Will Shaman

Thanks for your comments, bsandall and BooJewels. You're both right: the behaviour you describe is indeed what one would have expected, but for some reason it doesn't work for me. I'm using a modified Minimaliser (Blue) skin, which appears to work perfectly in every other respect. The solution I came up with, though it shouldn't be necessary, actually provides me with a more satisfactory result, in that I've discovered I can position product listings arbitrarily throughout a document. This makes for more flexibility than a regular category page, though to be honest if I'd not had the problem in the first place I would probably have stuck with non-visible category pages as designed by CC.

Hope so. It's not rocket science, for sure, but it's certainly nice to have the freedom to make up static pages however I like, but with vital extras like product listings.

That's not so hard. I can put links wherever I choose. Obviously, I don't want one in my navi bar (that's the whole point of the exercise) though I could add an arbitrary link up there if I chose (just like I did with "About Theolyn" on this site, which points to a document, not a category). For instance, instead of the long "The Angels Script" link I'd normally be stuck with if I did this as a conventional category, I could add just "AS", or a little graphic if I wanted. In the case of this site, there are a number of places elsewhere in the site where people can get this informational page, just like any other document. The point is, I'm not restricted to CC's handling of category pages. I can roll it however I like. Oh and the products still also exist within their regular categories as normal…

Sure. Currently at theolyn.com/cube. For the example here, look at the first slider at the top of the home page and click it to visit http://theolyn.com/cube/the-angels-script-intro.html. Please note: Later today I'll be rewriting my .htaccess to hide the "cube" element of the URL, so it may appear at http://theolyn.com/the-angels-script-intro.html WHAT I WANTED: A page with some static text on it introducing the product(s) I want talk about to prospective customers, with the product(s) concerned listed at the bottom (or some other arbitrary place), each with "Add to cart" button, quantity box, thumbnail, and short description. SO WHY NOT USE A CATEGORY DESCRIPTION? I found that whenever I added a category, it would appear in my top navigation bar. While this is perfectly fine for some categories (Books and cards, for instance) when I'm happy for them to be in the top navigation bar, some of the explanatory text I want to put up (as is usual for a category description) should not create yet another entry on my already-full navi bar. Checking or unchecking the visibility box for a category didn't make any difference to my navi bar — the category would always appear, thus making the navi bar bigger than I want. SOLUTION: Create a document with the URL, etc you want. Enter desired static text. At the front end of the site, visit the category containing the product you want to add to your document and view the page's HTML (I use Firefox's Firebug plugin, which makes it easy). Copy the HTML for the product listing in question: it's basically a form and, on this site, it begins with <form action="http://theolyn.com/cube/books-cards.html" class="panel add_to_basket" method="post" novalidate="novalidate"> and ends with the first form closing tag — </form> — that follows. Go back to your new document's editing page back in Admin and view its source (click "source" button). Paste your form's HTML anywhere on that page you want. Save. This can be repeated as many times as you like in a document, with the products gathered from any categories you so desire and placed anywhere you like. The Add to cart button and quantity field work just like they were listed as part of a regular category page. The only thing to watch is, for some reason, you can get unexpected results unless you leave a line space between your form's HTML and the next form (or arbitrary text). So this will work as expected: <form action= etc. etc.......> </form> (line space) <form action= etc. etc.......> </form> But this may make your page look different from the way you want it: <form action= etc. etc.......> </form> <form action= etc. etc.......> </form> Other than that, have fun — you are free from category page hegemony! Best wishes, Will

Thanks for all those who replied to this. I cleared caches both on my site and my browsers; I checked visibility option was unchecked (it was); I tried in different browsers. results were the same. However, I fixed the problem another way by creating customised documents with the necessary products hard-coded into them. Works fine and does what I need. No need for categories to be kept out of navigation bar. Boom.

Actually, I think I jumped the gun saying this didn't apply to me — why not let PayPal handle addresses for items to be posted and not bother for downloads and free items? Your solution to this seemed like a good one. But has it been working for you? I just tried the edit you suggested, but it doesn't seem to make any difference to my checkout experience. I cleared the browser cache and all caches through the Maintenance admin section, but when I visit the site as an unregistered visitor, I'm still being asked for my snailmail address, my billing address, and a password to register with. Be great if it works — any ideas why not? All the best, Will

How can I prevent a chosen category from appearing in the top navigation bar? I find if I leave its status as checked (and therefore available for use) but the visibility checkbox unchecked, the category still appears in the top navigation bar. I want the category description to be shown (and the products it contains listed below that text) — I just don't want to fill my navigation bar up. Any clues? Thanks in advance, Will

