In this weekly installment, we'll discuss the AJAX explosion and its potential uses within an osCommerce installation. AJAX, which stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is nothing new in the programming world, but the term is. The technologies used in AJAX have been around for many years, but only in the past few have they been meshed together to create a much more user-friendly interface for dynamic web platforms, such as osCommerce. By integrating AJAX technology, osCommerce store owners can simplify tasks within the administration panel, as well as providing impressive features for their visitors.
There are many contributions available for admin tasks not possible with a clean osCommerce store installation, such as order editing. There a few add ons that allow the editing of processed customer orders, but all are clunky and can be difficult to integrate if you have heavy modifications already. However, with the growing popularity of AJAX, this task can be implemented directly into the standard orders.php file. Recently developed contributions have made this possible for store owners. All fields in the order, including addresses, products, order totals, etc., can be edited on-the-fly. And of course, since we're utilizing AJAX, these fields are updated one by one, eliminating the need for a "Submit" button. This also improves compatibility with other osCommerce customizations and additions like the CCGV (discount coupons and gift vouchers) module and quantity discounts or price breaks.
The other benefactor in the AJAX revolution is the customer. Store owners can now implement impressive, flashy features for their customers. The "Search Suggest" contribution integrates a technology similar to Google Suggest. If your store provides a search capability for visitors, this bit of scripting can query your product database with each keystroke looking for matches. The matches are dynamically updated with each subsequent keystroke and are displayed in a box below the input field. If the searcher sees what they're looking for here, the suggestions are direct links to that specific product. This can eliminate a lot of frustration for the customer, who would normally use osCommerce's lack-luster search capability.
Of course, there are many more contributions available for your osCommerce store using AJAX, and the possibilities are limitless for its use. Practically every part of an osCommerce store can be enhanced using AJAX to make things easier for you, the administrator, as well as create eye catching and user-friendly modules for the customer. Next week, we'll discuss what the future holds for osCommerce and what the latest alpha release, "Lebkuchen", means for current users of the shopping cart. Until then, happy coding!
Best regards,
David |
