dashCommerce

Are there any easy way to add content pages?

1. there are links for terms & conditions etc at the footer. If users click one of the footer link, it will dislay relevant information in the three column content (middle one). But I don't want to have meues for the contents. I need only contents. Anyone knows how it can be done?

2. A lot of shopping sites put most popular products or high margin good products in the main page not company profiles etc. (shoppers don't care much about company profiles etc at the main page). What I want to do is I will create a table '_product_in_mainPage' or add a field 'isOnMainPage' to the existing product table to hold the popular product list. They will be on the main first page whenever shoppers hit my URL. It will be very similiar to dashCommerce.com. Can it be done solely via the content management admin page without lengthy html coding?

I have to tacle the two above issues before my site goes live.

Thanks 

Hi Oyoon,

I am actually working on that this week.  For this client, I am not using the menu system.  This is important because I have to study up the code to see how the Content Management System affects subsequent pages if I alter default.aspx.

You may be able to do this if you take advantage of the content management capabilities, but I am not sure yet.

So these are the steps that I am going to take:

Add the field IsPopular to the dashCommerce_Store_Product table.

Run the Subsonic stuff to update the Product class and the ProductController Class.

Incorporate the new classes into the solution and rebuild the store dlls.

Modify the view in the database in order (check off the added field IsPopular).

Modify the FetchMostPopularProducts stored procedure in order to add the new field IsPopular to the group by section.

Add to the administrative section on the product edit general tab, a check box in order to store the IsPopular check for a product.  This way, the user will be able to indicate popular products.

Create a user control similar to the cataloglist user control.  Call it something like PopularProducts.ascx or FeaturedItems.ascx.

The code for the user control would be to look up dashCommerce_Store_Product records where it is active, and the IsPopular flag is set.  Order by the sort_order field in the dashCommerce_Store_Product table.

Register the user control on the home page and plug it in where you want it.

If you want to get a little fancier,  add a start and end date field to the product table so that the user can administer when these products are featured.

You could get even fancier by selecting the popular products at random so that they change every time someone comes to the site or revisits the home page.

Louis

Hey Guys,

Yitzchok created a content provider type that allows you to add any number of products to it and call it what you like. It is what drives the Featured Products on the dashCommerce.com home page. I think this gets you the functionality you're looking for without having to add fileds to the db.

What you could do is create a content provider called popular products. Then in the usercontrol, call FetchMostPopularProducts. That way, you can add popular products where you like in the CMS.

When I created that module I thought about putting it into the product table, but then it felt better dividing it so that you have the full control and your not locked into one special type like Popular Products this way you can add as many as you need without modifying the products table to add a new type every time. This can also be intergrated with the products admin page (I have not done this but might be an idea).

yitzchok:

When I created that module

thanks

It is already in DC. Try adding a region to a page. Click the provider drop down. If you do not see CustomizedProductDisplay, then you do not have 3.0.1

Thanks. that's similar to what I want.

theonlylawislove:

It is already in DC.

Paul, sorry for another question. Do u know how to make a home page like the dashCommerce store site one? I want the first row has one big image which is new or main product of mines. the second row will have  popular products or recommended products etc.

Setting orders of regions in a contents doesn't work properly though or I might not know how to set it properly. It is a minor issue to me though.

Thanks

 I am trying to do what you advise but am having problems.  I am runing dash 3.0 RC1.  When going to the content management, I choose add/edit region and the only thing listed under provider is the Simple Html provider.

Any idea what might be wrong? or how to add the provider.  

I am also trying to figure out how to create a sort order of products under a catagory but haven't had luck with it yet.

Any help is appreciated.

i have CustomizedProductDisplay but how to make products i want to show on home page? I click on edit but select catagory display is nothing. I do have category? what am i missing?

Just add a name that you would like it to be.  You will then get a choice of catagories/items that you have configured.