The Cart Blog

VAT style tax recalculation is a method preferred by many VAT liable shops, so I added it to Big Spender and Big Chooser for Zen Cart.

Also, if you’re using Big Spender or Big Chooser, you really ought to look at Discount Preview.

• Batch Print and Batch Status update will permit either starting or ending order number (in addition to handling both).
• Batch Print and Batch Status update screens narrowed so they fit into a the admin window instead of requiring a scroll right.

You can get the latest Super Orders from the Zen Cart Free Software Add Ons area.

If you have a newer version of MySQL, you may notice an error when you run SQL scripts (using Admin->Tools->Install SQL Patches) during mod installs on your Zen Cart.  The error will look something like this:

1064 You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'TYPE=MyISAM' at line 1
in:
[CREATE TABLE foo1 ( coupon_id int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment, orders_id int(11) NOT NULL, copy_from_coupon_code varchar(32) NOT NULL default '', new_coupon_name varchar(32) NOT NULL default '', customers_id int(11) NOT NULL default '0', PRIMARY KEY (coupon_id), KEY idx_coupon_code (copy_from_coupon_code), KEY idx_coupon_name(new_coupon_name), KEY idx_customers_id (customers_id) ) TYPE=MyISAM;]
If you were entering information, press the BACK button in your browser and re-check the information you had entered to be sure you left no blank fields.

Solving this issue is straightforward: in the .sql file you are running, just change

TYPE=MyISAM

to

ENGINE=MyISAM

Of my Zen Cart mods, the following mods have a table create with TYPE=MyISAM, which could cause this issue:

• Better Together Admin
• Combination Discounts Admin
• Favorites
• Giftwrap at Checkout
• Local Message
• Save for Later

v3.0.1 (updated by That Software Guy)

Zen Cart Big Chooser has been enhanced to allow you to discount on the basis of attribute settings.  You may check attribute settings on the condition required to get the discount, or on the discounted item(s).   Search the help file for “attribute” to learn more.

All of my mods are Zen Cart 1.5.0 ready.  Some of them require no changes, but the ones that require a refresh are listed below.  Note that Contributions are free software, available on the Zen Cart forum; extensions are paid software, whose prices are listed on each extension’s page.  Prior purchasers may update extensions for $10 each.

• That Software Guy’s Zen Cart Contributions that support Zen Cart 1.5.0
• That Software Guy’s Zen Cart Extensions that support Zen Cart 1.5.0

I am now taking requests to upgrade 1.3.9 Zen Cart installations to Zen Cart 1.5.0.  Please contact me for details.  Thank you!

If you haven’t yet upgraded from Zen Cart 1.3.7 or 1.3.8 to Zen Cart 1.3.9h, the list of reasons gets longer every day.  More fixes, more security, better performance – don’t miss this opportunity to improve your shop.  Let me know if you need help!

If you have not upgraded yet, please be sure you have the most critical Zen Cart fixes for pre-139 Releases.

The New York Times list of Best Small Business Reads for 2011 praises Jason Fried’s article How to Get Good at Making Money  in Inc. as the best article this year about making money. Here’s the key line for software developers:

“People are happy to pay for things that work well. Never be afraid to put a price on something. If you pour your heart into something and make it great, sell it. For real money. Even if there are free options, even if the market is flooded with free. People will pay for things they love.”

Some shops, such as those selling cloth or weighed goods, find it advantageous to set Admin->Configuration->Stock->Product Quantity Decimals to 2 instead of 0, and set the per product minimums to a fractional value. But my discount modules assume any quantity in the cart is at least 1 (i.e. it suffices to meet the condition in a linkage). To overcome this, simply round the quantity of each item in the cart to an integer value, and skip over the items which round to 0.  Detailed instructions for  Better Together, Combination Discounts and Big Chooser are provided in this article on Zen Cart Advanced Discount Configuration.  (See example 5.)

A client had several dozen products, spread across multiple categories, that he wanted to discount.  “Do I really have to create dozens of add_condition/set_constraint/set_discount statements to set up Big Chooser?”

The answer is no!  You can use the power of PHP to programmatically configure your discounts.  See the fourth example in my Advanced Discount Configuration guide.