Has anyone ever gotten their BTO price to scroll along with the page?

A good example is Dell.com or Alienware.com.  When you start configuring a PC, there's a little javascript box on the right hand side of the screen that shows your current price, live chat options, etc.

Cyberpowerpc.com goes one step further and it displays a brief summary of your system configuration in that javascript box, as well as the price, which is phenomenal.

Given that when you configure your default specs in BTO, a system summary is generated that lists hard drive, processor, etc, I know that this *must* be possible in Productcart.  There's a plethora of premade javascript codes that create a "floating box", but I just don't know what productcart code to stick in there to display the price and/or system summary.

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/ntbkx56800.asp?v=d - http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/ntbkx56800.asp?v=d  is an example of what I mean

Also, for each configuration category (cpu, ram, etc) is there any way to add a horizontal separator bar between each category, for visual appeal?

So for example, the word "hard drive" would sit on top of either a background picture or even a solid color to create an added visual separation, if that makes any sense.

I love the background colors of the category tables (the alternating light and dark gray), but I would like to change them to white, so that the BTO item pictures don't look tacky (as most of the pictures I use have a white background and it creates a goodly amount of work to try and change them all).

And, is it possible to have a picture for each BTO *category* show up on the configuration page?  Even after setting a picture for a category, it does not show up on the config page.  Pictures for BTO items show up, but for items like hard drives, I'd just like to have one single picture represent the whole category

Lastly (I know, tall order!), I use radio buttons as opposed to pull down menus (more visually pleasing to me), but I noticed that each line is double spaced!  Can this be changed to single spaced so that the page isn't so long?

Finally (okay, one more lol) is there any way that both radio buttons AND pull down menus can be used at the same time?  It appears to only give the option for one or another.

Thank you so much for reading through all of my questions and if any one of you have come across any of these issues and created a workaround, please let me know.  I'm taking on a large project all by myself (as my budget prohibits hiring someone to do it) and the stress is monumental.  Any help you can provide me with would result in my sincere and total gratitude and would help productcart as a whole, as features like those above are a huge boon to any custom computer seller!

God bless,

TheDeacon

To answer your questions about whether these items have changed in v3:

• Floating price: no
• Visual separator between categories: yes (via CSS)
• Category picture: you can add HTML to the category description, and therefore include images
• Single vs. double space: we don't have reports of this issue
• Radio buttons and drop-downs: no, this is still a storewide setting

Many of these things could be added by modifying the source code. Unfortunately we receive hundreds of feature requests and we can't get to all of them

TheDeacon, the URL you have sent, is terrific, it has great featured. do you know if it is a custom built or some shopping cart application?

As far as i know, they're all custom asp solutions, but much of the same functionality lies in productcart.

As for some of the nice features such as the floating price box, I was trying to work out a way to put that into productcart, using Milonic's (you MUST check out http://www.milonic.com - www.milonic.com ) dhtml floating menu, or one of the various others out there.  I just honestly am not skilled enough in asp to isolate the code and make that happen :/

If there were only two things I could add into productcart, they'd be

1) a category picture for the BTO configuration page (i.e. generic processor picture for the CPU category, pic of ram for the ram category, etc...it does wonders for sprucing up the page)

2) title bars for the BTO categories...either a background graphic or at least making the title a different color :(  Currently (and keep in mind that while I've designed websites, I'm in NO way an ASP expert) the css tag for the title line is the same as the rest of the window, so it'd take a bunch of rewriting I don't have the time or skills for :(

If they added the above and if someone found a way to make the dynamic BTO price modular to put into a floating menu, productcart would be at the exact same level as sites that spend thousands per year for a programmer.  Everything else is pretty easy to change in productcart, which goes to show what an outstanding ecommerce solution it is.

Sweet baby Jesus...I figured it out.  All of it.

I swear to you, I woke up this morning and suddenly understood asp.  Background title images....all of it, man.

I'm going to have myself a good cry of joy now.

THE chosen one?  It is a burden I am unsure this unworthy servant can hold :O

But it is seriously odd.  Suddenly everything made sense.  I even have the floating price window almost working.  BTO Category images work, title bar images...I even fixed this wierd spacing issue in the BTO configuration options that kept popping up....what the hell happened to me tonight?  It's like the old saying about a thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriters.

I think it's even possible to create multiple configuration pages....I haven't even started on it yet, but it's like at the end of the Matrix when Neo saw the world in code.  I can actually see how it might be possible.

Once I've got this complete (and put up a real template instead of the milonic.com alienware clone looking crap I was using for testing), I'm going to throw up some code snippets for all this.  Anyone running an online computer store with LOTS of configuration options needs these things to keep the configuration page interesting and keep the viewers' eyes from glazing over. 

