X3Photo Gallery Forums

andreamarucci wrote:What about building something that can connect photo gallery with woocommerce or something like that to all the taxes, orders, payments and the like will be managed by Woocommerce?

I had to read this a few times, because I am wondering how I would do that. At the very best imaginable scenario, you would be asking X3 to connect to some Woocommerce API, for each "page" (which is not even a concept in Woocommerce). This of course would require all users to install Woocommerce. Let's say we get that far, and then Woocommerce API outputs 10 paper type options, color options, frame options, different options per item, different prices per item, print sizes, tax options, different payment options ... How do I even start imagining an interface in X3 for this API output? ... Then X3 has to deal with all this data, send it back and forth to Woocommerce, then I need to collect payments and what happens after successful payment? ... Actually I could go on and on and on ... The bottom line, this is unrealistic, and I can't see that there exists any website using Woocommerce that is not built with Woocommerce.

Wish I could be more optimistic in my responses, but it seems many have unrealistic expectations for cart functionality. There is a reason complete cart solutions like Shopify and Woocommerce are created specifically for e-commerce and e-commerce only, by huge organizations.

metallissimus wrote: Can you give an ETA? I have a project coming up where the cart would be immensely useful.

Cart is 90% done, and I need to complete a few other update tasks. I would say 2 or max 3 weeks.

I'm wondering something ... Is there anyone who actually plans to use the cart globally (eg. for multiple/all galleries)? Also, will it be public? My impression from most users here, is that this will be used to "proof" images for selected clients, probably non-public links. In such case, I'm struggling to see why this solution should go into X3 in the first place, since it would be easier for clients to select from an interface that was dedicated for proofing, focusing on a single gallery. The cart is more than 90% complete now, so it won't change anything, but this is something that has bugged me since the beginning.

One of the main issues here, is that it's incredibly difficult to combine a cart that is BOTH cart_unique (unique cart for specific page) AND cart_global (global cart from selected items across all pages) ... I'm pretty sure a combination of the two does not exist anywhere else. A traditional "cart" for a public website would be "global", but proofing for clients would normally be isolated to a single page ... Two different things. Now I'm left trying to figure out how to manage cart items when navigating between pages that are cart_unique and cart_global, and of course when navigating to pages where there is no gallery (cart_global should be available on all pages, also pages without galleries, while cart_unique items should only be visible on the specific page where they are from). I am struggling to see that anyone would want to use both cart_unique and cart_global on the same website ...

Warning! Below is me arguing just for the sake of it, because the cart is near-finished anyway!

metallissimus wrote:One less platform to deal with. I really love the prospect of having everything in one place.

Agree on that, but from the perspective of functionality, usability and all parties involved (client, owner/you, developer/me), it would be better to have *proofing* as a separate interface, unrelated to the X3 frontend. In this case, it could still have been a part of X3 (managed by the panel, configured through settings, same emailer), but with it's own unique frontend, dedicated to proofing for clients.

Let me take an example by mentioning a Wordpress plugin, dedicated to proofing ONLY, priced at $150/year for this single feature. I hate bringing up other products, but in this case, it's a good example. Below is the interface:

As you can see, it's clean and easy to use for the client, with emphasis on selection, without distractions. Apart from that, a pretty simple interface. As for integrating this into X3, it is obviously much more work, because I need to make it look nice alongside all skins, fonts and layouts, and it has to work nicely with all gallery-layouts (columns, grids, rows, carousel), and of course I (+clients) have to deal with all distractions like logo's, main menu, footer and custom content. Also, in the screenshot, the gallery-layout is optimized for selection, while in X3 we simply need to use with whatever gallery-layout the owner chooses, and none of them were specifically created for "selection". No matter what I do, the cart interface in X3 will never be as effective as the one in the screenshot, and an X3-integrated solution has no benefit for the client (most importantly), the owner (you) or the developer (me), compared to a standalone solution.

This left me a little confused to what I was actually making, especially when I am at the final stage trying to deal with global vs page-only carts, as this is a bit of a logical paradox. ANYWAY not to worry :heart_eyes: We are almost there, and I am quite pleased with the result.

Also, this gave me some ideas ... 1. I may consider making a separate, dedicated proofing interface for the X3 cart plugin, and 2. I may consider creating a standalone proofing application, independent from X3. In both cases, in terms of functionality, it would be more similar to the screenshot.

If anyone has the time and willpower :grimacing: can you please correctly translate the values below to German for me? I am creating a CART DEMO, and a sample page will show the interface translated into German (via CSS variables) for the sake of demonstration. I used Google translate for direction translation, but looking to get optimally short interface translations. Thanks  :punch:

Thanx! :punch: :star:

metallissimus wrote: I am not sure about

Code Select all

 --x3-cart-text-custom: 'Individuell'; 

what's the context for this?

No worries, this is just an optional "custom" button that can be used to trigger your own Javascript function from the cart (instead of "order"). I don't know if anyone will ever use it, but I added it because it could be useful. Ultimately, the text added here would be whatever you want the button to do. For example, you could open a browser window to an external application and forward all data from the cart.

Depending on your usage of the cart, you might only use half of the texts ...

metallissimus wrote:Generally there might be some tweaks possible depending on context, I'm happy to have a look at the demo and work on that.

I won't actually be including official cart-translations into X3, but I'm sure other German users will find the translation in this post useful. Basically you will need to add the above into your Settings > Custom > Custom CSS, unless you want to use the default English texts.

New X3 with cart plugin is out  :punch: See cart demo and documentation:
cart.photo.gallery

X3.31.0 release post:
www.photo.gallery/blog/x3-31-cart-files-breadcrumbs/

The X3 website above is dedicated to the new cart plugin, as it's the best way to show how it works alongside examples and documentation. It will be a few days until I make the official X3.31.0 release post, but feel free to upgrade and get started already.