ecommerce

ecommerce -- Enables ecommerce functionality

Usage

wimpy.php?ecommerce=yes

Parameters

yes
no

Description

This option enables you to use Wimpy in conjunction with a shopping cart system. Any shopping cart system will work, as long as you can derive a "hard" link (URL) to shopping cart items. Here are a few shopping cart systems that you may want to take a look at::

www.1-2-3-musicstore.com
www.dlman.com
www.oscommerce.com

When the ecommerce option is set to "yes" Wimpy will:

1. Display a mini shopping cart icon to the right of each item in the playlist.

2. Apply the URL found in "comments" tags as a hyperlink to both the mini shopping cart icon and the graphic container (if the skin you are using displays the cover art container).

3. Point all hyperlinks to the window defined in the ecomWindow option.

NOTE: Wimpy always activates the cover art container to act as a button if a "comments" tag contains any data. Be sure to review "Using Cover Art."

There are two kinds of "comments" tags: ID3 and XML

ID3
ID3 comments tags are used when running Wimpy off of wimpy.php/asp/cfm (see wimpyApp). ID3 is a tagging format for MP3 files. It allows you to store human readable information in an MP3 file.

Wimpy will read ID3 information for each MP3 file, and use the information it finds in the "comments" area of the ID3 tag as the hyperlink target for the graphic container and the mini shopping cart icon to the right of each item in the playlist.

Therefore, when using the ecommerce option, getMyid3info is automatically set to "yes" and can not be set to "no"

Edit the ID3 information for each mp3 file. Using an ID3 tag editor, enter the "hard" URL to the shopping cart item in the COMMENTS field of the ID3 tag. Click here for more information on editing / creating ID3 tags.

NOTE: The ASP version of Wimpy only reads ID3 version 1 tags. ID3v1 tags only allow a maximum of 30 characters in the "comments" tags, which may not be enough for a long URL. Shopping cart URLs are usually much longer than 30 characters. So if you are using the ASP version of Wimpy, you may want to take a look at running Wimpy off of an XML playlist when trying to implement the ecommerce option. See Using XML Playlists.

XML
When running Wimpy off of an XML playlist, Wimpy uses the data established in the <comments> tag as the URL for the mini shopping cart icon and the graphic container.

You can manually edit the <comments> tag for each item in your XML playlist, or use Playlister to enter the shopping cart URL into the comments tag.

See Using XML Playlists.

When entering a shopping cart URL into your comments tag, you should "URL encode" the shopping cart URL. "URL encoding" is a mechanism for encoding reserved characters that have special meaning in certain contexts.

For example, shopping cart URLs usually contain special characters, such as ? and & that may cause PHP, ASP, ColdFusion or XML to "freak out." The reason for this is because these characters hold special meaning in these languages and can actually interfere with the way that PHP, ASP ColdFusion and / or XML operates.

If the special characters are "URL encoded," then PHP, ASP ColdFusion and XML will not "choke" on the character(s).

URL encoding converts non-alpha-numeric characters into "percent-encoding," which basically means that each character is converted to it's equivalent HEX-code-value preceded by a percent sign. In other words "?" becomes "%3F" because "3F" is the HEX value for "?"

We have created a tool that will URL encode your shopping cart URL for you. Click here to access the URL encoding tool so that you can safely insert the URL to each shopping cart item into your "comments" tag.