And the floating menu box....man, that's just necessary on so many levels.  As it is now, I've got the box displaying the standard price, customized price, link to liveperson ( http://www.liveperson.com - www.liveperson.com <--get that or something similar!) and the standard features....im still working out how to have the features update without making a separate category for "customizations".

Oh chosen one could you share your wisdom with a mere mortal?

I'm doing a pc store with LOADS of config options and its deadly boring at the moment pages look DULL DULL DULL! But project timescale and budget don't cater for me spending hours waiting for your divine insiration! So I would be just SOOOOOO grateful if you could share the solution - images on BTO categories would be brilliant!

Thanks in anticipation

metalmania wrote: Oh chosen one could you share your wisdom with a mere mortal? I'm doing a pc store with LOADS of config options and its deadly boring at the moment pages look DULL DULL DULL! But project timescale and budget don't cater for me spending hours waiting for your divine insiration! So I would be just SOOOOOO grateful if you could share the solution - images on BTO categories would be brilliant! Thanks in anticipation

Man, I'd have to go hunting for the pages I modified to make that happen and extrapolate the code >.<

After the last couple of updates I decided to do away with it, as it required me re-editing each new file version with file compare, etc.

I still kept my custom separator bars, as that was mostly drop-in code

PC *should* have category images to the left of the config options on the BTO config page by default though :/  If only they knew how much better that makes a build sheet look!

My first post after recently purchasing Productcart BTO.  Just sinking my teeth into it now and no doubt I'll be a regular contributor to these forums over the coming weeks.

I came across this post because it appears that thedeacon may have solved one of those niggly little problems that seems to occur on a BTO configuration page with option selection and images displayed.

thedeacon wrote: I even fixed this wierd spacing issue in the BTO configuration options that kept popping up

I have noticed that each selection seems to be spaced weirdly until the customer chooses one of them and then they are all instantly brought back in line again.

I know this post dates back a bit but I am hoping thedeacon may be able to share his fix for this (if it was the same problem ??)

Many Thanks

Matt

Hi Mattprice,

That issue is even wierder than the one I was having.  My issue was just that in Firefox, everything looked doubled spaced, as the <p> tag looks like a double space in firefox and a single space in IE.  I just changed them all to <br><br> instead (since all the paragraphs were the same class anyways).  I don't even think I've had to do that anymore either.

I'm sure your issue is easily fixed though; may I have the URL of your page?  If you don't want to post it here, you could mail it to mailto:richard@hipepc.com - richard@hipepc.com

Thanks! :)

Hi Richard,

Only a few hours in the making so theres not much of a site to show but you can see the issue on this configuration :-

http://cartalia.hostinguk.com/productcart/pc/configurePrd.asp?idProduct=2 -  

If I select an option (in I.E 5 at least) then the spacing is pulled back in line between options.... very strange.

No worries at all Matt, we've got it sorted for you :)

The short version is there's not enough space in the row.  But that leaves us with more questions than answers.

Mind my half asleep silliness while I explain what's going on -

To the right of each of those covertypeface options, there's an invisible field that would normally hold the price of each upgrade option.  Since there's no price for the options and since the .css doesn't specify a width for that transparent field, it just sticks a blank input field at its default size, which is like 200 px wide. 

Since there's not enough room for that 200px field on the first line, it creates a second line to stick that invisible input field on.

When you click on of the radio buttons, that transparent field goes away, which is is why everything looks right as rain when you click an option.

You've got a few choices here (pretend I'm Monty Hall with three doors....God, I miss Monty Hall)

1) You could reduce the width of your pictures

2) You could shorten the text

or

3) You could specify a fixed with for the tag

#pcMain .transparentField {

in your pcstorefront.css file.  Add a line in that tag that says

width: 50px;

And it fixes the problem.  BUT!  There's a couple of minor caveats with door #3 (remember when door #3 on Let's Make a Deal had a donkey or something?  God, I loved those episodes....you think they had to give the donkey to the contestant?)

1) #pcMain .transparentField is used in other areas of your site.  If you notice something looks strange or misaligned after you make that change, that tag may be your culprit.

2) If you ever ad in an upgrade option with a high dollar amount (oh I dunno, maybe $3,000,000 or so), 50px will not be big enough to show the entire price and part of it will get cut off.

If you're nervous about changing the css tag, drop me an email and Ill reply back with the modified pcstorefront.css I made for you.  Let me know if you run into any other issues :)

Many thanks Richard,

Lets make a Deal didnt make it to the UK but we had a similar Gameshow called "Take your Pick" dating back to the 50's so I think I know where you are coming from...

Rather than walk away with the donkey I chose the easy option and reduced the text and it fixed the problem.

Thanks again for your help.  If I end up with a site that looks half as good as http://www.hipepc.com - www.hipepc.com  I will be chuffed to bits.

Matt