!!< and >!!) so I'm wondering whether you are entering it in the correct field.

[Laylah]

Hi Chris

I just copied and pasted the text once again into the large 'Description for Product' field rather than the small 'Link Text' field.

!!<<a href="http://www.mandrake-press.com/cgi-bin/ss000004.pl?PG=2&NOLOGIN=1&GROUPONLY=1&TB=A">Search for more Llewellyn Products </a>>!!

use link to product group is unchecked and greyed out

you can view the results here (http://www.mandrake-press.com/acatalog/2005_Annuals.html) but you will need to login . . . details sent via 'contact us' to community admin

I'll leave the site like that for 24hours so you can see it


I am using Business v. 7.0.1.0.0.0 EGSA

[cdicken]

OK - I'm stumped.

I see now that the embedded HTML marks only appear when the discount is restricted to a customer account so that clears up that mystery.

Other than that, I can't see why I can't get it working on your site. I have reported this as an issue to be fixed in 7.0.2 but there is no guarantee that it will be fixed as it was reported farly late in the development cycle. I suggest you contact Actinic Support to find a working solution for this for your site.

[Laylah]

Hi Chris

Followed this through as a support issue but basically there is no simple work-around to get this function within discounts to work — a fix will be v.7.0.2. or v.7.0.3.

However, we may have resolved the issue in what is perhaps a more user-friendly solution than the non-working 'search result' method currently available from discounts

In the end we decided to create a new section for the product group and populated it with duplicate products - by mirroring the structure of the main catalogue users can easliy navigate the site in a familiar format but only seeing products from the relevant product group.

However, I am still left with non-working links in view basket and checkout . . any ideas which templates I need to change to get the links to point to my new section rather than the non-working 'product-group' search.


Now, this solution surely has to be one for the wish list. The ability to automatically create a section relating to a product group populated entirely with duplicate products . . . it would need to mirror the structure of ths sections|sub-sections of the main catalogue and also be able to auto-update itself when new products are added to the product group . . . but it would be REALLY useful.

Thanks

[cdicken]

However, I am still left with non-working links in view basket and checkout . . any ideas which templates I need to change to get the links to point to my new section rather than the non-working 'product-group' search. I'm afraid not.

You can supress the shopping cart messages via 'View | Discounts... | Miscellaneous' ('Discount Information' area) and then maybe add a list of links into Act_ShoppingCart.html.

[procheck]

Hi,

Was there ever a fix for this in version 7?

Thanks

Al

[cdicken]

Sorry - no further work on this was done in v7.