Friday 29 July 2011

Joomla Virtuemart - I want the landing page for the category and searches to open the product page and not an image.

Joomla Virtuemart - I want the landing page for the category and searches to open the product page and not an image.


this was a real easy change as the title works fine - so I just replicated that for the image.

First of all whats the browse page the category.

in my case its

components/com_virtuemart/themes/default/templates/browse/browse_1.php




Around line 20 is the code for the image. Which I stripped out the < Script > code and the < noscript > tags and then REPLACED



< a href="< ? php echo $product_full_image ? > " target="_blank" title="< ? php echo $product_name ? >" >

FOR



< a title="< ? php echo $product_name ? >" href="< ? php echo $product_flypage ? >" >


Replacing the Screen on a LG GW620 Smart Phone

My relationship with my LG GW620 has been a bit up and down. I'd choosen the GW620 mainly because it seemed one of the best phones that includes a keyboard. However ever since I've been jealously looking at how reponsive other touchscreen mobiles are like the Galaxy, Iphone or Lexus HTC phones.

To make things worse only half way through my contract ( 12 months ) I smashed the screen - ironically the day before the wifes new Galaxy s2 turned up.

Eventhough I kinda regret buying it the fact is I use it a huge amount. the video, the camera, several apps, mp3 player, the internet. Being without it for a few days really kinda makes you realise how much it had been used.

The first port of call was to see if I could get an upgrade. Unfortunatley not, on T-mobile this is a service only open to customers with 3 months or less on their contracts.

SO to the LG repair service. The advisors tells me it'll cost £40 for them to look at it and then they would tell me how much it'll cost to fix it. In his words 'it'll be better to take it to someone else. '

After watching a couple of vids I'd decided to have a go at the repair myself and ordered a replacement screen. And used www.formymobile.co.uk - it wasn't the cheapest at £30 but was UK based and sold offical LG parts, as opposed to waiting longer and taking a risk from overseas.

The instuctions for replacement are here http://www.formymobile.co.uk/gw620disassembly.php

BE WARNED THOUGH - the instructions aren't quite as easy as the read.


On the second part 'You should now be able to pry the battery compartment away from the rest of the phone. Pry it away around its edge, as shown below.'

There are clips all the way round - including top and bottom. It'd be easy to break the plastic casing if you rush this bit.

SECTION THREE -
'They're soldered to the phone's circuit board and attached to the side of the phone's housing with double sided tape. ' My wife accidentally break the volume switch here. Meaning I now need the part number SPKY0077901 and a soldering kit.


SECTION FOUR -
Now lift the circuit board from right to left, as shown below. A ribbon connector (circled) needs to be disconnected. It attaches like a plug and socket. Just lever
this away from the circuit board to unplug


Theres a screw here that needs to be removed that isn't mentioned. Its the one that sits on the silver plate. Once removed the two parts come apart a lot easier.


IN GENERAL : its not quite as easy as the instructions say - i think some parts are slightly glued and need a bit of teasing.

If your careful though and have read this then you should be OK.
It might be an idea to film yourself taking it apart and you could use this as a reminder of the process when putting it back together.


As it goes I know have my Phone working again :)) and lukily the volume seems OK.

Thursday 28 July 2011

joomla virtuemart - customizing the category page template

Hot on the tails of my last blog joomla virtuemart - where do I control the amount of categories per row that are displayed . My next task was to put a div around the category image that I can control with CSS and to add the description underneath the image.

Which would get it look a bit like this.


The first task of wrapping a div around the image was real easy

OPEN

components/com_virtuemart/themes/default/templates/common/categoryChildlist.tpl.php

UNDER

foreach( $categories as $category ) {
if ($iCol == 1) { // this is an indicator wether a row needs to be opened or not
echo "
\n";
}
?>


< td align="center" width="%" >


is where I started my div - and ended the div before the closing of the table cell < / td > - i called mine < div class="cateforyboxes" >

The next problem of ADDING A DESCRIPTION TO VIRTUEMART JOOMLA CATEGORY PAGE was a bit harder to sort.

