Emporium Plus: FLEXIBLE PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

FLEXIBLE PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

Code: 1AA00084
Price: 15.00

Add additional field data within the product narrative description. This data will appear on the screen as if it is in a separate field, but is really just part of the narrative memo field. This Merchant version 2.22, 3.x or 4.x module handles the parsing so that the customer only sees the data in the appropriate places. Currently this module is only available for the OpenUI interface and requires no module editing. However, a competant mivascript developer could easily modify their mmui.mv to incorporate this module's code in a non-OpenUI store. As an example, this code has been incorporated into the mmui.mv in this Merchant 2.22 store.

No modification to the products database structure is required. No additional databases are required to support this additional data. The additional data is added into product records just as any other product data, through admin or via flat file import. This provides easier code maintainability and faster data access. Since the data is stored within the product narrative description field, that data is immediately available to the standard Merchant search function with no code modification. This is the simplest way to display additional data in the product and category screens as if it is in separate fields instead of just narrative data. By doing this, the data stands out as name - value pairs, eg Author: Hemmingway.

An added benefit is that you can have within your store products with different types of additional field data. Some products might need additional fields such as author, publisher, and date while other products might need fields such as composer, vocalist, and country of origin. This software product is an example of such a situation. Most of the products in my store are movie posters and contain additional fields related to them. That field data is stored in separate fields and maintained via prodmore (module for importing additional field data into separate fields). While this product record contains those same additional fields (naturally they are empty), I have added four fields via Flexible Product Description, which only appear in this product record. You can see them as Merchant Version, User Interface, CIM Tool Kit, Combo and New Image in the CTGY and PROD screens. In a Merchant 3.0 store, they can also appear in expanded product display screens for SRCH and PLST. I've also added the New Image field to some of the new product records to demonstrate the flexibility this feature provides. You can see the search box on the store front which lists new products by month.