Custom checkout templates?

[Mike-N-Tosh]

Greetings,

Curious if any has already done this or if anyone knows how this could be done. As there are categories that don't need a price or that there is an extra field to be used instead of the default price field, is there a way to make custom template pages for the checkout portion of placing the ad.

For instance, I have category, "Real Estate" with a subcategory, "For Sale" in it. I have several extra fields included in this subcategory including, "Listing Price". I would like to be able to make a template that would make more sense to the seller when placing the ad. Things like not including the default "Price" field which is not used and putting the "Listing Price" instead. In addition, placing the extra fields in a table that makes sense like as the are listed when the ad is viewed. (Like grouping all of the extra fields together that relate to the physical property, then grouping the extra fields together that relate to location and legals, etc.)

A much more simple example is a "Personals" ad which obviously doesn't require a price. (If it does require a price, it would most likely be deleted as a violation of our TOS ) So, I would like to be able to somehow send the user to a different checkout template based on which category the end user selects in the first step of the checkout process. Something like this:

PHP Code:

        if($lDisplay==1)
            switch($section)
            {
                case 16: //Personals
                case 26: //Wanted
                       case 27: //Announcements
                    $class_tpl->assign('body','nopricecheckout.tpl.php');
                break;
                case 32: //Vehicles-Cars
                    $class_tpl->assign('body','vehiclecheckout.tpl.php');
                break;
                case 73: //Real Estate-For Rent
                    $class_tpl->assign('body','realrentcheckout.tpl.php');
                break;
                case 74: //Real Estate-For Sale
                    $class_tpl->assign('body','realsale.tpl.php');
                break;
                   }
              else
             {
            $class_tpl->assign('body','step3.tpl.php'); 


Anyone done something like this? Anyone know if this is even possible?

Thanks,
Mike

[midi510]

I've been thinking about that a lot lately, too. Do I go through all the work to learn how and then set up custom checkout tpls and corresponding show/viewlistings or wait to see what V4 has to offer. What I would like to see is something like the listing packages section in admin. You define the fields and select which categories use each one.
If V4 isn't going to have anything like that, I'll be doing a lot of work in this area and post any positive results I have

[midi510]

Ya know, step 2 in checkout is picking a package. In admin you get to pick which categories use which packages. I don't know PHP yet, but if you can call different step 3s (bulletinboard_st3.tpl.php, joblisting_st3.tpl.php, etc.) by the package you select, you can get your custom checkout. If your showlisting(2).tpl.php is kept real basic you wouldn't need to customize. Setting up custom viewlisting pages should be easy enough, but I don't know how you would call them out.

In my last post I realize you can assign categories in extra fields, but it would be really nice to be able to do it in the defaults. To be able to Pick categories for display and required. And to have the option of currency for extra fields. I think this would eliminate the need for all this custom coding.

I highly recommend the Price Descriptor mod by http://www.mods.auscity.com. Chaslie also showed me how to replace a default $0.00 price with whatever I wanted. N/A now shows up if nothing or a non integer is entered in the price field in checkout.

PHP Code:

{$listingprice|replace:'$0.00':'N/A'} 


[Mike-N-Tosh]

Originally Posted by midi510

If your showlisting(2).tpl.php is kept real basic you wouldn't need to customize. Setting up custom viewlisting pages should be easy enough, but I don't know how you would call them out.

I haven't done any custom showlisting.tpl.php templates yet, but I realize that since the default price field isn't needed in some categories I am now going to be looking at that.

I already use custom viewlisting.tpl.php pages and that works great. The code posted in my first post in this thread is actually from my "viewlisting.php" file which is what is making the call to use the custom view templates that I created.

My post is whether I can use this same logic in the checkout as well.

-Mike