OPEN

administrator/components/com_virtuemart/classes/ps_product_category.php

on line 926 find

$q = "SELECT category_id, category_thumb_image, category_child_id,category_name FROM

AND CHANGE TO

$q = "SELECT category_id, catergory_description, category_thumb_image, category_child_id,category_name FROM


THEN FROM LINE 935


while( $db->next_record() ) {
$childs[] = array (
'category_name' => $db->f("category_name"),

'category_id' => $db->f("category_id"),
'category_thumb_image' => $db->f("category_thumb_image"),
'number_of_products' => ps_product_category::products_in_category( $db->f("category_id")),
);




ADD

'category_description' => $db->f("category_description"),

UNDER

'category_name' => $db->f("category_name"),


this works for me on Joomla 1.5.23 with virtuemart 1.1.5

joomla virtuemart - where do I control the amount of categories per row that are displayed

change joomla virtuemart category page layout

This is likely to be my first blog on the subject of changing the category page as I've a few changes to make.

My first problem is - where do I control the amount of categories per row that are displayed

I found this post on the subject Joomla Virtuemart - categories per row displayed

Which states

shop.index.php file in administrator / components / com_virtuemart / html

around line 35 change the 3 (or in your case 4) to whatever you want to be displayed.
Code:
$iCol = 1;
$categories_per_row = 3;
$cellwidth = intval( 100 / $categories_per_row );
?>


This doesn't work for me though on my virtuemart 1.1.5 stable installation but it gives me a decent lead.

After searching for $categories_per_row in both virtuemart folders I found this solution:

open up components/com_virtuemart/themes/default/templates/common/categoryChildlist.tpl.php

on line 5 I found

$categories_per_row = 4;

and changed this to

$categories_per_row = 3;


And it works. :))

Monday 25 July 2011

Adding Static FBML problem

I've been getting this problem recently when trying to add a new FBML page to Facebook fanpages.

Adding Static FBML to Fan Page


link for adding static FBML


Adding Static FBML problem


Here's the link I found that take you straight to the app
Fix adding Static FBML to Facebook Fanpage Problem


Thursday 21 July 2011

More ways to speed up the Joomla Virtuemart Checkout process

in addition to my One page Virtuemart checkout blog. I've also realised that having the customer have to confirm their account is a complete pain.

Afterall it means they have to open up there email and click on it. This could be considerable amount of key pushes and clicks, equalling lost time.



To get rid of this you need to go into your admin

>site -> global configuration

>> under 'User settings' click on 'no' next to 'New Uset Account Activation


you can now check this in Virtuemart

> components -> virtuemart

> 'admin' on the left menu and click on 'configuration'

> under 'User Registration Settings'

> 'Joomla!: New account activation necessary? ' should be no.


ANOTHER QUICK TIP TO SPEED UP VIRTUEMART CHECKOUT

> also under 'User Registration Settings'

> I've changed 'User Registration Type' to 'Optional Account Creation' - if you sell a product where customers wouldn't be coming back then you may want to turn that off altogether.


Wednesday 20 July 2011

Joomla Virtuemart - getting  in text when transferring Category pages

I've written blogs for others examples of this ( i will list underneath )but this one is specifically about the transferring Category fields in Virtuemart.

UPDATE jos_vm_category SET category_name = replace(category_name,"Â"," ");

UPDATE jos_vm_category SET category_description = replace(category_description,"Â"," ");

Rolling back to earlier version of Virtuemart added  keys to database entries

Getting rid of  à from Mysql Searchs.

Database transfer has put ’ , ‘ , “, Â, ”, –, …, ’ in my text.


Monday 18 July 2011

Sending out Email to get your Google Customers to leave a Review

Google send out an automatic message to your customers who have purchased through Google Checkout. This has the title of

'Rate your shopping experience with Escape Surfboards using Google Checkout'

the only thing is what if 'my cutomers have deleted their Google Checkout Review request. How can you then send them out an email so they can do this. The secret is in the link that sent by Google Checkout - which will look something like this

https://checkout.google.com/reviews/merchant/rateMerchant?t=01010100101010&e=l

what you will need to do is change that transaction number ( 01010100101010 ) to the transaction of the purchase the customer needs to review. You can find this in the www.google.co.uk/checkout admin area.

If you're looking for ' suggested text for requesting to write a google review email ' then here is what I used.

Rate your shopping experience with Escape Surfboards using Google Checkout

Thanks for your recent purchase from Escape Surfboards.

