2BlueSolutions Developer Blog

Ever wanted to post code to your Blogspot account, but ran into a mess regarding how Blogspot interprets your code sample?  Well, the solution is pretty straightforward with a bit of tinkering. First, you'll need to edit the HTML of your blog from the Design , Edit HTML tab in the administrative section of your Blogspot account. What you will need to do is add a class to the style section in the header called .postCode  which will look something like this: .postCode{  background:#FCFCFC none repeat scroll 0 0;  border:1px inset #012BB2;  height:150px;  margin:10px;  overflow:auto;  padding:6px;  text-align:left; } Then, whenever you right a new blog post, you need to make sure to select the Edit HTML tab next to the Compose button and put the following wrappers around the code: <pre class="postCode"></pre> Now, to actually get it to appear like that, you have to put your code through a bit of a translation by...

I've been spending the last month working on the completion of an overall brand change on my website and blogs.  The new site was supposed to be live in January, but it looks like it has been pushed off until the end of February. I've moved on to a lot of JQuery usage and will be detailing a lot of the tips and tricks that I have found so far.  Of course, I have still been dabbling in Joomla and I am always available to answer any questions people may have.

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...

A funny comic relating Web Designers to Web Developers.  There definitely are some truths to the stereotypes!

By default, the VirtueMart checkout process will ask for more information from your customer than is actually needed by your store.  To help reduce the form-field overload  that you customer may face when trying to purchase a product from your online store, it can help to actually remove fields that are not necessary to your business.   Do you really need to know the “company", "title", or "fax number” of a customer?  If not, then this tutorial will show you how to remove those fields. Changing the following file will impact the Billing Information and the Shipping Information (Shipping Address) forms that appear during the VirtueMart checkout process. The file you will need to edit can be found here: /administrator/components/com_virtuemart/classes/ps_userfield.php Search for the function getSkipFields() By default, the skipped fields are the username, password, password check, and the check for the terms of service agreement. function getSkipField...

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.