Downloads with Options how to?

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   Although I came up with option 2 I wouldn't know technically how to do it myself.
I think what would be easiest is to set up the products as a sub-category then the products as the sizes beneath it.   That would work fine.   I did that for a scalable charity donation on a track we put out.
So all the product description goes into the category long description.
It would work and automate the delivery process for you.  It just means storing multiple versions of the image at different sizes.  To be fair that's also how other ecommerce packages do it.
It's equivalent in my store to the artists > album structure.  
cheers
Mark

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MarkCoyle Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: 06-June-2006 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote MarkCoyle Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 27-March-2008 at 6:33pm
	Although I came up with option 2 I wouldn't know technically how to do it myself. I think what would be easiest is to set up the products as a sub-category then the products as the sizes beneath it. That would work fine. I did that for a scalable charity donation on a track we put out. So all the product description goes into the category long description. It would work and automate the delivery process for you. It just means storing multiple versions of the image at different sizes. To be fair that's also how other ecommerce packages do it. It's equivalent in my store to the artists > album structure. cheers Mark

shiny Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 29-September-2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote shiny Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 27-March-2008 at 7:21pm
	Hi Mark Presume you are talking about hidden category activity did have a little play with this idea .....so need to investigate it further Thanks for that appreciate your help It's a very steep learning curve for me only do it for the challenge..... sadistic woman that I am!!! Cheers Kathy

ProductCart Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Admin Group ProductCart Team Joined: 01-October-2003 Status: Offline Points: 135	Post Options Post Reply Quote ProductCart Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 28-March-2008 at 10:04am
	FYI: we are investigating the possibility of allowing a Build To Order product to contain Downloadable products. This is something that could be used on our own software store here at Early Impact. For example, "ProductCart" could be a BTO product and you could configure your purchase by selecting the ProductCart license (Standard vs. BTO), selecting the add-on's that you might need (e.g. the eBay Add-on), and other services (e.g. installation services). When the order is processed, you would receive licenses, download links and installation instructions for all the downloadable products included in the purchased ProductCart package (the package is the BTO product). We like the idea. So we'll talk about it internally in the upcoming weeks.
	The ProductCart Team Home of ProductCart shopping cart software

shiny Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 29-September-2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote shiny Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 28-March-2008 at 1:08pm
	Hi Earlyimp That would be fantastic sounds like that is just what I'm looking for. So I take it if this is viable for you ( which I can only see benefits for Early Impact and PC users ) this would be an upgrade on the BTO current version. And maybe you would be able to implement in a few months? Can you please keep me informed Many Thanks Kathy

MarkCoyle Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: 06-June-2006 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote MarkCoyle Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 28-March-2008 at 1:32pm
	Hi all I too would be very interested in this and see commercial value for my business in it. An absolute key requirement on the download side is product bundling. For example imagine people buying music can buy by track or buy the album. Today I set up the tracks as products and an album product which requries double storage. Whereas if the tracks could be zipped up into the album it would avoid the need to store the music twice. This would be useable in many ways and combined with the options would make PC the best solution around for downloads (I checked out dozens including pilots before choosing PC as my business is entirely download oriented). For anyone doing downloads where the products originate from others, the drop shipper function can be used to notify your suppliers of when their items have sold with some minor configuration. I use this to automatically notify music artists and labels when their music has sold in real-time which is very well received. cheers Mark

Greg Dinger Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Certified ProductCart Developers Joined: 23-September-2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 238	Post Options Post Reply Quote Greg Dinger Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 28-March-2008 at 1:50pm
	Mark and Shiny, Are each of you using BTO or standard PC?

MarkCoyle Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: 06-June-2006 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote MarkCoyle Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 28-March-2008 at 1:58pm
	Hi I'm using standard and have been now for three years. If you think BTO will help me at all, just let me know. cheers Mark

shiny Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 29-September-2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote shiny Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 28-March-2008 at 2:12pm
	Hi I'm using standard too with options to price the different image file sizes Thanks Kathy

Greg Dinger Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Certified ProductCart Developers Joined: 23-September-2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 238	Post Options Post Reply Quote Greg Dinger Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 28-March-2008 at 2:56pm
	The reason I ask about if you are using BTO is because in the post above, EI is talking about extending BTO for this download request. But that would mean each of you would need to upgrade to BTO in order to utilize the new feature. I need to catch up on a few projects but at first glance, Mark may have a legitimate idea about how to pull this off. I'll try to poke around and see what it would take to implement such a solution. Option 1 - associating different zip files with different product option attributes, might be easier. Something to the effect of altering modPrdOpta.asp so that a file name might be referenced there, and somehow referenced on the download page so you get the correct file. This method uses, as Mark mentions, more disk space for storage of zip files. Option 2 may also be possible. There are ASP components out there that do allow the dynamic "on the fly" creation of a zip file. We just have to (a) make certain that we can conveniently define what objects get dropped into the zip and (b) work out a budget and make certain such a feature could be justified based on development cost. It's probably not going to be simple.

MarkCoyle Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: 06-June-2006 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote MarkCoyle Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 28-March-2008 at 3:11pm
	I would definitely be prepared to upgrade to BTO as part of this if needed. I place a substantial commercial value on this. I see these changes as making PC the fullest featured, most flexible ecommerce package around. I can already achieve a massive amount with it now but these changes would enable everything I need. For option 2 there are really only two zipping requirements as I see it: 1. Everything in an order. (though dangerous as what if an order is for ten albums and it creates a 750mb download which could clog up the server and fail on many connections) 2. Everything in a 'parent' product. (my preffered design as described below) The concept of 'parent' products would create a level between category and individual (or 'child') products. A parent product would be a product that can be ordered and contains the 'child' products associated with it (like a cetegory but categories can't be ordered). For example if the concept of 'album' was a 'parent' product and the 'child' products within it were the tracks, this would work. Customers can order and download individual tracks but if they buy the whole album they don't want to be clicking individual URLs for each track (when an album might have up to nearly 30 tracks). So a user could order the individual tracks ('child' products as today) or the 'parent' product which contains a zip of all the 'child' products. Conceptually this is simple but in delivery probably less so. If you want me to illustrate or detail my thoughts further I can do this on or offlist. cheers Mark Edited by MarkCoyle - 28-March-2008 at 3:13pm