Is this possible in PS?

Hi,

I'm wondering if it's possible to achieve the following.

I recently built a simple store for a client using standard html in DW and for the shopping cart I used RomanCart. In RomanCart you basically create a product in their system and it generates some html which is then copied into the static page.

My client wants to continue using RomanCart for the shopping cart but I wanted to take advantage of PS admin features etc for creating a larger catalog of products. Is it possible to disable eCart?

If yes, I would like to do the following:

1. Use PS for the design, admin, reporting etc
2. Create a product in PS
3. Copy in the code from RomanCart into the PS product and use their add to basket link instead of the one that PS generates

Is this at all possible?

Sample RomanCart code:

<form action=http://www.romancart.com/cart.asp method=post>
<input type=hidden name=itemname value='Another Fantastic Product'>
<input type=hidden name=price value=9.99>
<input type=hidden name=storeid value=10000>
<input type=hidden name=quantity value=1>
<input type=submit value='Add to Basket'>
</form>

Many thanks.

It is technically possible for you to implement your own cart into PowerStore but it would not be an easy task. The eCart integration handles all of the cart and checkout options, so if you worked with your other cart you would need to re-create the entire checkout experience as well including storing the order information in your db.

When you are using PowerStore there is no need to do any cart based editing, when you add items to your admin backend the items will be available in the store without doing anything further. The code is all dynamic and does not require you to make any changes to get your items available in the store, I think it may be simpler to just use PowerStore by itself if this is an option for you.

Hi Eric,

RomanCart is a fully functional cart that handles all of the cart and checkout options, it also manages the order info in their db etc

So my client would like to use PS for the automated layout etc of the store. But when they add a product in the Admin area of PS they would like to be able to add the RomanCart product form code into a field which in turn would generate a 'add to cart' button in the PS generated product page.

So I basically would need to disable the auto generated 'add to cart' button in PS and to disable eCart so that when a customer clicked on the 'add to cart' button the RomanCart cart takes over.

Can this be done?

The way that the PowerStore works rite now is that when you add an item you are just adding it to the database. The items themselves do not have any connection to the cart.

On the pages that have the add to cart code and button a recordset is used to pull the data from the db. You would need to either alter the add to cart page to include your code, or create a table in your db where you can hold the new code you need to use and just reference it with a recordset.

The PowerStore is a PHP based site, so you can edit any part of it to be like how you want. It would be up to you to determine how exactly to integrate your other cart into it though.

Is there a way to turn off the add to cart code that PS generates automatically?

My plan was to simply add the RomanCart code in the admin area of the products which in turn would display an add to cart button to their cart.

The add to cart code in the PowerStore is all located on the product detail pages. In here if you remove the add to cart code that is at the top of the page you will no longer be adding items to the cart when the button is pressed. The button itself is part of a form on the page, you can alter this in any way that you would like as well. It is all very straight forward php coding on this page. If you have the eCart installed you can just remove the add to cart server behavior on the page.

I have eCart 5, is that the easiest and quickest way to remove the add to cart code?
Is this the correct page to remove the add to cart code: Products_Detail.php?
If so, does eCart remove everything contained within the <div class="addToCart"> DIV?

The add to cart code is on this details page. The code consists of two parts, the first part is the server side code that is actually adding the item to your cart. The second part is the form that you see on the page with the add to cart button. When you apply the server behavior to the page you will add both of these parts. If you want to remove this functionality from the page you can either remove the two parts manually or you can remove the add to cart server behavior on the page. The div that is on the page holding the form will not be removed, just the form inside of it for the add to cart.

I noticed in the details page that there are 2 listing in the Server Behaviors panel:
eCart Object (WA_Store_Cart) and
eCart Add Form RecordSet (WA_Store_Cart, WADAProducts)

I take it I would need to remove both of these?

The first one that you see for the eCart object is just the include for the eCart file. If you are not going to use any eCart related functionality on this page then you can remove this. The other one is the add to cart server behavior.