Add Ons

It has been a while since the last release of our CSS and Javascript loader for Zencart, the main goals for the module are:

1. Allowing different plugins to minimize javascript conflicts
2. Speeding up the site performance by minifying and combining css/javascript files

Since then, we have found certain features lacking:

1. The ability of loading files that are located outside of the root folder
2. The ability of loading the files right within the template files
3. The ability of loading javascript files as late as possible (to speed up page rendering)

Check it out on GitHub and enjoy!

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While working on our Zencart modules which make use of jquery and its plugins extensively, I often run into this issue: one module which is released long ago is set to use 1.4.2 version while another module which has just been released is set to use 1.4.4 (or even 1.5.0). This results in multiple versions of jquery being loaded on the same page and slows down the site (or even stops certain things from working correctly).

To resolve that problem, I have added a new feature to our loader, this feature will greatly help in reducing the risk of loading the same library more than once. If you are a developer, feel free to grab the latest version from github and give it a try, you will find lots of sample code inside.

https://github.com/yellow1912/cjloader

We will continue working on this feature to refine it.

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This week we have dedicated most of our time on working with GMap (for a special project related to store/voucher locator), YII (the php framework system) and the cross promotion module. We have install the module on the first site (http://www.thegemtree.com/), the installed version takes the products’ names and description, matches each product with the rest to find the top X products that related to a product A, stores them all in database sorted by relatedness’s score. The process also takes into account the “manual” cross sell set up by the store owner.

When a customer views a specific product, the cross sell module will then list the related products using the pre-built set of data. As you may have guessed, building the relatedness set can takes some time if your store has a large set of products, luckily this can be done once and then the set must be updated only when you make significant changes to products’ names/description or adding new product(s).

The next step would be to suggest items based on user’s past purchase process and item-based filtering. We will look into the user’s orders in the past to find a set of other users that may fall into the same group and use their preference to suggest items to this specific user. We will also use the past orders to figure out sets of related items and make suggestion based on this. Our concern right now is to make the suggestion system as useful as possible (for the customers) while balancing other factors such as performance and speed. We will keep you updated with the process, feel free to comment and let us know if you want to try this out on your store. We will be glad to install it for you at no cost.

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We all know that cross promoting products is one of the win-win ways to help store owners to increase the total per sale as well as helping customers to quickly locate the items they need (and avoid the cases when they forget something and later have to place another order and pay the extra shipping fee).
One example is from my personal experience, just a few weeks ago I purchased my Ipod Touch, I was so excited by that and totally forgot about purchasing screen protection and cover for it. All those who use Iphone or Ipod Touch know too well how quickly these items can get dirty and covered in scratches without proper protection. I later had to go out to a near by store to buy them.

Who lost in this case? The online store missed the chance to sell more, and I wasted my time.

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One of the most important feature many web developers need is the ability to load different css file based on the different browser/browser being used. There are more than one modules available on Zencart download that provide this specific feature, but if you already use CJ Loader (and you should), you already has this ability.

CJ Loader at of this version automatically load your browser specific as well as browser+version specific css and jss files.

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User’s Tags Manager
Here you can see that the users can see the tag cloud of his/her current tags, can edit the tags (when the user edits a tag, all the products tagged with this tag by this users will also change tags), and delete tags.

Admin Tags Manager
Within the simple admin, you can search by tag name or product id, you can also check certain info to gain insight into your customers’ mind.

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Adding tags for guests (can be turned off)

Adding tags for users

The main difference is that a logged in user can also check an already added tag as “relevant” to them, this will later allow them to list all the products that were tagged with a certain tag by ANY user or only the ones tagged by them. This will also allow us to easily do some statistical stuffs in the backend, and perhaps use this type of data for customers’ insight research or showing relevant products to them.

Note that you can also require that all new tags added have to be approved first before available to the public, can be useful if you want to make sure your users don’t use offensive language on your website.

More demo videos come later.

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Tagging allows your customers to sort your products using their own preferences (not yours) so that they can later find these products much faster. Checking your customers’ tags also help you to get a deeper insight into your customers’ perspectives and makes changes to boost your sales.

An additional bonus value of tagging is SEO: your products pages will have more keywords, and even better these keywords are more useful for customers.

You can check out our tag module here, currently we are adding administrative features before releasing it:

Some planned features:

1. Allowing 2 types of tags: public and private tags
2. Allowing Guests to add tags (or not)
3. Require authorization before adding tags (optional)
4. Customers can manage tags via their account manager (edit, delete)
5. Admins can manage tags (approve, delete, check statistics)

The modules is written by jQuery and our custom class for Ajax, and will work with or without javscript enabled.

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This new version has some major updates:

1. The browser detection class has been updated to the latest version which will allow you to detect more browsers more accurately.
2. The Loader class code has been rewritten a bit to make it faster as well as adding more options.

If you are using Ajax OnePage Checkout released by us, when you upgrade the checkout module you will also need to upgrade to this new CJ Loader version.

Link to get the new version has been updated on the original Zencart CSS Javascript Loader post

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We have just released a new module for Zencart, Zencart Ajax Search allows you to show your customers the results of their search right when they type the keyword which will help your customers to quickly find what they want on your site.

The module is designed to work on all major browsers, and to allow the default search to work properly with or without javascript enabled on the customers’ browsers.

Another great news is that there is a 10% Discount coupon which can be applied for any purchase from now until March 17.
Coupon code: spring5

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