Flash shopping cart - feedback!

[psychlonex]

Hey all! I'm just finishing a shopping cart in flash, I'm working on tying it to a database, so that I can use cookies and whatnot to remember a user's cart. Anyway, just wanted to get some feedback on the site design/usablity. If you want to trade reviews, just post your link along with your review.

Edit#2- Since the site is online and the ordering jammy works and all, please don't submit the order form!!! I don't want my client to have to deal with a bunch of fake orders!

Thanks !
psx

doh! The link would be handy! http://www.oasiscollection.com
Thanks !

[psychlonex]

Anyone?

Psx

[Flash harry]

http://URLWell done fella!

I have been working on the idea to get together a flash & database site going a la http://www.habitat.net. So any ideas you have to achieve this are welcome.

Concerning your site... try it opening into a pop up window. On my 15" monitor there was a lot of spillover. The pop up window can be told to be exact fit to your movie. Either that or use the topmargin="0" leftmargin="0" in the body tag, that should do it.

Its really easy to use and is simple but effective and the images load really smoothly, well done.

A search would be the ultimate goal I think, I suppose you would have to use a database for this.

I have a script which looks for keywords in a sql database PHP powered and displays them in Flash if you would like that. With a little ( I believe ) modification this should do the trick, Let me know if you want it.


flashharry@webdesignlab.co.uk

[psychlonex]

Hey - Thanks for checking it out!

I'm gonna try to resize it a bit. I didn't want to put it in a pop-up. mainly because I can't stand it when sites do that. I think a search is overkill for this amount of products, but check here for a working php/mySQL search in flash:
http://www.conciousriddims.com

anyhooo- thanks alot for the feedback. I'll work on resizing it and maybe add some preloaders to the products as well.

Psx

[Flash-db]

That is a quality shopping cart.  Very nicely done.

I agree with your opinion on the resize issue and also do not really like the pop-up technique.  Personally I can't stand when the site is at 100%x100% and always resizes depending on the browser size.  I checked the dimensions of the site and they where at like 900 x 500 - which is perfect for a 1024x768 screen.  Which I think the majority of people have.

For those that do not have that specific size you may want to try and do something like this - That will scale the dimensions according to the users screen size - but will not scale according to the browser size:

1) Use Javascript to grab the screen width and height of the user's monitor.  Then attach those two items to the URL and reload the current page.  

2) Then if those two values are present.  Grab the values from the URL string with PHP.  (Don't use the javascript function again if the values are present).  Set a cookie with the width and height dimensions of the users screen.  

3) Determine the width and height of the swf based off the dimensions of the Users Screen size.  Something like this:

$width = ($W*900) / 1024;
$height = ($H*600) / 768;

That way if the Users screen width is 1024 - The swf width dimension would be 900  (1024x900)/1024 = 900.  If the users screen width is 800 the swf width would be (800x900)/1024=703   --  And everything always scales accordingly.  Then embed your swf with those $width and $height's.  And you've got a perfectly scaling movie that will always fit the dimensions of your users screen without getting distored.

-- Anyways just an idea.  

Other then that - That is one of the best Shopping Carts I have Ever Seen.  

[psychlonex]

Jeff -
That's exactly the idea I was looking for! I'll try to add it tonight. Is there a javascript function that will give me these variables? I'll look around the web for it I guess.

Anyway, thanks alot for the feedback. I'll post again when I've made the change (along with a nice list of changes I have from the client).

Psx

[Flash-db]

Ok - this is more specific on how I did this.  It took a while to get this down, but I think it was worth it.

<?php
if ($W && $H) {
   setcookie ("W", $W, time()+30240000, "/");
   setcookie ("H", $H, time()+30240000, "/");

print "<HTML><HEAD><LINK REL=stylesheet TYPE=\"text/css\" HREF=Style.css><title>";

$width = ($W*940) / 1024;
$height = ($H*620) / 768;

$Dimensions = "WIDTH=$width HEIGHT=$height";

print "</title></head><body bgcolor=\"#FFFFFF\" topmargin=\"0\" leftmargin=\"0\" rightmargin=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\"><center>";

print "<OBJECT classid=\"clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000\"
codebase=\"http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=5,0,0,0\"
$Dimensions>....................REST OF EMBED CODE.......";

print "</center></BODY></HTML>";

}
###########################################
### Else - Redirect User to get Screen Size
else {

print "<HTML><HEAD><SCRIPT LANGUAGE=\"javascript\">top.location=\"index.php?W=\"+screen.width+\"&H=\"+screen.height;</script></HEAD><BODY></BODY></HTML>";

}
?>


-Ok That's about all of it.  You can see that If $W and $H have a value then it will embed the SWF - IF they do not have a value -Then it will print the Javascript to the screen which will get the Users Screen Height and Width then attach them onto the end of Index.php as Index.php?W=Width&H=Height - And redirect the page to itself.  Then PHP will test again wether or not their is a value for $W and $H - Then ....

Well you get the idea.

[psychlonex]

Thanks Jeff!
I'll try to get it working and let you know how it goes.

Psx

[the pale e]

Far too aggressive with the screen real-estate, man.

a few things.  better contain your images, and use more imagry through-out.  Doesn't have to be product shot's exclusivly, right.  Grab a cosmo...nono...martha stewart living, and checks some ad's from within the same industry.  I think that the b+w thang could be better developed (enriched, maybe) through the addition of color.  MAybe pastel menu mouse-overs?

I think it's certainly a great site...but with out better command of your imagery/colo9rs, it's making me yawn.

Nah...prob just lack of sleep!  
Have a great nighT!

Thx,
brad
the pale e
www.paleemediafanatics.com

[psychlonex]

Hehe. This from the guy with a talking gorilla on his site

I hear what you are saying tho - The pastels are a great idea. I didn't want it to really wow people, I just wanted to make it easy to use for now. We're working on tweaking some things here and there. Actually, the products all sorta have a color, ie - refresh is green, relax is pink, etc.  I might try to get some code in there so that when you rollover a product name (where you add it to the cart) the rollover will be a pastel green or pink or whatever. I picked up the design elements from what they already have in their catalogs and whatnot. As far as imagery goes, they didn't have any other images to use - and they didn't want to spend money on new images.

Not sure what you mean about the real estate thing tho. too big, too small? I'm so bummed on flash's type problems lately. Almost every site I do, the first thing I hear is "cool! but the text is blurry..."

I guess I just don't understand this anti-aliasing thing. Anyone use mac's on here? What's with the "smooth all fonts on screen" option? That's supposed to be easier to read?

I'm thinking about setting all the small text in a pixel font but I'm having a tough time finding one that fits the site.  Also, the checkout area is being redone, I've broken it into 3 or 4 forms, so that when you finish one, it moves to the next so it doesn't get so crowded. I may make the cart draggable, so you can put it anywhere you want it.


All in all... thanks alot for the feedback! It's hard to find people like yourself who can provide quality feedback!

Psx