Products Information
Question: How can I erase an empty product list?
Answer:
You can delete such products buy sending the url manually in the admin
program after logging in. It would
be the url to your admin.mv then the + or
? symbol depending on your type of url and then follow it with the command
string like:
Screen=PROD&action=DPRD&Store_Code=thestorecode&Product_ Code=
That will delete null valued product code items.
Answered by Jeff Huber @ MIVA Corporation
Question: How can I add a PopUp window in my product description to provide additional information?
Answer: In mmui.mv find all instances of <HEAD>
Then insert the script:
<script language="JavaScript">
<!-- hide from JavaScript-challenged browsers
function openWindow(url, name) {
popupWin = window.open(url, name, 'location,scrollbars,resizable,width=600,height=500')
}
// done hiding -->
</script>
Save it.
Now in the product description all you need to do is paste:
<form><input type=button value="CLICK HERE" onClick="openWindow('http://yoururl', 'remote');"></form>
or
<a href="javascript:openWindow('http://yoururl', 'remote');"> link</A>
Of course you can doctor it up.
Answered by Dave Ashmore @ http://www.sportsmansgear.com
Question: How can I add a hyperlink to my Thumbnails?
Answer: If you go to the link to my store you'll see an example of what you are
looking for, so it can be done - rather easily. If you know how to edit
the mmui.mv (make backup), you do a search for the word thumbnail. That
is the code where the thumbnail displays. Just wrap it with the same
href link that is wrapped around the products name which is within a few
lines of the thumbnail reference.
Answered by William Weiland @ http://wcw.simplenet.com
Question: Is there a way to get the category listing to sort alphabeticly using the standard Merchant UI module?
Answer:
Not without code modification and/or the addition of a sorting module
You might want to take a look at William Weiland's CIM Light Tool Kit at
http://wcw.simplenet.com/merchant/merchant.mv
This will allow your customer to sort products in the manner he chooses,
by Name, Product ID, or Price. It also gives you the option of placing
the thumbnail view in three columns.
Answered by Luray
Question: How can I add the same product to numerous categories when updating with a flatfile import?
Answer: The only way I could make it work was to duplicate the product and assign a different product code. i.e. ajc0001 and ajc1001
You can assign the same product number manually on line but not importing.
Answered by Luray
Question: Why aren't categories being assigned when I import products?
Answer: The category has to exist before you import your products.
The import function will not create categories.
Answered by Luray
Question: How can you mass delete products from your store?
Answer: Save these files to directory somewhere before you enter any products or categories:
emptydatafiles.zip - Use at your own risk. Version 1.X Only
attr.dbf
attr.dbt
catxprod.dbf
products.dbf
products.dbt
You can then replace (DO NOT DELETE THEM)
your Merchant files at any times with empty category and product files and import again without all the old products in the way.
Make sure you create your categories before importing the flatfile.
Answered by William Weiland
Question: Every time I upload a product to the Miva directory, it throws the products on-line uncategorized. How do I categorize my products in the Miva Merchant software?
Answer: If you are uploading from a flat file include the category name in an additional field. You will need a separate field in your data for the category code. If you are entering your products via admin.mv, you need to either add products underneath that category or you can "Add existing product(s)" to that category.
Answered by Miva Corporation
Question: I'm looking for how to offer customers a choice of sizes and colors for a product (the price would remain the same). How do I add these choices?
Answer: If you click on the arrow next to the product in your admin.mv menu you will get a sub-menu with an 'Attribute' selection. You can have as many attributes, such as color or size, as you want. For individual colors, like red and blue, you would set them up as options for that attribute.
Answered by Miva Corporation
Question: How can I list products alphabetically?
Answer: You can either maintain your catalog off line with Excel or Approach or some similar database program and alphabetize them before exporting for import as a flatfile to your server or
You can use William Weiland's Page Sort module that will sort on-the-fly by name, price, or ID number. See http://wcw.simplenet.com/cim/cimlight.htm for more information.
Answered by: Luray
Question: The only product attribute is WEIGHT. How can I change it to SIZE and COLOR instead? There's no WEIGHT to my product?
Answer: You can change attributes and options for each product by
clicking the arrow beside the product and selecting attribute.
You would have to rewrite the Merchant program to change
weight to size and color attributes.
Answered by Luray
Question: Is there a fast and easy way to remove
one or two products from the store, without replacing the entire database?
Answer: Just go to admin.mv - Store - yourstore - Products
Select the product you want to delete. When it appears
in the body of your screen go to the bottom and click on
delete.
Answered by Luray
Question: I have a huge catalog for my customer which needs to be put into the shopping cart. Almost every product has at least one or two attributes with price differences. Can I automate this process by adding fields to a flat file database and import it all at once?
