2BlueSolutions Developer Blog

How to adapt Virtuemart's Minimum Amount For Free Shipping so it can handle different amounts for different countries: Now, before we begin, the usual warning:  Backup the files you are going to be working with.  This is a hack of the global.php file to allow different free shipping amounts for different countries. The file you'll be working with:  /administrator/components/com_virtuemart/global.php First, in the Virtuemart administration page, go to the Store -> Edit Store page and set the base amount you want to use for 'free shipping'.  Usually, this should be the value you set for the most commonly used free amount you want to use (ie. your home country). Now, open up global.php , and search for: $vendor_freeshipping = $db->f("vendor_freeshipping"); The example will show how to detect for a country and hard-code in a new value for free-shipping. Ie. The amount set in the VM Admin page will be the base amount for free shipping in Canada. ...

As a follow up to my previous post about installing the DIBS module in Virtuemart , there is a poorly documented error you will run into when trying to use the payment module on a live site. Basically, it will complain about a missing "paytype" which is actually not what is missing.  What is missing is the "test parameter" as the error will tell you.  After spending too much time trying to fix the "missing" paytype, I tried a different method and deduced that it really was missing a test parameter. With the default setup, the DIBS payment processor will only send a "test" variable to DIBS when it is actually in testing mode.  Makes sense, right? if(DIBS_TESTMODE == "YES") { $oid = 'test-' . $db->f("order_id") . '-' . time(); $post_variables["test"] = "YES"; $post_variables["orderid"] = $oid; } else { $oid = $db->f("order_id") . '-' . time(); ...

I recently was contacted to install the DIBS payment module in Joomla's Virtuemart . It is actually a very straightforward procedure that the DIBS developers lay out nicely in their help file. First step is to download the files you need from the DIBS site: http://tech.dibs.dk/toolbox/dibs_standard_shopmodules/ ( direct download ) Scroll down to the VirtueMart plugin or choose the above direct download link. Unzip the files. Inside, you will find the "docs" folder which contains a readme file which is very well laid out. Quickly, the steps are: Upload the contents of the module folder to the root of your Joomla installation. Log in and navigate to your Virtuemart administrative page. Select List Payment Modules (under Store) and choose DIBS Credit Card from the list of available payment modules. Tick the box for " Active " to make it active. Change the payment method name to whatever you want the customer to see when they checkout. Code =...

If you want your checkout page to look like this: First, you can edit the text for you button in: /administrator/components/com_virtuemart/languages/common/english.php Search for: BUTTON_SEND_REG Whatever you put in for that value, will change the value of the button. For example, put in "Next" instead of "Send Registration" (the default value): Now, to remove the empty "Next" box as seen in the above example, it will just require a simple edit from within your Virtuemart administration page. Log into your Joomla administration page. Enter your Virtuemart administration page. Under Admin, select Manage User Fields . Find delimiter_sendregistration : Then click on the green check mark in the Published field to unpublish the field Finally, for a little bit of housekeeping, edit the following file and add some blank space before the BUTTON_SEND_REG button. /admin/components/com_virtuemart/checkout_register_form.php

This post will handle condensing the shipping address and shipping method pages. If you only offer one choice of shipping to your customer, then it is pointless to present your customer with a page that allows them to select, from one option, the type of shipping they want. It’s also just nice to condense these two pages to help reduce the number of clicks between the start and the end of the purchase process. Of course, it is still worthwhile to have your customer review their shipping address and to present them with an option to change the shipping address to something different than the bill to address. Condensing these pages will present your customer with a more streamlined checkout process that will improve your customer’s interaction with your e-commerce site. The first change needs to be applied in the VirtueMart configuration page. Log into your Joomla installation’s administrator page and then go to your VirtueMart component page. From here, click on configuration...

If your store will only be using  PayPal  as a payment handler, the customer experience can be improved by replacing the "Confirm Order" button at the end of the checkout process with an actual PayPal button. The old button doesn't convey to your customer that they will be taken to PayPal  to complete their order. All we're going to do with this post, is show how to change that "Confirm Order" button into this a Paypal button The file you want to edit is found here: \components\com_virtuemart\themes\default\templates\checkout\get_final_confirmation.tpl.php Within this file, search near the bottom for the following code: <div align="center"> <input type="submit" onclick="return( submit_order( this.form ) );" class="button" name="formSubmit" value="<?php echo $VM_LANG->_('PHPSHOP_ORDER_CONFIRM_MNU') ?>" /> </div> The button has a class called input.butto...

One quick solution to a common problem.  When running Virtuemart and using Moneris as your payment processor, you may occassionally run into the following error: A message from the processor:  API Token Mismatch: (N/A) ERROR:  FAILURE IN PROCESSING THE PAYMENT (ps_moneris) The quick and easy way to fix this is to log into http://www.eselectplus.ca with your credentials and make sure that, under “My Account -> Account Settings”, the default transaction ECI is set to SSL .  It normally defaults to another transaction type (non-electronic commerce transaction), so you need to change it to represent the type of transaction you prefer.  Whether that is an SSL transaction or not is dependent on you site.