Product Listings like Tiffany.com

[davinciarte]

I was wondering if anyone had ideas on how to create product listings similar to those found on Tiffany's jewelry website. On a given product description page, they show the product with description, along with thumbnails of all the other products in the category running along the bottom. I find this a very elegant solution. You can see the live example here.

 

Thanks!

[Guest]

You should try using STS Template System, you can find it here: http://oscommerce.com/community/contributions .

 

You should be able to do all of that in STS, :)

[Guest]

Very nice site. From what I can tell, this site uses Microsoft SQL Server 2000, ASP.NET, ADO.NET, Flash and Javascript etc. Where osCommerce is based on open source PHP, mySQL etc.

 

It is possible to create the same user interface.

 

Where? I thing it is a good idea to implement the user interface within the existing category page (actual codes are in index.php). You can use the existing database codes as a starting point.

 

Or if you actually wanted the whole site to look just like Tiffany&Co., then osCommerce might not be what you need.

[Guest]

uh, what are you talking about? A simple question was asked, not sure why you're going into so much detail about unnecessary stuff, but the bottom line is, there's nothing this site is doing that can't be done in osCommerce. A little creativity, some time, and well, a reason to do it and there you go.

 

Who cares what it's written in, what's running it, or what's involved. The question was, can it be done and how. Yes. It can be. By using STS :)

 

if they want it to be exactly like Tiffany, then osCommerce isn't what they need.. how so? What information are you basing that not so hot answer on?

[Guest]

BTS and STS will definitely help (Contributions)

 

And if you want osCommerce to look exectly like Tiffany&Co's website then osCommerce's concept of boxes along with other additional features will be somewhat redundant.

 

The bottom line is that osCommerce is much more powerful in terms of features. With a bit of customisation, it will be just as elegant or even better than Tiffany&Co.

[Guest]

By the way MS3 will introduce osCommerce's very own template system. Can hardly wait. :thumbsup:

[davinciarte]

Yes, STS is a good starting point for customizing pages.

 

From what I can tell, however, STS only allows you to customize the layout of OSC pages (i.e. index, category, and product detail).

 

What intrigues me about the Tiffany site is the way they have combined the product listing and product detail pages into one page. You can see the product details on a product while view all the other products in its category in a neat row underneath.

 

In OSC, the product listing and the product detail pages are separate. I would imagine it would take some serious programming to customize it the way Tiffany has.

[♥bruyndoncx]

Hi Mike,

 

I also checked out the tiffany site and came to the same conclusion as yours. What I didn't understand is the paging. It appeared to be one page for every product, and when I selected another product from the bottom category list, I didn't change the page ref.

 

To me intuitively I was expecting the paging to be for the category list, and the area ontop to show the selected product.

 

Yes, ofcourse this can be done/coded in. I think it is a nice interface, especially if you have simple products with large images (not master/slave setup).

Thus the content area needs custom coding, the surrounding layout, that is what you can more easily achieve using a templating system like STS.

 

To retrofit this page into standard OSC MS2 system, you need to make make sure that when you call up a product page, it also include the category listing, and when you call up a category listing, to show the first product on top. Design with, most logical to me is to have 2 modules, 1 for the top area called from index.php (nested category for dummy first product) and from product_info.php, and 1 for the category listing bottom area also called from index.php (nested category) and from product_info.php. If you can integrate it from these pages, you won't need to change other standard functionality that much.

[davinciarte]

Thanks for the response. Some useful suggestions. I'd appreciate clarification on a couple of points:

 

- what do you mean when you say a design with two "modules?" What eexactly are modules in technical terms?

 

- is it in fact possible to have a category listing that runs along the bottom of the page in a single row the way Tiffany has done it? And can I integrate such a format into the product page just using pure STS, or would I have to do some tweaking?

 

- what exactly do you mean by a "nested category for dummy first product?" Would this be a place holder with no price, etc.?

 

Thanks!