Hi Robert,

unfortunately, bad news: the Global parameters in VirtueMart are just that - global parameters, and there's no standard way to override these, at least that I know of!

Module parameters are a different matter - they proved to be reasonably easy to override.

I think you'll probably have to hack VirtueMart in order to toggle these parameters in various situations.

For showing prices, the constant that controls this is called _SHOW_PRICES. So you can search around VirtueMart for files that contain this text, and put in additional checks for additional conditions.

e.g. in ps_product.php, ps_product_attribute.php, shop.browse.php, shop.product_details.php in /adminsitrator/components. There are also a number of occurrences in /components.

For "use only as catalog" you'll need to look at ps_product.php, shop.browser.php, and possibly ps_session.php in /administrator/compoinents, plus some other files in /components, if you want to change whether the cookie check is required when you set things to catalog(ue) mode. The constant you are looking for is USE_AS_CATALOGUE.

Although I don't like hacking VirtueMart, it's unfortunately the only way to do this.

In general I'd approach it this way:

- in the SUCCEED or FAIL actions I would use the PHP boxes to create a specific constant if a rule succeeds or fails.

e.g.
define("EVENT_1_HAPPENED", true);

Then later in VM, if there's a line like this:

if (_SHOW_PRICES == '1') {   ...  }

I'd change this to:

if (_SHOW_PRICES == '1' or defined("EVENT_1_HAPPENED") ) {   ...  }

That would allow you to trigger the prices to be shown as a result of the MetaTemplate rule.

If you want to be able to force the prices to NOT be shown then you could change the line to:

if (_SHOW_PRICES == '1' and defined("EVENT_1_HAPPENED") ) {   ...  }

That way, the code will only run if both _SHOW_PRICES is set in the global config, AND if your even has happened. So if your event hasn't happened then the prices won't show.


Just a last thought that could simplify things: since _SHOW_PRICES and USE_AS_CATALOGUE are set in a PHP file, then you *could* just alter the PHP to build in more of the conditions there. This would mean that you only have to alter it in 1 place, and all the rest of VM would obey the value of these constants.

There's just 1 problem with this:
- the file would get overwritten every time someone changes one of the global variables in the admin part of VM. So it would be very easy for your changes to get wiped.

If you can avoid that happening (good luck!) then you could modify virtuemart.cfg.php like this:

Find this line:

define('_SHOW_PRICES', '1');

Replace with:

if (defined("EVENT_1_HAPPENED") ) define('_SHOW_PRICES', '');
else define('_SHOW_PRICES', '1');

That will allow you to turn off prices by doing a define("EVENT_1_HAPPENED") in a succeed or fail action.


Find this line:

define('USE_AS_CATALOGUE', '');

Replace with:

if (defined("EVENT_2_HAPPENED") ) define('USE_AS_CATALOGUE', '1');
else define('USE_AS_CATALOGUE', '');

That will allow you to turn ON catalogue mode by doing a define("EVENT_2_HAPPENED") in a succeed or fail action.


Sorry for the rambling reply... at first I thought this was going to be more or less impossible, but it turns out it's not so hard after all - as long as you can stop people altering the global config and overwriting your changes.

Hope that helps,
Stephen

Hi Robert,

A - if you made changes to the other internal VM files, then you would not need to change the config file, and the changes would not get wiped out by config changes.
HOWEVER... as soon as you start to do this, then you're probably never going to upgrade VirtueMart again, as you'll be too afraid of messing up the edits you made. (I speak from experience).

B - Yes... sort of. I'm not very familiar with commercial VM templates, so I am not sure to what extent you can simply refuse to display the price by altering the code. Hopefully that's easy to do, but you might find that the price is embedded into some other structure that's created within VM, and is not so easy to remove at the template level. I really don't know, but it's worth looking at.

More serious however is that as I was looking at the VM code I saw that there are quite a few related bits of info that get included or excluded depending on whether USE_AS_CATALOGUE is set. e.g. links to shopping cart, number of products in stock and a few other bits and pieces. So, you might be able to get away with simply editing the template to not show some things, but it may be difficult to get things looking exactly like proper catalogue mode.

C - Dynamic changes to the cart module

This is actually a specialty of MetaMod. When you include a module, you can also dynamically alter any of the module parameters (the ones you would normally set up when editing a module in the module manager).

Therefore you could use MetaMod to include the same VM module but with some different parameters depending on which menu item you are on.

