Categories/Products customization in the Admin Section

[ReginaStelling]

Hi!
In the Admin Section of osCommerce, when you view the products within each category...I'd like to customize it a bit, to add Model Number to the listing.

I'd like to list

products_model, product_name.

and also sort by products_model, product_name

I know I have to modify some code in the admin/catgegories.php module.

Any clue on how to do this?

THANKS!!

[makemethis]

I would think you would need to add in the product_model into the query, sort the query by product_model and add product_model into the array. Then call for the array to list the product_model, product_name. All of this would be done in the admin/categories.php

[ReginaStelling]

Yes, Make...that is exactly what I want to do! Only, I'm not real good at PHP, and I'm not quite sure where to put this code. I am going to print out the categories.php module and take a look. I can kind of see what it's doing.

Hey...do you know if there is a way to walk through this code, line by line...maybe set some breakpoints, and examine the values of different variables. What type of software do you suggest for debugging PHP. Right now, I'm just looking at it w/ Dreamweaver, but I know you can do more!!

THANKS!

[makemethis]

I don't use a program...I have learned that if I read the page...compare it and look for the standard things that I know...then I can usually figure out what and where. I run 3 copies of the files on my computer. The original one, the one that is current on the site and when I play with a page...I save it aside...this way when I upload something and it doesn't work...I just re-upload the prior one that did and try again. My way is slow but it teaches me the code and once I learn a trick then I know I can use it again. Where I would start is by looking for the query that pulls from the table which the files are stored in. The command for the sort would be order by 'products_model' and would be at the end of the query line. It might say order by 'products_name' already and you would just have to change that. Usually after the query, you will see the lines calling for the data from the array (which is right after the query). That is where you would modify to display what you want. If you visit my site you will see that I used the attribute text mod and attribute sort mod. When I put those mods in, it kinda taught me how to sort/order things. I did it in a few places to meet my needs. Be patient and good luck!

[ReginaStelling]

Ok, cool! I will do that. YES, certainly the "order by product_name" is the code I want to look at. I will try that. It also helps me to print these modules out. I know sometimes it's a lot of code to look at on paper, but it is hard for me to get a good perspective of things when I'm only looking at a little code at a time. Thanks for your help, Make. When I figure this out, may I can add it as a contribution!!