usercheckout.php & userrenew.php - working bad

[Eric Barnes]

The order and the listing are both added after you enter the listing details in step 3. The order is created at this point because of the coupon code and the extra up sale items.

[nickhaughton]

Thanks for the response, I really don't know how you manage to get around these forums and still have time to do any development.

Could this information (the order, the listing and the coupon code etc) be saved in a temporary table? The user would arrive at the end of the process and would see a preview, still be able to make changes etc, even save it and come back to it later BEFORE pressing a final button to submit the order, which would then gather the information from the holding table, process it creating the listing and the order and the confirmation mails and then direct the user to the thankyou screen with a button to return to the home page. It would give the user much less scope to screw everything up.

[Eric Barnes]

Thanks for the response, I really don't know how you manage to get around these forums and still have time to do any development.

It is hard sometimes. That is why I spend way to many hours when a new release is set.

What you mentioned may work. I would need to research it further.

[nickhaughton]

I like Darek's idea of a kind of user scratch pad as the final landing zone before posting (which would be a directory of the temporary ad table) where they store their inactive ads/orders. They could also use it to re post old campaigns. It'd be a real plus for both user and admin.
I hope you are able to look into it sometime soon, but I guess it would be quite a complex change. I wish I knew enough php to help. Maybe in the future. Should I submit it as a feature request for now?

Also, in my post above I indicated that when I have several pages of ads to approve, it would be useful if the browser would return me to the order page I left from and not the first page. How could I accomplish this. With a cookie? Any clues as to where? Thanks, and sorry for asking an unrelated question in the same thread.

Thanks Eric

[Eric Barnes]

Nick,

I actually had a few ideas late last night about the admin process that I wanted to run by you.

1. When viewing an order and clicking the listings tab it doesn't show you much about the ad. What if this was changed to load the actual listing so from the order screen you can see exactly what was posted?

2. After editing an order do you think it would be better to go to the orders grid or on the same page. I can't remember right now what it does now with out testing.

[nickhaughton]

To answer your queries:

1. It had ocurred to me too. I think it would be useful to have the listing number and a link of the title beside each order in the manage orders page. Yes. Clicking on the listing title should open the listing in a new window so that you don't lose your place on the orders grid.

2. After editing an order you should come back to the same page of the manage order grid from where you left - ie: if you were on page three, you come back to page 3 (see my post above).

[nickhaughton]

Well I have just been through another large batch of orders and I think I have found a workaround for the above post using just the browser. I open a very slim browser window off to one side where I keep a filtered list of the awaiting confirmation orders. Then in another bigger browser window which occupies the rest of the screen I open another orders page and open all of that page's orders on tabs by ctrl clicking them. I then work my way through them closing the tabs after making my changes and tick them off on the slim browser window as I go. Then when they are all selected I just change the status of all those orders in the slim window and move on to the next page.

This is quite comfortable and quick for now. Although that is the way it should work if it was built in - a kind of explorer tree or pane sort of thing with the orders on the left and the open orders on the right and then the listings attached to those orders on the far right, or opening in a drop down or something. Anyway, as I say, I have a workaround that fits me now.

Far more useful to everybody (users, admin, erroroneous order prevention) would be the concept of the users order area or bin or ad repository. The possibility of being able to keep your own archive of ads (as a user) and submit them as orders at will is really interesting don't you think? Supposing you are a customer who likes to run a certain campaign at a certain time of the year... At christmas time you could just select a group of ads you ran at that time last year and run them again... and no orders/emails/live listings would be created until you hit that ONE button to submit an order with your chosen ad. It would also automatically open the door to billing for multiple ad insertions on one bill.

It'd be a winner! It's all about separating the ad creation process from the order creation process.

Now if I could only stop thinking and sleep...

[nickhaughton]

Well I guess it's a cart really, isn't it? A cart with wings. Off to the wish list then. I see it has five stars there.

[Eric Barnes]

Would you mind the above post to that feature request post? That way they are together when we start looking into this further.