Forum Moderators: buckworks
If the latter, MM isn't 100% customizable (at least, not out of the box), so if you need to match a look-and-feel of an existing site, it can be rough going. There are 3rd party modules that help in this regard (OpenUI, for example).
Is it me or do most support people at web hosting companies not have a CLUE about this?
Quite true. Even hosts that are really competent about most server issues seldom have the expertise to tackle many MM issues that can arise.
We were on a well-known major US host for our first year, but found that when something wacky happened, they couldn't help. We then went with a much, much smaller company that specializes in Miva Merchant hosting (one of about a half-dozen excellent ones), and it has been magic for the past three years.
All this to say: if you are really going to rely heavily on your store, you might consider moving to one of these MM specialists sooner, rather than later.
1) Is this true?
2) Where do I get such buttons?
Once you have the button, place it near your product, insert the hyperlink which you will find when you go to that product in Miva admin. (I use the "add to basket" links.) Voila. It will add the item to your shopping cart.
You can use the default buttons there - or replace them with images with your own. Hope this helps.
LisaB
I think he's using it to integrate the Miva shopping cart with an existing website. Can you still do that using their images. I didn't think you could.
LisaB
<a href="http://mysite.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc"><img src="images/addtocart.gif"></a><br>
(it's all on one line by the way)
However, when the person clicks on the Add To Cart button it just takes them to the merchant page (which is just my Miva admin page and not a cart showing the user's items to be purchased.
Anyone have any ideas on this?
[mysite.com...]
Every product in a Miva Merchant database has its own individual url as in the above example. You'll have to find yours in the Miva Administator.
First, and most obvious, your product will need to be entered into the Miva database. If you haven't done this already, go to your Miva Admin and (in the left pane) click the little arrow to the left of Stores=>Your Store (whatever name you gave it)=>Products=>Add Product (here, click on the actual text). Fill in all the pertinent info (price, product code, etc.) for your product and click Update.
Now that the product is in the database, in the left pane click Products (the actual text, not the arrow). Your product (since you have only one) should be listed on that page. (If not, serach for it by product code.) To the right of the product name will be two buttons. If you mouseover them, the first will say Edit Here and the second will say Edit. You want to click the second one, the one that says Edit. This will take you to an Edit Product page. In the top right corner of this page are two more buttons. Do a mouseover and click the one that says Links. This will open a new browser window (called Product Links). The first link listed is Product Display: and this is the one you probably want to use in place of the one you've been using. Notice it has a store code and a prouct code in the url.
The reason I say the Product Display link is probably the link you'll want to use is because it leads to a page that allows the customer to browse your product and read up on any additional information you may have provided (when you entered it in the Miva database) and then decide if they would like to actually add your product to their shopping cart and/or purchase your product. The other two link options (Add One To Basket: and Buy One Now:) will place the product directly into the customers shopping cart without displaying your products page.
Hope this helps.
P.S. The above will only work assuming that you've already created a store in the Miva Admin. If you haven't done that go to Stores=>Add Store
P.S.S. There are other ways to do the above procedure, this was just the easiest to describe.
Another issue I'm running into is that, although I have a Product Display link that works it has two links at the left hand side that say 'Sign In' and another category description I designated. I'm not sure that they will appear in the real working link but if it will how can I get rid of them (especially the Sign In link!)?
Thanks again for your help!
Regarding the links on the left side...if I'm understanding you correctly, what you are refering to is called the "Category Tree". A normal Miva site in standard out-of-the-box mode would display all the categories you've defined for your store (and apparently the Sign In link) in the Category Tree. There are several ways to turn the Category Tree off.
I use the OpenUI Look & Feel module which provides and easy way to turn off the Category Tree. Click Stores=>Your Store (the actual text) and in the right pane you should see the Edit Store: screen. Click the Page Sections link and uncheck Show Category Tree. If you do not have the OpenUI module installed you may not be able to do this (I can't remember if Miva out-of-the-box allows this option) and will have to use one of the solutions below.
I'm pretty sure there are other modules out there that give you the option of turning off the Category Tree and you could use one of those OR you can try this trick...
Go to the Edit Store: screen as described above and click the Head/Foot: Global link. In the Category Tree Header: field insert the following...
<!--
...and in the Category Tree Footer: field insert...
-->
If you're familiar with HTML you'll know that what you have just done is turned the Category Tree into an HTML comment. And browsers don't display HTML comments.
That should do it.
There should be a category specifically for Miva or shopping carts because it seems like this is such an expansive topic.
Thanks again!
