X-Cart forums

[weckie]

Shannon, i had a look at your site, still in working progress. Good luck to it.

The detailed image mod works great at your site too.

regards

[weckie]

i looked at shannons site, she running xcart pro.

She doesn't have the problem with the dropdown list box showing in front of the image????

Anyone knows why this is?
I run normal xcart 4.012 and i have the problem myself.

Maybe someone from xcart knows why this is...

[IndieDepot]

Weckie,

She is a He. My parents knew what they were getting me into when they named me that back in 1972. *smile*

The dropdown in front of the image is on my site as well. And I thought it was normal for CSS. I have never seen CSS go on top of a drop down...on any webpage i have ever visited or made. I have another site that uses CSS and it does the same thing there.

I figured it was someting we had to deal with.

- MR. Shannon W. Rawls

[zardos]

Hi weckie

This problem with the dropdown list box showing in front of the image????
is OK in FF it only does it in IE.

[Online Michael]

Originally Posted by zardos

Hi weckie

This problem with the dropdown list box showing in front of the image????
is OK in FF it only does it in IE.

Damn! Sounds like a complicated fix is needed here.

Just a quick question regarding the thumbnails. I know Weckie had his thumbnails resized to 40X40 (I have mine at 100X100) but it seems to me, and I may be wrong here, that these thumbnails seem to load no quicker than the original full size images themselves. I really haven't noticed any improvement in load times so I'm starting to wonder if we are in fact downloading the full size image and then somehow squeezing it into a 100X100 box. Any potential savings in bandwidth is therefore non existent. Wouldn't it be far better to download the thumbnail and then download the detailed image only when selected? That's how it should work, right?

And while on the subject of image downloads, would everyone here agree that once an image is downloaded that subsequent reloads of the same image should come from cache and not from the server? The reason why I'm bringing this up is because no matter how many times you select to view the same image, the image loads no quicker the last time than the first.

[weckie]

The thumbnails are exactly the same as the full size images only showing smaller as you define in the code.

I will have a look if can get only the thumbnails to display, but i think i need some time here...

About the cache: Isn't this a thing the browser should do??

[weckie]

well i played around a bit, but i can't manage to get the thumbnails since xcart doesn't create thmbnails for the detailed images. (only for the product)
Ofcourse you can create thumbnails for each detailed image but this is a lot of work.

So, i did the following:

next is a new modules/Detailed_Product_Images/product_images.tpl

{* $Id: product_images.tpl,v 1.12 2004/05/28 12:21:05 max Exp $ *}
{***
Created bij www.weckonline.com.  NOTE: This line must stay intact for free use. Thanks.  Herman Steijn.
***}
{if $images ne ""}
{capture name=dialog} 
<CENTER>{$lng.lbl_zoom}


{section name=image loop=$images}
{if $images[image].avail eq "Y"}
{if $images[image].tmbn_url}
<font size="5">{%image.index%}
{/if}
{/if}{/section}
{literal}
</center>
</body>
{/literal}
</DIV>
{/capture}
{if $smarty.capture.dialog ne ""}
{include file="dialog.tpl" title=$lng.lbl_detailed_images content=$smarty.capture.dialog extra="width=100%"}
{/if}
{/if}

This doesn't display images instead of that is displays a number to click on for zooming.
This one will keep the bandwidth low.

[Online Michael]

Weckie,

Nice compromise mate and another fine effort. Great work! The only thing wrong with using numbers is that you have no idea what the image behind them look like so what does the customer do..? The customer clicks on them all in search for the one they really want to see and as a result, bandwidth usage skyrockets. I think the real fix for this mod would have to be something similar to the following:

1) Alter the database to include a provision for a thumbnail for each and every detailed image.

2) The admin area where detailed images are uploaded needs to include a similar field for the thumbnail. Where no thumbnail is provided, a default image is used (on the customer end) that reads "click to view" or something similar.

3) Thumbnails are displayed in the detailed image dialog as a means to link and display the detailed image.

I know it sounds simple (and it's probably not), but this would be a far better and more effective way of presenting images to the ccustomer. It would also lower the bandwidth, and enable fast page loading times too.

I am no programmer, however, I canБ─≥t see why this couldn't be implemented. You only have to look through this forum to see how clever some people are at solving problems. The talent is here, itБ─≥s perhaps a question of will. So what do you reckon guys (and gals), can it be done? Would this proposed fix be any harder than some of the other forum solution?

[Online Michael]

Ok,

I found a solution for the Fancy Categories problem showing up on top of the detailed image. In the CSS section of the code add in the text as shown bellow:

{literal} 
<style type="text/css"> 

#showimage{ 
position:absolute; 
visibility:hidden; 
border: 1px solid pink; 

z-index: 1;  
    
} 

#dragbar{ 
cursor: hand; 
cursor: pointer; 
background-color: #EFEFEF; 
min-width: 100px; /*NS6 style to overcome bug*/ 
} 

#dragbar #closetext { 
font-weight: bold; 
margin-right: 2px; 
} 
</style>

If the problem persists (see your doctor ), just change z-index:1 to 2, then try 3 and so on until the image layer has greater priority. This solution could also be applied to other objects that get in the way such as flash banners etc.

Unfortunately I don't have a fix for the quantity list box problem but it seems to be the way IE treats select boxes as system objects and doesn't
want to show them under other layers. Seems to be more and more an IE issue the longer I look at it. For anyone who has no list boxes showing in the background, then this issue is no issue at all. The mod will work and display just fine as is.

Hope this helps someone.

[golfguy]

Online Michael, your're on the right track. I'm fairly new to x-cart, so I don't know if there is a lot of absolute positioning going on, but the way it works is;

if there are two layers occupying the same x,y corordinate space the layer first in the code shows first, you can override this with zindex.

zindex can be a positive or negitive number. the lowest zindex goes to the bottom.

In the case of this mod no zindex was declared so the drop downs occur in the code first.

Make the zindex in the mod REALLY high, say like 1000. Most programers that use layers set zindex in increments of 50, so they can insert layers in the future without worrying about pecking order.