Adding another Manufacturer type box

[Lalla]

Hi all,
We sell used romance novels and I'm trying to add a new "field" to the site that covers Series Titles. I've added fields before, but this one I want to have listed on the home page like the Manufacturer Box (on our site its Author's Last Name box). Is there a contribution for this? I thought there was, but can't find it and a search for previous help with this can't be found either. Is this task hard? is that why no one is tryin it

I added the other fields using Add New Product Field contribution and was going to use that same one to add this field....its just "hooking" it up to a box that I'm unsure about.

Thanks in advance,
Lalla
NothingButRomance.com/shop/catalog

[jonthewebb]

Hi

The easiest way to add custom boxes is to modify a similar existing one. As long as you know the name of the new field you can adapt an existing side-box to gather the information.

For example the includes/boxes/best_sellers.php is a very simple box that will almost do what you want as standard.

You should save a copy with a different name (eg series_titles.php), modify the SQL query on lines 13-17 to read something like

"SELECT DISTINCT products_id, products{extra_field} FROM " . TABLE_PRODUCTS . " ORDER BY {whatever} LIMIT {however many yuou want to display}"

basically just a simple query to select the relevant data.

Then change the variable names in that file so they don't conflict with best_sellers.php (they probably won't anyway but it will save confusion), and just include() your new box in the column_left or column_right. If you can be bothered set up new entries (eg BOX_HEADING_SERIES_TITLES) in the languages/ file, or just hard-code them into your new box.

hope this helps


jon

[jonthewebb]

ok I just had a quick bash at it, and came up with the code below. Don't know if it works and you'll need to change the name of your field to suit, it's products_series_title at present. The one thing I thought of was that there is probably no direct way to link in to the series title, there is no standard way to display all items with a certain product field on one page. However I see that the latest version of the products field mod allows you to search for the new field so you could send the box links to a search query.

anyway try this

<?php
/*
  $Id: series_titles.php,v 1.21 2003/06/09 22:07:52 hpdl Exp $

  osCommerce, Open Source E-Commerce Solutions
  http://www.oscommerce.com

  Copyright (c) 2003 osCommerce

  Released under the GNU General Public License
*/

define('MAX_DISPLAY_SERIES_TITLES', 10);	//max number of titles to display
define('MIN_DISPLAY_SERIES_TITLES', 1);	//min number to display
define('BOX_HEADING_SERIES_TITLES', 'series titles');	//box heading

  if (isset($current_category_id) && ($current_category_id > 0)) {
    $series_titles_query = tep_db_query("select distinct p.products_id, p.products_series_title from " . TABLE_PRODUCTS . " p " . TABLE_PRODUCTS_TO_CATEGORIES . " p2c, " . TABLE_CATEGORIES . " c where p.products_status = '1' and p.products_id = p2c.products_id and p2c.categories_id = c.categories_id and '" . (int)$current_category_id . "' in (c.categories_id, c.parent_id) order by p.products_ordered desc limit " . MAX_DISPLAY_SERIES_TITLES);
  } else {
    $series_titles_query = tep_db_query("select distinct p.products_id, p.products_series_title from " . TABLE_PRODUCTS . " p where p.products_status = '1' and p.products_ordered > 0 order by p.products_ordered desc limit " . MAX_DISPLAY_SERIES_TITLES);
  }

  if (tep_db_num_rows($series_titles_query) >= MIN_DISPLAY_SERIES_TITLES) {
?>
<!-- series_titles //-->
<?php
  $boxHeading = BOX_HEADING_SERIES_TITLES;
  $corner_left = 'square';
  $corner_right = 'square';

  $rows = 0;
  $boxContent = '<table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1">';
  while ($series_titles = tep_db_fetch_array($series_titles_query)) {
    $rows++;
    $boxContent .= '<tr><td class="infoBoxContents" valign="top">' . tep_row_number_format($rows) . '.</td><td class="infoBoxContents"><a href="' . tep_href_link(FILENAME_PRODUCT_INFO, 'products_id=' . $series_titles['products_id']) . '">' . $series_titles['products_series_title'] . '</a></td></tr>';
  }
  $boxContent .= '</table>';

  require(DIR_WS_TEMPLATES . TEMPLATENAME_BOX);
?>
<!-- series_titles_eof //-->
<?php
  }
?>

(also attached to this message)


jon

[Lalla]

Thanks Jon,
Some of your second post is alittle "over my head" but I have someone helping me that will understand it all

Thanks so much,
Lalla