That's good, Sirtin. Well done! Only problem from my point of view is that some of the products I'm selling are physical, some are digital, and some are free digital. Physical products need a billing address and a snailmail address; digital products need a billing address; but free digital products don't need either. It's this last group of products I'm trying to tailor my cart to: the point of giving away free downloads is to entice people to buy from me later and it seems counter-productive to ask them for intrusive information when I want them to just enjoy something for free. The solution I'm looking for needs to have some kind of if/then stage in it: "If cart total =0 then forget about collecting addresses". I would need to learn PHP to fix this AND how Cubecart works. While I might (reluctantly) be prepared to do the first, understanding CC6's intricacies would be difficult or impossible without some sort of documentation, which seems not to be available. Sigh…

Well, yes, I did think of that. However, it seemed like this was the sort of feature that would be so commonly required someone else would already have found a way to do it. To be honest, I'm surprised CC6 doesn't have settings to control the information required from customers built in. After all, it has reasonably sophisticated settings in place for delivering digital downloads, which shouldn't need a physical delivery address, only a billing address. So why the requirement for delivery and billing addresses for a digital product that is free? To have to pay for an answer to this sort of question seems a bit extreme, and only necessary because there's neither adequate user documentation nor an active enough user base that includes users who know the answers to this kind of question. Thanks for the suggestion anyway. It may be that I have to pay someone to reveal the information I need. Best, Will

Yes, it's quite likely most users are novices (count me in that crowd) but I still think it's odd there aren't more experts around, given that CC is now on version 6 and therefore mature and I would have thought has quite a large user base. Anyway, no point complaining — much better to DO something about it! I'll also search further for a solution to this and let's keep our fingers crossed we'll find a solution. Let's keep in touch over this. Best, Will

Glad I'm not the only one! Compared with my experience of Drupal and Wordpress, the Cubecart community seems to be pretty poor at responding to users with issues around really basic functionality. Instead, responses appear to be left up to a couple of really dedicated people who do their level best to field questions but, in the end, are simply not enough to compensate for the almost zero documentation Cubecart has. Searching forums, I've seen numerous requests for help on problems that must be very common, yet they've gone without response for years. That doesn't do this exceptionally good shopping cart any favours. I'll certainly keep you posted, should anyone have anything helpful to say about this, but don't hold your breath! I'll meanwhile investigate solutions outside of the Cubecart community and will share if successful. Best, Will

That's what I thought. Thanks for the response though…

Thanks for the speedy reply, Dirty Butter. Appreciated. I already saw that post, but it doesn't quite do what I need. I do already have a few PDF documents that people can see for free and I worked out that all I have to do is put them outside of my "files" directory and then just link to them. That's fine for general informational stuff, but I'm also offering MP3s and other stuff, apart from PDFs (some in a protected "Members Library") and I'd like to send people through the checkout so I can keep tabs on who's doing what. Plus, if the freebies are proper products (and not just linked files) they can be downloaded at the same time as purchased products. For instance, I have paid-for MP3s of guided visualisations that need to be properly checked-out, but also a Guide to doing Visualisations, which is free. If someone wants to download the free item separately, so their cart totals £0, I'd prefer it if they didn't have the bother of filling out all their snail-mail deets in order to get it. If I knew PHP I guess I'd be looking for some magic instruction in the cart template that tells it not to require address fields when the cart total = 0. But I know diddley squat about PHP. :0( Any pointers? Thanks again.

I have several free products in the CC6 site I'm building at www.theolyn.com/cube/ and everything works well with them behaving exactly as expected — just like regular paid-for products, in fact. But is there a way to disable the required delivery and billing address fields if the cart total is £0? This information is not needed if all the user is "purchasing" is freebies and it slows them down. Plus, some users may even find a request for their snail-mail address intrusive, which is counter to the intention of giving these things away, i.e. to get them on my side and start buying stuff. Any and all help or advice welcome. Thanks in advance, WIll

Hi Ian, Thanks for the response. Yes, my ideal would be for those logged in to my CC6 site to then be logged in to my WP site. CC is what I have built my main site in, as it's purpose is to sell stuff, but CC doesn't seem to be so strong when it comes to things like blogs, secure members areas, and indeed a community of developers who supply cheap or free plugins for many common requirements not directly related to CC's excellent shopping cart. It would be great to provide my customers with a seamless experience across the two systems.

Ian, how have you progressed with integrating Wordpress and Cubecart? In particular, my interest here is avoiding customers having to log in twice if they're viewing different parts of the site I'm presenting them with. In other words, does your integration mean that someone logged in on the CC database will also be logged in as far as WP is concerned? Thanks in advance, Will

Thanks for that suggestion, Dirty Butter. I'll have another look into what PayPal offers me (I'm on PayPal Standard, btw). Is what you're referring to different from what PayPal call a "Subscription" payment? That I'm familiar with — I was just looking for a smooth way of integrating something like that into Cubecart (as Cubecart can't handle recurring payments on its own, I think).

