[gfiebich]

I wanted a way to jazz up the Featured Items display on my store's homepage without using Flash or orther plugins. The Conveyor Belt Slideshow javascript found on DynamicDrive.com fit the bill. The trick was to build the image array from the Featured Items in X-cart. Here are the steps to get this working:

1. Open skin1/customer/products.tpl and find

   {if $usertype eq "C" and $config.Appearance.products_per_row ne "" and $config.Appearance.products_per_row gt 0 and $config.Appearance.products_per_row lt 4 and ($featured eq "Y" or $config.Appearance.featured_only_multicolumn eq "N")}

   and replace that with

   {elseif $usertype eq "C" and $config.Appearance.products_per_row ne "" and $config.Appearance.products_per_row gt 0 and $config.Appearance.products_per_row lt 4 and ($featured ne "Y" and $config.Appearance.featured_only_multicolumn eq "N")}

2. Now, just above that, paste

   {if $featured eq "Y"}
   {literal}
   
   
   {/literal}

3. Copy the code from DynamicDrive: http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex14/leftrightslide.htm
   and paste it just between the {literal}s.
   
4. In the code you just got from DynamicDrive, find

   leftrightslide[0]='[img]dynamicbook1.gif[/img]'
   leftrightslide[1]='[img]dynamicbook2.gif[/img]'
   leftrightslide[2]='[img]dynamicbook3.gif[/img]'
   leftrightslide[3]='[img]dynamicbook4.gif[/img]'
   leftrightslide[4]='[img]dynamicbook5.gif[/img]'

   and replace it with

   {/literal}
   {section name=product loop=$f_products}
   
   leftrightslide[{counter}]='{include file="product_thumbnail.tpl" productid=$products[product].productid image_x=$config.Appearance.thumbnail_width product=$products[product].product tmbn_url=$products[product].tmbn_url}'
   
   {/section}
   {literal}

5. That's it - modify the variables in the DynamicDrive script as needed and feature some items in the store admin.

A couple of notes: I wasn't able to get this code to function both at the home-level and in subcategories (has to do with the $productid variable format changing), the thumbnail images are aligned=bottom, the images scroll right to left (negative numbers in the settings don't have the expected results). If you have questions about the code, please don't paste any of the DynamicDrive script in your message as that would violate their TOS. This was done in X-Cart Gold 4.0.17.

happy modding,
-Glen