Answer:
Yes, our Flat-File Attribute Import will allow you to put all those attributes for all your products into one file and upload them all at once. Here's the link to see the information on the product in our store.
http://store.starbase21.com/prod.mv?pc=MIVA-ATTRIMPT
Answered by Janet Ehlers @ Customer Service STARBASE-21
Question: How do I create a flat file to import my product files. What information needs to be included?
Answer:
A flat file can be created in any program like Excel or Notepad. It MUST be saved as a .txt file and be delimited by something like a tab or comma.
Further information about flat files can be found in the Miva Merchant
Documentation, located online at
www.miva.com/docs.
Answered by: Emily Rose Nichols @ Miva Corporation
Question: I just finished creating a spreadsheet in Excel and proceeded to import it into my store. It added all of my new product, as it should, but also added about 60 non-existing product. Under "All Products" in my store, I have 60 arrows with nothing written out beside them. I can click on the arrow and it pulls up the "Add Attribute", but nowhere does it show a product screen or delete button or anything. Does anyone know how to fix this?
Answer: You have probably exported them from excel with extraneous " quote marks or something. Look at your flatfile in a text editor and you should be able to see what is wrong.
Answered by Luray
Question: I am trying to offer different sizes of my products, and when you visit the page with the product you want, you can choose your size no problem, but but neither the basket nor checkout shows what size was chosen. What do I have to do to make the size choice show up on these pages?
Answer:
It sounds like you don't have a descriptive option code for your size options. There are two inputs for an option/attribute, a Code and a Prompt. The prompt is what is seen when a product is selected, the Code is seen in the order info, which includes basket contents, checkout screens, and your order confirmations.
Answered by Mike Crawford @ www.nothinbutprints.com
Question: I run an Antique store, once item is sold we want
it to disappear from
> thte database entirely. That way we do not have to manually remove the item.
Answer: As promised, I've added that capability to Inventory Management (IM) in the CIM Tool Kit 3 for Merchant version 2.x.
Answered by William Weiland @ http://wcw.simplenet.com/tk3/custprod.htm
Question: Why is Miva cutting off my product descriptions at > 10 characters.
Answer: One possible cause is that somewhere along the line you edited the
products.dbf file in Excel or some other program that can't handle memo fields. Then when it was saved it
converted the description field (which is normally a memo field) into a character field.
Answered by Michael @ Technical Support & Programming Services
STARBASE-21
Question: Is there a way to easily change all products "taxable" status to "on" (box > checked?) Many of my
products have taxable set to "off" but it is slow to search each one out...
Answer: Import your products from a flatfile and choose update products. Otherwise I believe it is one at a time.
Answered by Luray
Question: How can I MASS DELETE products?
Answer: Insert this code into the DrawButtons function of the admin.mv
module, right after the beginning of the table row. You too can delete 100 products at once!
(Disclaimer: back up admin.mv first!)
<MvIF EXPR = "{ g.Screen EQ 'PBED' }">
<SCRIPT language="JavaScript">
<!--
function CheckAll(thisform)
{
for (var i=0;i<thisform.elements.length;i++)
{
var e = thisform.elements[i];
if (e.name != 'allbox' && (e.name.indexOf("Product_Show") == -1))
e.checked = thisform.allbox.checked;
}
SetModified();
}
file://-->
</SCRIPT>
<TD BGCOLOR = "#f0f0f0" ALIGN = "left" VALIGN = "middle">
<FONT FACE = "Arial, Helvetica" SIZE = "-1">
<INPUT type="checkbox" name="allbox"
value="Check All" OnClick="CheckAll(this.form);">
Select all
</FONT>
</TD>
</MvIF>
Answered by Adam Schneider @ worldcycling.com
Question: Why do I get Runtime Errors in Product Search?
Answer:
It appears from your response that you have edited off line. So here is the problem. I'm not going to discuss attributes, because that is another issue, just as problematic. There are three databases which hold your inventory together. 1) cats.dbf - contains a list of your categories with an ID # for each one 2) products.dbf and products.dbt (the dbt is your memo data and must reside with the dbf) - contains your products with an ID # for each one 3) catxprod.dbf - for each product there is at least one record in this database. It contains the ID # of the product and the ID # of the category that product is in. Do not confuse the ID # with product code or category code. Those are different beasts.
>
> When you select the various menu options and search in Merchant, it uses the intermediate catxprod.dbf to hold things together. If you've deleted a product from products but did NOT delete the
corresponding record in catxprod.dbf, when Merchant skips through the file, it will not find the "related" product in the products.dbf. Hence you are getting a runtime error with MvSKIP. But the good news is:
all you have to do is make sure there isn't a record in catxprod.dbf when there isn't a corresponding record in products.dbf for that particular item. The fix is different depending on the magnitude of the problem and
exactly what you did.
1) Did you delete any products? How many and do you know which ones?
2) Did you change a product ID # (not the product code)?
3) Do you have dbaseIII plus or Clipper?
Answered by William Weiland @
http://wcw.simplenet.com/merchant/merchant.mv