(For use with the OpenUI only)
Copyright © 2000, William Weiland
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 or 3.x module handles the parsing so that the customer only sees the data in the appropriate places.
1) In admin, click Add Modules
2) Click the file upload button
3) Browse to find the flexdesc.mv(c) file on your hard drive and upload
4) Click Add to add it to the domain
5) Click the image to the left of your store name
6) Click on the Utilities link
7) Check the box to the left of Flexible Description Field and select Update
At the end of the narrative description field you can add pseudo-field data. For example if you wanted to add an author and publishing date to a product, you would add the following to the end of the narrative description:
^Author:~Hemmingway, Ernest
^Published:~1946
The ~ character in the middle will cause the bold tag to be used with the appropriate screens. If you omit the ~, none of the line will be in bold. I recommend using the ~ in your records. Also, you might find it beneficial to use field names which are single word. For example, published would be preferable to publishing date. While the intent of this module is not to run searches, single word field names would make a search on Author:~Hemmingway using the standard Merchant search function land on only records which contained this exact concantonated word. While you would not use the text input as it is, a select box with a list of authors and the option value containing the appropriate string could easily be used to identify the correct records containing this particular string.
In compiled Merchant, there are two special uses of this module. If you begin a pseudo-field with ^keyword (followed by keywords), the field will not show on the product or category screen. However, when used in conjunction with the Static Catalog Generator, the metatag keyword will be added to both the static html pages and the dynamic product pages created in Miva Merchant. The other special use is for the pseudo-field ^brief. After the ^brief you can add in a sentence or two which describes the product briefly. Like the keyword metatag, it will be used on the static html pages and the dynamic pages within Merchant. If you are using the Viking Coders template module, it can also be added to the product entries on the category listing page.