We'd very much appreciate if you could share your experience. Please take a moment to tell us about it by filling in the form at the link REVIEW YOUR PURCHASE. We will publish your review online so that others can learn from your experience. Your review will be linked to your Google account.

Escape Surfboards

Friday 15 July 2011

One page checkout for Virtuemart - Joomla

I searched high and low for a component for this one. And only found ones that where commercial and needed to be paid for.

However I did find this free tip that speeds up the process quite a bit for free :))

Admin -> Configuration -> Checkout tab -> change all steps to 1 and you will have a Single checkout page




Adding a Google map to the Contact page in Joomla

This blog could also have been called ' Adding a google map to a Module space in Joomla ' I wasn't quite sure which would be the most helpfull for getting found.

I use the plugin GoogleMaps to display my google maps in my articles http://www.tech.reumer.net

I already have a couple of custom HTML modules installed but neither worked. The one you need to display GoogleMaps plugin is http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/4175/details called Custom Content

With this modules you'll need to set your map on an article as normall and then call up the aritcle from the module.

When creating a New module its 'customContent' that your looking for. I also have 'custom' and 'custom HTML' , so its a little confusing.

Check Polzeath Longboards for the resulting page.

Monday 11 July 2011

Saturday 9 July 2011

Joomla Virtuemart - Checkout is showing my frontpage images.

After adding an item and then moving to the checkout I then have the Modules of my home pages displayed.

If you are also having this problem then you may be doing the same thing I was.

And thats that I had the mainmenu item linked to virtuemart.

THIS DOESN'T WORK

> login to admin

> goto 'menus' on the top menu - and click on 'main menu'

> on the right handside of the table check in the column 'Type' and if its 'com_virtuemart' - then thats the problem.

Here's the forum post that relates to the problem.

http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=88336.0


Hope that helps

Friday 8 July 2011

Adding days to the date in PHP

Had to do this one for St.Moritz hotel in Polzeath . Basicall needed to add a day to the availabilty search, so booking can't be made on the sameday.

the date was being called by this code

$date_now = date('Y-m-d');

here's the function I wrote

function add_days($date,$days){ // have remade to use mktime // date to come into function in Y-m-d


$date_array = explode('-', $date);
list($year, $month, $day) = $date_array;
$new_day = $day+ $days;
$date_add_days = date('Y-m-d', mktime(12, 0, 0, $month, $new_day, $year));
return $date_add_days;


}

and called it up with

$date_now = add_days($date_now ,'1');

immediatley after finding out the value to $date_now

with this by changing the 1 you can add as many days as you'd like.

Thursday 7 July 2011

Claiming back your PPI

when I got my present credit card I'd specifically asked to not have any insurance. After a considerable time I'd noticed that I was being charged for it any. At which time i contacted the bank, and it still wasn't taken off at this junction.

Anyway just been looking into getting my PPI back through another company, they called me back and stated they took 50% !!!

a quick call to
http://www.ppi-refund.org.uk/faq.php

and that came down to 25% + VAT

However looking at it then I reckon the way to go would be to complain to the bank itself and do it myself.

info here http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/ppi-loan-insurance


will let you know how I get on.

Upgrading Virtuemart to 1.1.9 problem

After upgrading the store http://www.escapesurfboards.com I encountered a problem with the Parent category page not showing images.

So I immediatley tried to ROLLBACK but this didn't work. The reason though is that I forgot to rollback the folder /administrator/components/com_virtuemart aswell as components/com_virtuemart and the database.

Anyway it looks like theres a fix to this component problem - take a look at http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=88049.0 which I'll be making sure I set up on a testing server first !!!

