Registration manager - Is it out there?

[artangconsulting]

Hi All,
I like all things OSC. I think it is a great idea. I like the idea of MS2-MAX and wished there were more compilations like that out there.

I've done some searches already and didn't find what I was looking for in the forum. Please feel free to point me to an already existing discussion trace.

Here's what I need and perhaps you can tell me which osc modules I need to or forum discussion I'll have to read.

1. First I need to know if I use MS2-MAX will I have problems with modules that are written for MS2?

2. I'm still debating using OSC and add the modules I need or start with MS2-MAX and add what I need. Here's what I need and maybe you can tell me what's best.

a. Registration manager of some sort to eliminate the need for address. I have virtual products and I don't need to know customers address. All I need is an email. I saw an Account manager contribution but it is way old. Anyone know of a better one out there?

b. Users should be able to choose if they want to register to buy something or just buy things as guests. Again I know there is a contribution out there for Purchase without an account but reading the docs on that it seemed to be old and may not be compatible with the latest MS2.

Any thoughts you may have will be appreciated.

p.s. I posted something on the OSC forum with no response. From the activity level on this forum I'm hoping the response will be better

[jpf]

Answers - as much as I can give...

1. There is a little work to add in orginal MS2 contribs into MAX - but that has to do with BTS which moves most of the HTML from the PHP into a template file(*.tmp.php). It is generally not too hard - just where 2 contribution want to change the same code.

2a. Would that be "Virtual Product Account Creation" http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1411 ? This is quite simple hack - all it does is coments out a dozen or so lines in 2 files. Would be easy to add into MAX. Compare the changes to a "fresh" MS2 to see where the changes are then find the same lines in your MAX and comment them out.

2b. PWA http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,355 - was last updated 12/30/2003 - v0.70 - this should be MS2 version as it was brought up to MS2 stanandards back in 8/15/03 prior to v0.60.
(do the same as 2a to add into MAX)

Good luck

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply. This forum is really nice. I don't mind the work I need to do to make it work. Just knowing that I'm on the right track is enough to get me going.

jpf,
How often do you add new contributions to MS2-MAX. I wanted to know since I'll be going through to adapt the changes I explained. How hard would it be to include those changes in the future releases MS2-MAX. I can provide a fresh view of my changes to your team once I'm done if that helps any. Of course this request is only for type of features that you can turn on/off and not permenant changes in behavior.

Thanks for your reply,
Saviz

[jpf]

Feal free to ZIP up any files you changed to include this as a contribution (include any SQL added tables/feilds) - POST it in a MESSAGE here and expalin a bit about it and the link to the orginal contrubution - we can review it and add it into a future release of MAX.

[Anonymous]

Hi Again,
One last question. I've made some changes to the configuration so that users can manage the registration fields which required me to add a few entries in the configuration table. What is the convention for choosing configuration_id's. How can I be sure I'm not using id's that other contributions are using so I don't clash with them?

Thanks in advance,
Saviz

[jpf]

There is no "real" way of "choosing" configuration IDs - they are normally assigned on EACH database as a "first-come, first-served". This means that 2 store with slitely diffent setup with differnt MODS may both be using the "same" config ID for different MODS. Also if you have two store that you added the SAME mods into - but in differnt order - may have differnt config ID for the same fuction......

Many people in there MODS don't bother with this and HARD code the IDs - or use the default ones that was generated in there system.