password protecting sections of shop

[ginger]

Hi,

I have a requirement for a shopping cart script that will allow me to password-protect different categories in the store so that viewers of one category can't view the products in another category.

I've been told that Miva Merchant would probably work for this, but I have not used it before so I'd like to know if anyone else has ever had a need for this type of functionality, and what product they used.

Also, has anyone ever used TMC Host for web hosting?

Thanks!

[jatar_k]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld ginger,

That's a bit of a tough one, as you can see from the flood of responses. ;)

I have worked with Miva but I've never done what you are thinking of so I am not really sure if it is capable of it.

I am sure the site could be programmed, using a scripting language (PHP, PERL, ASP) to do that but I am not sure if that is an option.

Maybe a little more info of the how and why might help get better answers. I am not sure if there is a cart that does quite that. More info might allow people to offer some work arounds though.

[ginger]

Thanks for your reply jatar_k.

What I have is a photographer who wants to be able to provide a url and login information to people who have attended a certain event for which he took the photos. They would go to this url, log in and be able to view (and purchase) the photos only from that event. They would not be able to view the photos from other events.

I sort of got the impression that maybe I could use "groups" in Miva Merchant for this purpose, but since I haven't used Miva before, I just want to make sure that it will do what I need before I sign up with a specific host for the Miva shopping cart.

Thanks for any insight!

[jatar_k]

If each one was in its own directory you could possibly use htaccess. I guess it would depend on how many there were.

You could also manage this with a custom solution, though it may be difficult to integrate a custom groups/permissions with an existing shopping cart.

Anyone else with some ideas? I am still thinking though. Intersting issue actually.

[ginger]

Yes, if each "store" was in its own directory, but the categories are not since they're just an id pulled from the database. Creating separate stores isn't efficient, nor would it probably adhere to the license terms.

I should have researched all this more thoroughly before providing a proposal, but I didn't think it was going to be such a problem. :-\

I'm studying a demo account for Miva Merchant and it looks like maybe the "Availability Groups" may work, but I'm having trouble with the documentation lacking details so I haven't gotten very far with it.

All suggestions welcome!