Wednesday 6 July 2011

Error 1227 (4200) at line 27: Access denied you need the SUPER privilage for this operation

If you're seeing this message then you're probably trying to SSH your database in. A quick fix - go into your .sql file and delete all the commands at the top until you get to your first 'add table' command :)

Tuesday 5 July 2011

Rolling back to earlier version of Virtuemart added  keys to database entries

heres what I ran in MySQL to sort this

UPDATE jos_vm_product SET product_s_desc = replace(product_s_desc,"Â"," ");


UPDATE jos_vm_product SET product_desc = replace(product_desc,"Â"," ");

UPDATE jos_vm_product_reviews SET comment = replace(comment,"Â"," ");

UPDATE jos_vm_category SET category_description = replace(category_description,"Â"," ");


If you are having problems with other values you could try these also



UPDATE jos_vm_product SET product_s_desc = replace(product_s_desc,"’","\'");

UPDATE jos_vm_product SET product_s_desc = replace(product_s_desc,"‘","\'");

UPDATE jos_vm_product SET product_s_desc = replace(product_s_desc,"“","\"");


UPDATE jos_vm_product SET product_s_desc = replace(product_s_desc,"Â"," ");

UPDATE jos_vm_product SET product_s_desc = replace(product_s_desc,"”","\"");

UPDATE jos_vm_product SET product_s_desc = replace(product_s_desc,"–","-");

UPDATE jos_content SET introtext = replace(introtext,"…",";");



UPDATE jos_vm_product SET product_desc = replace(product_desc,"’","\'");

UPDATE jos_vm_product SET product_desc = replace(product_desc,"‘","\'");

UPDATE jos_vm_product SET product_desc = replace(product_desc,"“","\"");


UPDATE jos_vm_product SET product_desc = replace(product_desc,"Â"," ");

UPDATE jos_vm_product SET product_desc = replace(product_desc,"”","\"");

UPDATE jos_vm_product SET product_desc = replace(product_desc,"–","-");

UPDATE jos_vm_product SET product_desc = replace(product_desc,"…",";");



UPDATE jos_vm_product_reviews SET comment = replace(comment,"’","\'");

UPDATE jos_vm_product_reviews SET comment = replace(comment,"‘","\'");

UPDATE jos_vm_product_reviews SET comment = replace(comment,"“","\"");


UPDATE jos_vm_product_reviews SET comment = replace(comment,"Â"," ");

UPDATE jos_vm_product_reviews SET comment = replace(comment,"”","\"");

UPDATE jos_vm_product_reviews SET comment = replace(comment,"–","-");

UPDATE jos_vm_product_reviews SET comment = replace(comment,"…",";");




UPDATE jos_vm_category SET category_description = replace(category_description,"’","\'");

UPDATE jos_vm_category SET category_description = replace(category_description,"‘","\'");

UPDATE jos_vm_category SET category_description = replace(category_description,"“","\"");


UPDATE jos_vm_category SET category_description = replace(category_description,"Â"," ");

UPDATE jos_vm_category SET category_description = replace(category_description,"”","\"");

UPDATE jos_vm_category SET category_description = replace(category_description,"–","-");

UPDATE jos_vm_category SET category_description = replace(category_description,"…",";");

Monday 4 July 2011

Joomla - getting rid of the 'Error loading Modules:' error message

For some reason I'd started getting his message on my websites

Error loading Modules:

to get rid of it I need to open up the mysql database for the website in MyPHPadmin and I deleted all the unused Modules from the table 'jos_modules'

the error message is now gone :))


Just incase i've deleted something I needed heres the entries I deleted.

mod_popular
mod_latest
mod_quickicon
mod_feed
mod_autocanonical
mod_vmproductslideshow
mod_gtranslate
mod_metamod
mod_smartbookmarker


the delete instructions

DELETE FROM `database`.`jos_modules`

WHERE `jos_modules`.`id` = 3;
DELETE FROM `database``.`jos_modules`

WHERE `jos_modules`.`id` = 4;
DELETE FROM `database``.`jos_modules`

WHERE `jos_modules`.`id` = 9;
DELETE FROM `database``.`jos_modules`

WHERE `jos_modules`.`id` = 42;
DELETE FROM `database``.`jos_modules`

WHERE `jos_modules`.`id` = 61;
DELETE FROM `database``.`jos_modules`

WHERE `jos_modules`.`id` = 95;
DELETE FROM `database``.`jos_modules`

WHERE `jos_modules`.`id` = 125;
DELETE FROM `database``.`jos_modules`

WHERE `jos_modules`.`id` = 143;
DELETE FROM `database``.`jos_modules`

WHERE `jos_modules`.`id` = 133;
DELETE FROM `database``.`jos_modules`

WHERE `jos_modules`.`id` = 135;

and i've kept a backup at backup/july/jos_modules.sql