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|
| External Product Purchase
|
| External.mv Copyright 2000 William Weiland.  
| All rights reserved.  
|
| Purpose:
| The purpose of external.mv is to allow a customer to purchase items which 
| are not in your Merchant database.  This is particularly suited for 
| auction winnings, printed catalog items, and classified ad items.  It 
| could also be used for sale of services or negotiated price items.
|
| Initial setup:
| 1) This external module is to be FTPd to the script directory on your 
| server.  It goes into the Merchant modules/util/ directory.  Be sure it is 
| spelled in lower case letters.  This IS a plugin module.  It goes in 
| modules/util/external.mv path when installed. Install it to the mall, 
| then to your store.
|
| 2) Locate the following line in merchant.mv 
| <MvFUNCTION NAME = "Action_AddProductToBasket">
| You will insert code within THIS function in two places
|
| <Proprietary code not displayed in this online file>
|
| When installed to the store, it will add a wildcard product to your products
| database.  Search for keyword EXTERNAL to find it and modify characteristics.
| The product code for this wildcard product is EXTERNAL.  You MUST not
| change that.  The default name of the product is Catalog Item.  You can 
| edit the product name, like any other product in your store.  For example,
| you could change it to Auction Item or Classifed Ad, etc.  You can also
| change the code for the first two attributes, NAME and CODE.  But you
| MUST not change the code for PRICE.  You can change the prompt that is
| used in all three attributes.  The price of the item will be zero ($0.00). 
| You should also verify the taxable status for items or services that will 
| be sold through this external product.  You can even add text to the 
| narrative field which would be displayed if they displayed the record in
| individual product view.
|
| Background:
| When the user selects the EXTERNAL item, they enter the item name, code 
| and price.  
|
| Note: The following applies ONLY if you are using CIM Inventory Management.
| If you are using the CIM Inventory Management (IM) module, you will need to 
| establish an "in stock" level with the EXTERNAL product so that it will be
| available for purchase, ie Add and Buy buttons will be visible.  When you 
| install this module to your store, a level of 9 will be established if you 
| have a field called quantity in your products database.  You will need to 
| increase that level if using CIM IM, since it decrements by the quantity
| of the product purchased.  Use Customer and Product Management or the
| prodquan.mv applet to update the quantity or your item will quickly be 
| out-of-stock. 
|
| Usage:
| Most likely you are going to use this External Product Purchase from a link
| on a static web page, an email, in a classified ad, or in your auction ad.
| The href link would have the form of:
| http://wcw.simplenet.com/Merchant/merchant.mv?Action=ADPR&Attributes=Yes&Product_Code=EXTERNAL&Quantity=1&Screen=BASK&Store_Code=wcw
| For your site, change the name of the domain at the beginning and the 
| store code at the end of this link.  Also, you may spell your directory as
| merchant instead of Merchant.  If you are using a cgi-bin URL, you
| will need to reformat the link accordingly.
|
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