X-Cart forums

[Light Speed]

And I like it like this:

<div class="foo">
<div class="top">
some stuff
</div>
<div class="bottom">
more stuff
</div>
</div>

or this

<div class="foo">
<div class="top">some stuff</div>
<div class="content">
Content here.
</div>
<div class="bottom">more stuff</div>
</div>

[technicaldata]

I think it's pretty obvious that a lot of people aren't happy with the current "Real Time Shipping" situation in X-Cart and I was wondering if an attempt was going to be made to improve it in the next release? I saw nothing about it in "SHIPPING MANAGEMENT" section of the change doc. Anybody have any info? To be specific, I'm talking about the improvements that CenturyPerf suggested in a previous post:

"1) The X-Cart coding within the UPS, FEDEX, USPS modules needs some minor enhancements to validate dimensions and weights correctly and also a limit needs to be set (max weight and dimensions *Per Box*) on a per shipper basis. See below

2) The database and cart coding in the product section needs to be able to tell UPS (and other shipping agencies) the correct values for each item as listed below:

- 2a) Add (3) data entry boxes for EACH product for "length", "height", and "width" (in inches or centimeters .. "selectable"). (If there is No data entry, dimensions are ignored, otherwise the calculated dimensions are transmitted for real time rates). This would be three new columns in the products table of the database.

- 2b) Add a radio button (or other selection) for EACH product that when active (checked) it tells UPS that this item can only be shipped as a SINGLE box. This would be one new column in the products table of the database.

- 2c) Set a max weight - max dimension rollover point selectable by the admin of the site. This must be set so that if either weight or dimension is exceeded on the ordered items it rolls over and adds another box. I would prefer this to be an editable area with the X-Cart admin area. NOTE: This would be a GLOBAL selection within the "shipping options" section of X-Cart.

- 2d) Upon checkout using "real time" rates X-Cart tells the selected shipping agencies the compiled number of boxes and dimesions/weights of each box to be shipped. This data is then processed and returns the shipping calculation results (for each activated shipping method) to the checkout page.

3) The above items will need to correspond with matching columns in the product table of the database so as to store this data for each product. (length, height, width, single box, in the "xcart_products" table. Plus the added data for rollover dimensions, max weight per carrier, max dimensions "length, height, and width" per carrier possibly in the "xcart_shipping_options" table).

4) When real time rates are selected for your store the cart will now communicate a fairly correct amount of "boxes", "dimensions", and "weights" of each box being shipped as part of the customer's order.

5) We DO NOT need to list the amount of boxes or weights on customer invoice or order information. Our shipping departments' should have the ability to use common sense knows how to ship orders efficiently. This procedure needs only to be transparent to both the customers and vendor.

EXAMPLE:

One item the customer orders is a very large item that must be shipped as an individual item (Box #1). The customer orders other items that will now compile by weight "and" dimension as additional boxes as part of this shipment. This will work very well on wholesale stores that sell in case quantity. You could set a separate "case" part number for particular items if you wish. Once the weight or dimension "max" value is exceeded the cart tells UPS that there is more box(es) as part of the order (Box #2, #3, etc).

Now, with the max dimensions and values (rollover values) are left up to each vendor, you could effectively use this feature to not only be more accurate with your shipping calculations charged to the customer, but you could also come pretty close in matching the sizes to what shipping boxes each company uses. Say that you ship average sized items and your MAX box size is 24" x 16" x 12". You could set that as your max compiled "dimension" size and use default weight values from the shipping carriers as a secondary rollover point. It should be well posted/documented what the max dimensions/weights are for each shipping carrier.

The coding for this is already part of the UPS, USPS, and FEDEX available XML scripts.

For examples see what the above shipping agencies use on their own websites: (http://wwwapps.ups.com/calTimeCost?loc=en_US, http://postcalc.usps.gov/, http://www.fedex.com/ratefinder/home?cc=US&language=en)

The above modification is nothing more than what the above shipping agencies already ask for, either using their online services or offline software. With the size and weight varieties of the products we sell, we MUST have accurate shipping calculations."

