X-Cart forums

[John Livesey]

Hello all,

I've just trialled and since bought X-Cart for a client. I must say I'm very impressed with it and I'm looking forward to getting under its hood and releasing some of its awesome power and features.

I've already learned so much from just reading the forums this morning!

I have a quick question about the product detail pages, which I hope you don't mind answering?

My client likes the layout of the following detail page ie the fact that you can choose all your options underneath the main product and still get a graphical representation of what you're buying ie red shingles, oak treatment, etc. All the selected items are then added to your cart automatically.

http://dhlogcabins.co.uk/uk/product/74/84/3m-x-3m-avon-28-log-cabin#optional_extras

Is this possible with X-Cart (either with or without purchasing a mod) and if so how would one go about doing it?

Thanks in advance

John

[pauldodman]

You are not going to get that exactly with any mod out of the box, but I think for the technology, you could start with x-cart's product configurator:
http://www.x-cart.com/product_configurator.html

It's not perfect, but it may give you a start.

[Asiaplay]

Agree with Paul - this is not possible in standard X-Cart and would require some reasonably complex programming changes (i.e. not something a newbie without php knowledge would be able to do themselves too easily) - but do read on, as part of what you want exists in standard x-cart.

I see a possible solution as being slightly different than Paul suggested - i.e. using product variants to achieve this
Product variants are a standard built in feature for X-Cart whereby, as you change option (variant product) choice, then the photo of the product changes.

Really there are three things you could be wanting to do in the example you posted:-
a) Have the photo change when an Option (these are called variants in X-Cart) is chosen - standard X-Cart can do this using product options and product variants (but only as a single product on it's own product page e.g. one of the log cabin models and as change wood the photo would change.
b) Have several products (together with the variants show on the same page) - this would be the normal "Sub-category" page view - but with the ability for options and variants to be shown as well on the Sub-category page.
c) Have the variants products show as a table (rather than drop down list)

The difference in standard x-cart is that each product appears with variants on it's own product page - not in a drop down list several "variant" products shown as list down one page.

As a basis to doing this, I do remember someone did a select variants from sub-category page (which is essentially what this would be) - module they did is here http://forum.x-cart.com/showthread.php?t=36132&page=3&highlight=options
See an example of this module working at http://www.easycoffee.com.au/home.php?cat=249 (you can choose the option / variant on the sub-category page.
So basically this enables you to have someone choose the variant (e.g. different wood for log cabin) on the sub-category page - what you would need to do (have someone code for you) is have it, so that when a variant is chosen it changes the photo to show a new photo of that variant (in same way that a new photo is shown at present on the product page, when a new variant is chosen in standard x-cart when a variant is chosen on the product page).

Another module someone has done is to have variant products show as a table - see http://forum.x-cart.com/showthread.php?p=206012
Intel forum member Jon has a version of this for this on a single product table - see http://www.phpsitesolutions.com/x-cart_variant_chart.htm

So yes it it can be done
a) if you can live with these appearing on a single product page (and photo changing as someone chooses the variant) - X-Cart Standard product does this...
b) If you want the same layout as the page you gave as example - it will take a combination of a couple of modules and some programming skill to make it work (perhaps Intel could help since his module does the "c" part of it and the variants chosen on sub-category module is free, thanks to the nice forum member who shared the code they paid for).

Just offering a possible solution on how this could be done - hope comments are useful.

Cheers - Asiaplay

[John Livesey]

Thanks so much for the replies. I think I'm going to use the "product variant" route with the image changing when the options are selected.

I will look in to the Product Configurator at a later day as this would be very useful but time is of the essence at the moment.

Best wishes
John