Adding size options with ecart

I'm following the ecommerce recipes tutorial to add this functionality on my website and made an error that I'm hoping you can help me work through.

I made it up to "Display selected options at checkout", but prior to starting this last step i tested the page and noticed that when I add something to the cart, not only does the size not carry over to the cart, no size options show up on the cart at all. The list looks like it's there, but when you click on it there are no options.

I've gone back through the tutorial several times but cannot see where I made a mistake. I'm sure it's something very simple, but I'm a beginner and find it difficult to spot errors in code. I'm guessing it's something in the rsSizes Binding, but I've tested it using several different options and still can't get it to work.

I'm using Dreamweaver CS3 and mySQL/php on a Mac.

My cart name is ideasinbloom and the two tables I'm using are products_iib and sizes. The structure for the size table is sizeID and sizeDims; the structure for the products_iib table is productID, category, subCategory, itemHeading, itemCode, imageSource, price.



Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.


(deleted old code; current code in archive.zip three posts down.)

take a look at your add to cart form and ensure that the size is being passed into the cart when you submit the form.

Like Craig said it is probably that you do not have the size selection properly bound from the form to the add to cart server behavior. If you are having trouble spotting this please post back and attach the add to cart page in a zip archive so it can be looked at more closely. Having a look at the page that has the add to cart code and the add to cart form on it should clear up any confusion about how to get this value in the cart.

Here is a zip file with both the Details page (on which the Add to Cart button appears) and the Shopping Cart.

I was able to get the options to populate the list on the shopping cart, but the dynamic selection still isn't being carried over into the shopping cart. Also, when I choose a size and click "update cart" it just goes back to the default. Very frustrating.

I've gone through the directions over and over again for hours – no days now. Please help!

In the details page you posted it looks like the size is bound to the cart column correctly. If you can verify that the item id is being added to the cart along with the other details this size should also be added to the cart.

You mention that you have the dynamic selection working on the cart but the value is not being carried over. Please explain this a little more so I can have a better understanding of what is occurring. Also do you have a link where this can be seen live? You mentioned going through the directions, which guide or how to are you using?

That's my site. To access the files you need a user name and password:

guest@ideasinbloomstudios.com
Guest2009!

When I say the dynamic selection is working, I mean that the size option in my database are coming up in the cart, so the binding is working. What still isn't carrying over is the sizeselection made on the detail page. Plus, when you hit "update cart", say to change the quantity, the size reverts back to the default size (the cart loses any size selections you've made).

I'm using a pdf from this site: ECommerce_Recipes360.

I think that I'm understanding what is going on. It looks like you are passing the size to the cart ok but on the cart page you just have the same size select list. The problem with this is that there is nothing to set the value of the select list you have in the cart. The value that you are submitting for the size is effectively being ignored. To test this part out you should update the cart display that you have. Instead of having the select list here you should just have this column display the cart column for size from the bindings.

This will let you know if the size is getting passed to the cart. Getting a select list to be set to the value of the selected size for that item will not be an easy thing. How do you get the select list to reflect the current size? You have the option to set the select list to a dynamic value but you will need to make it set to the value for that item. This part would require some custom coding on the cart display page.

Following to the "ECommerce Recipes" directions that I got from Web Assist, I deleted the reference to the cart column for size from the bindings and input the code that they provided (see the files I attached in a previous post).

I've considered just going back to just showing the selected size, but it would be nice for site visitors to be able to change the size right on the cart page rather than delete the item and go back to add it in a different size.

I originally posted thinking I somehow followed the directions incorrectly, but the previous post makes me wonder if those directions are even accurate. Did you look at the code in your own directions and see if they are correct? Does the recipe lead one to believe they can do something when in fact it requires more advanced code than is provided in the recipe?

In my previous reply I was mistaken, getting the value to match up in the cart when you update it is not difficult it just requires making sure you use the proper naming convention for the select list so that the items index in the cart is known from the name of this element.

I'm opening a ticket for you on this topic so that you can post some more cart files privately and I will take a further look at what you have in your pages and help try to figure exactly what is going wrong.