Thanks, Al, Brian and Dirty butter. I'll check out the requirements in the UK. Assuming it is ok (tax wise) to leave it up to PayPal, I guess the simplest way to give an option to customers to pay via recurring payments (effectively in instalments) would be to embed a PayPal subscription payment button at the end of my long description. Not particularly integrated or elegant, but at least it will work. Any ideas for slicker ways to present this to customers?

Thanks for the speedy response, Al, and apologies for my late one! So, given that PayPal takes care of notifying the purchaser of their subscription transactions, why should invoicing from Cubecart be a problem? Surely invoicing from CC could be omitted altogether and PayPal left to do its work? All the best, Will Thanks for the heads up, Dirty Butter. Could be handy. What version of CC did you use it on and did you eventually get it working well?

Is Cubecart really incapable of handling PayPal recurring payments (subscriptions) these days? I note that versions 3 and 4 both have low-cost custom mods written for them, but I think versions 5 and 6 work in a different way and it appears nobody thinks this is a serious omission from what is otherwise a very good cart. I'm already deeply committed to building using CC6, so it seems counter-intuitive to re-build using an older version of CC. I'm a Cubecart newbie, so I'm quite happy to believe I may have missed something that's obvious to everyone else, but I've done a lot of hunting for this feature and found nothing. Not even other people wondering why it's not an available option! Any ideas or pointers? Thanks in advance. Will

I haven't been able to find very much at all on this after very extensive web searches. The closest I found was a topic in this forum started by rgcuby, back in 2008, but it ended with someone saying they'd found a mod, without giving any kind of link to it. I can't be the only person who's interested in this, so I'm very surprised there's so little discussion (though forgive me if I'm missing anything obvious as I'm new to Cubecart 6). I'm building a site at www.theolyn.com/cube/ that will sell (amongst other things) CDs and digital audio downloads of the same titles. Ideally, what I'd like is to show my product in the catalogue as per normal, but allow the customer to select either a physical CD or a downloadable version. Prices for each are not the same — digital is cheaper than physical — and, importantly, when checking out the cart knows that the physical version needs a mailing address and the usual shipping calculation and stock decrement, while the digital version needs to be handled without shipping or stock decrement. Does anyone know if CC6 is capable of handling products in this way? It must be a common requirement but, as I say, I've looked around a lot and can't find anything that addresses this. My alternative would be to create the physical and digital versions as separate products, but that would be a rather clunky workaround. Looking forward to some insights from anyone out there with more experience than me! Thanks in advance. Will

Great idea! Thanks for your help. I reckon I'm on my way now. Have a great day. Happy Will

One further thing before I go making additional pages in this way, I'm assuming they won't have all the usual furniture (bxslider, cart icon, footer, etc) that goes with regular CubeCart documents that are pulled in from the skin?

Thanks for the swift response, Bsmither. I appreciate that. When I created the document I initially gave it the URL test, hoping it would become a relative URL, although when I first encountered the problem of my link not working I noticed CubeCart had changed it to its full URL, ie http://www.theolyn.com/cube/test. Putting to one side my stupid ignorance of the significance of the trailing slash (doh!) I couldn't work out why a link to http://www.theolyn.com/cube/test wouldn't open a document with the URL http://www.theolyn.com/cube/test, hence my post on this forum. But I think you're saying that in order for it to work I need to create a regular HTML page called test.html? My error being the assumption that creating a document within the CubeCart database with the URL test was not something the system could reference? I'm coming from previous experience with Drupal and WordPress, both of which can work like that — I hope this lame amateur is explaining things clearly? Thanks for your help. All the best, Will

I'm new to Cubecart, so please forgive me if this basic question is stupidly simple, but I haven't found an answer anywhere. I've just started building a shop in CC6 at http://www.theolyn.com/cube/ and I want to make a simple link to a simple custom (static) page. Pages are apparently called "documents" in Cubecart, so I went to Admin > File Manager > Documents and hit the Create Document tab. There I made a document called Test static page, checked the Status box and gave it the URL http://www.theolyn.com/cube/test . I then see it listed with all the other documents like "Terms and Conditions" and "Privacy Policy", so I know it exists. Then, on the site's home page at http://theolyn.com/cube/ I edited the content to include a link with the URL of my new page. So there's a page with an URL and another page with a link to that URL (which is displayed when I roll over it). This should work, right? Apparently not. When I click on the link referencing http://www.theolyn.com/cube/test I get a "404 Page not found" error, even though both the page and the link to the page have exactly the same URL. (I tried it both with and without a "/" at the end and it seems to make no difference). This seems like such a simple, basic piece of page building I can't for the life of me see where I'm going wrong. What am I missing? I'm hugely grateful for anyone who can point me in the right direction. There doesn't seem to be anything on the 'net about this and I've been searching for ages! Thanks in advance. Will