Custom Date Fields Feature needs work

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   I'm working on an RFQ that will need us to play off of the Custom Date Fields features in Checkout Options. While the GUI leave plenty to be desired, there are some fundamentals that really rather seem to be just plain missing:Order Notification email to store owner does show the date selected, but it doesn't show the time. That must be a bug.
Customer's Order Confirmation email doesn't show anything about the date/time selected. IMHO, it really ought to.
Drop shipper notification email doesn't show anything about the date/time selected. Would seem to me that this would be an important detail in the DS's role in fulfilling the order.
OPC validation has a couple hiccups here too:
If one selects a blacked out date (maybe even a date less than 24 hrs in the future if that option is configured) in the calendar and then tries to continue, the validation flags the invalid data; however, the radio button for the shipping address to use gets deselected and having corrected the date selection, the continue button stops working ... until the user goes back an rechecks the appropriate radio button for their shipping address option.
Maybe a little nit-picky, but if one skips selecting a date, and it's required, the red validation alert kicks in; however, it doesn't go away when one does populate the field with a valid date, giving the impression that there's still a problem with the value selected.
Blackout dates really leave a lot to be desired. It's just not at all practical to have to populate every single date one at a time. For example, say one wants to black out all Saturdays & Sundays? Or, so one wants to blackout certain holiday dates for every year into the future (e.g. July 4th; Jan 1, etc.)? (holidays that don't fall on certain dates would still be a problem to deal with manually I suppose -- e.g. Thanksgiving Thursdays).

It would also be really nice to have the blackout dates visually represented on the popup calendar.

I expect this feature is rarely used, but the way it's build at this point, it's barely usable.

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Guests Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Guest	Post Options Post Reply Quote Guests Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Custom Date Fields Feature needs work Posted: 12-July-2012 at 7:25pm
	I'm working on an RFQ that will need us to play off of the Custom Date Fields features in Checkout Options. While the GUI leave plenty to be desired, there are some fundamentals that really rather seem to be just plain missing: Order Notification email to store owner does show the date selected, but it doesn't show the time. That must be a bug. Customer's Order Confirmation email doesn't show anything about the date/time selected. IMHO, it really ought to. Drop shipper notification email doesn't show anything about the date/time selected. Would seem to me that this would be an important detail in the DS's role in fulfilling the order. OPC validation has a couple hiccups here too: If one selects a blacked out date (maybe even a date less than 24 hrs in the future if that option is configured) in the calendar and then tries to continue, the validation flags the invalid data; however, the radio button for the shipping address to use gets deselected and having corrected the date selection, the continue button stops working ... until the user goes back an rechecks the appropriate radio button for their shipping address option. Maybe a little nit-picky, but if one skips selecting a date, and it's required, the red validation alert kicks in; however, it doesn't go away when one does populate the field with a valid date, giving the impression that there's still a problem with the value selected. Blackout dates really leave a lot to be desired. It's just not at all practical to have to populate every single date one at a time. For example, say one wants to black out all Saturdays & Sundays? Or, so one wants to blackout certain holiday dates for every year into the future (e.g. July 4th; Jan 1, etc.)? (holidays that don't fall on certain dates would still be a problem to deal with manually I suppose -- e.g. Thanksgiving Thursdays). It would also be really nice to have the blackout dates visually represented on the popup calendar. I expect this feature is rarely used, but the way it's build at this point, it's barely usable.

Guests Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Guest	Post Options Post Reply Quote Guests Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 13-July-2012 at 1:51am
	After getting under the hood on the pop-up calendar used here, I have found that this can be put to much more efficient use. It was not challenging at all to use the calendar to restrict available dates for the user to select from, including blacking out weekends (or any given day(s) of the week), dates prior to "today", dates less than N days from "today" (e.g. the option to require date 24 in the future), dates greater than N days from "today", and even "known date" holidays (such as Christmas as opposed to say Easter). I can easily now see a control panel allowing blackout dates to be configured by: Any given day(s) of the week Any days less then N days in the future Any days more than N days in the future Any years more than N years in the future (default would just be 1, i.e. "next year") Specific days of the year "known date" holidays defined by just the month & the day of (e.g. "1/1", "12/25", etc.) Specific dates (specifically defined dates by month, day, year) This is the only feature the current CP provides, and by itself is nearly useless. By default, all dates prior to "today" would be blacked out. This would be tremendously more useful for handling blackout dates, not only because it's highly configurable, but also because it would all be handled visually in the calendar pop-up (i.e. easy for the end-user to see the available date options at a glance). It would also completely replace the need for a link to pop up a list of blackout dates (that whole part is really pretty lame in the current user interface). What's more, it would eliminate the quirky behavior of the validation here as the pop-up calendar would always enforce a valid date. This CP would be so easy to build, I can't not see it built. It would be a tremendous improvement for the effort required to do it. This all would only leave the issue of the emails. It seems to me that if the admin's order notification email has the date, one would expect it would include the time too, if it's required/provided. Easy enough bug to fix. Adding the date and time to the customer's order confirmed email (and order received email) would also be easy enough, and I'd be tempted to call this buggish too as it just seems to me that if the customer selects a date/time, they should reasonably expect to see that on their confirmation email -- just as they see it on their order confirmation page at the end of checkout. Adding the date and time to the drop-shipper might should/could be an option. Maybe there's some reason the drop-shipper wouldn't need to know this. I'd wager that the default option should be that they would, though. However, to make things simple, I would just include it in the fault code for generating these emails -- if folks really want to have the option to exclude it, it could be a simple code edit (rather than have to tie it in through an option in the CP). That is, building the enhanced blackout-date enabled calendar user interface and CP options would be pretty "stand alone" and unaffected by updates. The issues with the email notifications, not so much -- any of the several files touching this are likely to get overwritten in updates, so would be better as part of the standard code, IMHO.

Guests Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Guest	Post Options Post Reply Quote Guests Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 14-July-2012 at 3:01am
	Here's an alpha: http://pc46a-wms-net.3060.wmsmerchantservices.com/store/pc/The-Official-WMS-Rubber-Ducky-10p1.htm Order this and proceed through checkout. We'll have the CP side done in a week or two. We're still considering the email issues PC bugs.