Anybody have any ideas or info?

[NuAlpha]

Originally Posted by Light Speed

Now I like all my code on the left.
I am able to work much faster because all opening tags are in the same place on the page so I can quickly scroll and keep my eye in the same spot and know where I am in the code. Any indentation is a mess.

For me, this makes coding error prone because similar tags (such as <td> and <tr> for instance) can look the same when quickly scrolling through 100's of lines. It also causes problems when trying to determine if some block of code has been properly closed.

In any event, it is like I said before. If you don't like structured code it is easy enough to remove indentation with a few key strokes, but very tedious to add the indentation for pre-existing code. :P

[CenturyPerf]

I think it's pretty obvious that a lot of people aren't happy with the current "Real Time Shipping" situation in X-Cart and I was wondering if an attempt was going to be made to improve it in the next release? I saw nothing about it in "SHIPPING MANAGEMENT" section of the change doc. Anybody have any info? To be specific, I'm talking about the improvements that CenturyPerf suggested in a previous post:

More people need to complain about this. X-Cart devs quoted me over $2000.00 to do this. Those of us that are not selling just books, t-shirts, or gift baskets need to voice their needs.

[Light Speed]

Originally Posted by NuAlpha

For me, this makes coding error prone because similar tags (such as <td> and <tr> for instance) can look the same when quickly scrolling through 100's of lines. It also causes problems when trying to determine if some block of code has been properly closed.

In any event, it is like I said before. If you don't like structured code it is easy enough to remove indentation with a few key strokes, but very tedious to add the indentation for pre-existing code. :P

I don't use tables for layout. I use css.

I use a text editor that highlights non closed tags.

[NuAlpha]

Originally Posted by Light Speed

I don't use tables for layout. I use css.

I use a text editor that highlights non closed tags.

For tabular data, using tables is probably the easiest and most browser cross-compatible way to go. After we got ahold of the Xcart code we rewrote a fair portion of the customer front-end using CSS because of its compactness. However, due to the fact that Internet Explorer doesn't properly render a lot of very handy CSS features we have had to avoid extensive use to maintain easy cross-browser compatibility.

As for code highlighting, we use Macromedia Dreamweaver which helps with that. One primary problem though is that the templates used with Xcart are segmented so that a parent element may run across several files before finally closing. This makes Dreamweaver's code checking cabilities null and void in those instances, which sadly, are many.

What coding application do you currently use for your code highlighting? I am always looking to try something new. Currently working with Zend Studio, Dreamweaver, and Notepad++.

[cherie]

Originally Posted by NuAlpha

What coding application do you currently use for your code highlighting?

vim

[Light Speed]

Originally Posted by NuAlpha

What coding application do you currently use for your code highlighting?

TextMate
or
SubEthaEdit

[Circle3]

TextPad (windows) which has PHP, XHTML, and CSS templates for highlighting keywords.

This is off topic, but following your tangent....
a friend of mine loves to compact all of his code (xhtml and css) to single lines(css) and to the left (xhtml), which is really difficult tto sort through for those of us that are not used to his code style. I hired him for a few projects, but I ended up editing indents back into all of his code.

With indent formatting, you can very quickly and easily tell which tags are within which tags. Without indent formatting, it is more difficult to do that.

Back on topic...shipping.

Last I checked, the Fedex module did not have an option to ask the customer whether their address was a business or resident address. If you tell Fedex that it is a business address and it is really a residence, then Fedex will fine you. Am I the only person that has brought this up to the X-Cart guys before? Everytime I've made a suggestion to these guys, they always want me to quote me a price for custom programming. I'm trying to help improve their software by giving them feedback.

[zenpig]

The shipping, particularly the FedEx module, needs extensive work. Most carts including some well known open source/free ones have X-cart very well beat in this area. For as good as x-cart is in much of it's functionality the rudimentary shipping options are suprisingly lacking given that it is such an important aspect of 95+% of online merchants. Perhaps because the developers themselves deal with a business that sells electronically delivered products they don't quite realize how superior other carts are to them in physical shipping?..dunno.