Or, of course you could just set up 2 VM modules, each with a different setup, and selectively include one or the other of them depending on which menu item (or page type etc) you are on. If you just have 2 of them it's probably easier this way, but if you're going to need multiple copies with different setups, then it might be easier to do it dynamically.

Resources:
1 - dynamic module control:
http://www.metamodpro.com/metamod/contr … parameters

2 - identifying which VM category/page type you are on:
http://www.metamodpro.com/jomgenius/parameters#vmobject

Using these techniques you shouldn't have to hack the VM Module, even if you're hacking the rest of VM!


Hope that helps,
Stephen

The solution I found to my problem.

I have been able to solve my problem without modifying Virtuemart files.
I do it by modifying my Virtuemart templates and using a MetaTemplatePro rule and a MetaMod module.

I am posting here to describe the Metatemplate rule needed to overcome a problem I encountered with the approach I am using.  The problem is that multiple references to the Virtuemart component cause the wrong itemId to be used.

My requirements are:

if ( 

$option == 'com_virtuemart'

and $Itemid == '2'

and JRequest::getVar('lang')== 'en'

) return XXX;

$ItemId value is ‘2’

and then pressing a category choice

if ( 

$option == 'com_virtuemart'

and JRequest::getVar('page')== 'shop.browse'

andJRequest::getVar('category_id')== '239'

and $Itemid == '2'

and JRequest::getVar('lang')== 'en'

) return XXX;

$ItemId value is still ‘2’

After pressing the “Our Shop” menu item.

if ( 

$option == 'com_virtuemart'

and $Itemid == '7'

andJRequest::getVar('vmcchk')== '1'

and JRequest::getVar('lang')== 'en'

) return XXX;

$ItemId value is ‘7’

and then pressing a category choice

if ( 

$option == 'com_virtuemart'

and JRequest::getVar('page')== 'shop.browse'

andJRequest::getVar('category_id')== '239'

and $Itemid == '2'

and JRequest::getVar('lang')== 'en'

) return XXX;

The $ItemId value is now ‘2’ rather than ‘7’.
And it will stay as ‘2’ for further categories and product selection.

Solution:
Solution details-Part 1 of 3.
Because the itemId can get a wrong value as you click your way to viewing a product, then the session variable must be set only when the menu item is pressed and never after.

I do this with one rule that is activated only for Menu items: “Our Shop” and “Wholesale”.
In the RUN PHP box of the SUCCEED actions I added:

session_start();

$varRetail = '7';

$varWholesale = '2';

if (($option == 'com_virtuemart' and JRequest::getVar('page') == '' and $Itemid == $varRetail ) or 

     ($option == 'com_virtuemart' and JRequest::getVar('page') == '' and $Itemid == $varWholesale)){

    $instance_name = "wholesale-retail";

    if (!isset($_SESSION[$instance_name])) {

            // no session variable exist so create one

        $vide = array();

        $_SESSION[$instance_name]=$vide;

    } 

    if ($Itemid == $varRetail) {

        $_SESSION[$instance_name] = "retail";

    } else {

        $_SESSION[$instance_name] = "wholesale";

    }

}

The JRequest::getVar('page') == '' is what limits the creation or modification of the session variable to only when the menu item is first pressed.

Solution details-Part 2 of 3.
The template contains this additional code:

<?php

session_start();  //must be  at very top

.

.

.

If ($_SESSION["wholesale-retail"] == "retail") {

     $is_retail = true;

}else{

     $is_retail = false;

}

?>

The above says; make the local variable $is_retail equal true if the Session variable has the value “retail”.

.

.

.

<div class=" vm_s_desc">

    <?php echo $product_s_desc; ?>

</div>                 

<div class=" vm_price">

    <?php if ($is_retail == true):?>

        <?php echo $product_price ?>

    <?php endif;?>    

</div>

<div class=" vm_atc">

    <?php if ($is_retail == true):?>

        <?php echo $addtocart ?>

    <?php endif;?>

</div>

The above displays the Price and the AddToCart elements when the value of the local variable “$is_retail” is true.

Solution details-Part 3 of 3:
Control display of cart:
I create a Metamod module called “MetaMod-Cart” which controls the display of my shopping cart (Id=20) and contains the following PHP:

session_start();

$instance_name = "wholesale-retail";

if (isset($_SESSION[$instance_name])) {

    if ($_SESSION[$instance_name] == "retail") {

        return 20;

    }

}

The above code says:
If the Session variable “wholesale-retail” exists and has the value of “retail” then display the shopping cart (return 20).

the end