Saturday 31 March 2007

Creating an ECommerce site using iView Media Pro and the PayPal Shopping cart

First visit Dave Beckermans guide to using iView and PayPal as it covers an awful lot of the basics you will need, The main difference between his method and mine is that he has individual sizes and prices for each picture where as my method is designed for a gallery where all the prints are the same sizes & prices.

Take a look at the Galleries on this site, to get an idea of how the web pages generated by this method. While you are there why not buy a picture or two.....you know you want to.

How to do it

  • Download the Paypal.zip file.
  • Unzip the contents into the iView HTML template directory which is under the Plug-ins directory of iView media pro.


Set your products and paypal items

Open the Media.html file (its in the paypal directory you just created) in notepad or an HTML Editor. Find the section that looks like this:
<!-- iView HTML Engine Directives
(iView:InMediaWidth 500)
(iView:InMediaHeight 500)
(iView:Variable name = "Gallery Title" default = "")
(iView:Variable name = "PayPalAccount" default = "paypal@paypal.com")
(iView:Variable name = "ReturnScreen" default = "http://www.yoursite.com/Success.html")
(iView:Variable name = "CancelScreen" default = "http://www.yoursite.com/Galleries.html")
(iView:Variable name = "CurrencySymbol" default = "£")
(iView:Variable name = "CurrencyCode" default = "GBP")
(iView:Variable name = "Item1Description" default = "18 x 12 inch Mounted print")
(iView:Variable name = "Item1CodeNo" default = "")
(iView:Variable name = "Item1Price" default = "75")
(iView:Variable name = "Item2Description" default = "18 x 12 inch Framed & Mounted print")
(iView:Variable name = "Item2CodeNo" default = "")
(iView:Variable name = "Item2Price" default = "125")
(iView:Variable name = "Item3Description" default = "24 x 18 Mounted print")
(iView:Variable name = "Item3CodeNo" default = "")
(iView:Variable name = "Item3Price" default = "250")
(iView:Variable name = "Item4Description" default = "24 x 18 inch Framed & Mounted print")
(iView:Variable name = "Item4CodeNo" default = "")
(iView:Variable name = "Item4Price" default = "300")
-->


You need to change the value in quotes for default for each line that begins with (iView:Variable name

The Settings:

Setting Current Value Description
Gallery Title
Title of your Gallery - best left blank
PayPalAccount paypal@paypal.com Your paypal account ID
ReturnScreen http://www.yoursite.com/Success.html URL to return to after a succesful purchase
CancelScreen http://www.yoursite.com/Galleries URL to return to after the user has pressed cancel
CurrencySymbol &pound; Currency symbol in HTML (£ = &pound;, $ = $ € = &euro;)
CurrencyCode GBP Currency code (GBP = pounds, USD = dollars, etc )
Item1Description 18 x 12 inch Mounted print Description of first item type you sell
Item1CodeNo
A code number for this item if you have one
Item1Price 75 Price for item 1
Item2Description 18 x 12 inch Framed &amp; Mounted print Description of second item type you sell
Item2CodeNo
A code number for this item if you have one
Item2Price 125 Price for item 2
Item3Description 24 x 18 Mounted print Description of third item type you sell
Item3CodeNo
A code number for this item if you have one
Item3Price 250 Price for item 3
Item4Description 24 x 18 inch Framed &amp; Mounted print Description of fourth item type you sell
Item4CodeNo
A code number for this item if you have one
Item4Price 300 Price for item 4


Having made all the changes, save the file.

Creating the Galleries

Now go to iView and select the items that you wish to appear in your gallery.
Select Make>HTML Gallery...
On the Theme tag check the settings.


Click the Theme Fields Tab and change any fields that you need to.


Click Make... and chose a directory to load the gallery into.

That's about it, if you have any questions please add them as comments at the bottom of this article and I will see if I can help.




Related Posts

An Alternative template for Paypal and iView Media Pro

8 comments:

David's Photo Blog said...

I'd like to say hopw grateful I am that someone has taken the trouble (and expertise!) to put this plugin together for iView. It is just what I was looking for to put shots for a Arts Centre dramatic groups productions on line so that they can be easily viewed and ordered - Chekov's Uncle Vanya being the most recent on http://sac.davidhansfordphoto.co.uk - I've already starting to personaise the coding but this has given me a fine basis on which to work. Thanks again!

Chris Shepherd said...

Thanks David,

glad to be of service :)

Chris

Anonymous said...

Great Template. Is it possible when generating the gallery for the file name or caption to be added to the purchase page so it can be added to the paypal shopping basket

Chris Shepherd said...

Hi - I don't know off hand. I will have a look and see if I can find out.

Chris Shepherd said...

Sorry - I understand the question now. The caption should be added automatically and show up in your Paypal cart automatically. Try it on my galleries for a demo.

HTH
Chris

Anonymous said...

The multi gallery web page design you created with iView was very impressive especially as the shopping cart seemed to work across the galleries. Can this multi gallery layout (incorporating the shopping cart) be created using Lightroom instead?

Chris Shepherd said...

Yes indeed it can zd. take a look at my version for Lightroom. Though I would strongly recommend taking a look at www.lightroomgalleries.com as they are the real experts in Lightroom web galleries.

Chris

Anonymous said...

Hi

it is a very nice and good post and I like it.