issues with powerstore and gateway modifications

hello
i am posting this new thread in order to sum up some questions i have while trying to change powerstore2 to work with paypal standard. I also own e-cart 5.

1. If i use paypal standard will the orders submitted by customers, be visible some how in the admin area? I mean changing to paypal standard will affect the orders appearing to the backend?

2. After changing the gateway to paypal standard, and creating the new checkout page, how is it possible to force the user to log in or register , if he is not already logged in, before going to the paypal site? Is there another way to make this work? or a runaround?
I noticed that at the default checkout page of PS, there is a username and password field for the customer to log in or register... But when my new checkout page is created via the checkout wizard of e-cart, these fields disappear.


3. I am not going to use any UPS, FEDEX, or USPS shipping providers, because the client is in Greece. I will apply flat rate shipping rate rules based on total order weight. I will also provide these shipping options:
a. Delivery by the post office
b. Courier Delivery

So if the user chooses the a. option, there will be the relevant rates added to the order total. Same happens if the user chooses option b. My question is: How can my client be notified in some way for the shipping option the user has selected?

Thanks in advance.

PS: Sorry for the many threads, i am just trying to solve problems that occured because of the fact that the e-shop is in Greece, therefore many modifications have to be made, and my coding experience is limited. I appreciate the great support provided by these forums so far.

It would be possible to use Payments Standard and rely on the IPN post to get the details of the order back to your site. On your IPN page you can repopulate the cart from the post, then you can do any of the regular cart stuff like storing the order summary and details in your db. To make it work with the admin backend though you will need to model your store order summary and store order details server behaviors after the ones on the default PowerStore pages. You can open up the confirm page and take a look at the server behaviors to see how they are setup.

For forcing the user to login you will need to do something custom since you will not be able to use the PowerStore code for this. The idea is that when the user logs in their id will be held in a session variable called UserID. You can check for this session variable having a value, if it does not then the user is not logged in and you should display a login link rather than the Pay with PayPal button.

For the shipping price this should be included as a charge in the cart and passed to paypal as the shipping or handing amount. You can use the custom field in your checkout to store the type of shipping requested. It will then be a part of the order that you can store in the db.

You mentioned that you have some other threads on this topic out there. You should try to keep this in a single thread to avoid confusion and duplicate responses. You can add in links to the other thread for reference if you need to but it should all be in a single thread.

Hello,
and thanks for the reply.
1. Going through the e-cart 5 checkout wizard i noticed that at some step of the wizard it says something about orders management and orders appearing in the database. Can i use this instead of the paypal ipn? does it do the same thing? Somehow i have to see the client's information for the order in the backend...

2. At the confirm page, when i click the "checkout with paypal" button, it takes me to the pp_checkout_failure.php

you can check the confirm page at checkout.php
the cart in located at: cart.php

3. If i do not click the "pay with paypal button", and procceed to checkout, i go to the paypal website, make the payment (0.20 euros) succesfully, but after that, i cannot return to the e-shop. Shouldn't this be happening automatically or at least shouldn't there be a link for returning to merchant? If not, what are the success pages for?

5. After completing the checkout wizard, i uploaded the files that the wizard generated to the server. Should had i to upload any other files also? like the store_cart file? I am afraid maybe i have missed something....

Thanks for the patience and support
john

The orders management area of the checkout wizard will configure the store order summary and store order details server behaviors for you. This will get your order and the details of the order into the db, but this data will be inserted before the transaction completes so it will not necessarily reflect completed orders.

You can do it way and save the order information while the user is still on the site, then on your IPN page you can repopulate the cart from the posted info and update the order summary by applying the store order summary server behavior.

When you click on the checkout with PayPal button you should go to the checkout failure page. This is because you do not have the Payments Pro setup. You will need to remove this button from the checkout page to prevent that.

To get the user to go back to a particular page on your site you can use the return element in the form that is on the confirm page. In here just add the URL for the page you want the user to go to after submitting the details for their transaction. This should be set for you from the checkout wizard, I will be sure that a bug is logged for this.

<input type="hidden" name="return" id="return" value="your url goes here" />

Once you complete the wizard you will need to upload the eCart folder and any files that were created.