ActiveStock test site now open!

You can now see ActiveStock in action on a V8 default site at this URL:

http://activestock.mumstuff.co.uk

This includes the latest addition - ajax code to display real-time stock levels and to replace the Add to Cart button (or, in the case of the Stationery page that runs multiple products with one Add to Cart, the Quantity box) with an Out of Stock message when a product's stock level is reduced to zero.

Please feel free to place orders (I won't be delivering anything or chasing you for payment!!) to see it working.

Since you may be tesing it when I'm not available to refresh stock levels from my PC, I've also added the facility to allow you to replenish stock for yourself. To do this, you should enter a URL similar to the following into your browser:

http://activestock.mumstuff.co.uk/cgi-bin/addstock.pl?ref=ST0001&qty=2

This will add a quantity of 2 to the current stock level for the product ST0001 (product references are displayed on the page for most products). However, please be aware that this may cause some unusual behaviour if other testers are simultaneously placing orders or updating stock! But hopefully it will allow you to give it a thorough try-out.

Please come back here to leave me some feedback, or send me an e-mail!

Directory Permissions in Windows Vista

When performing an upload of the stock file, ActiveStock first writes the file into the directory "Program Files | ActiveStock". If you are running Vista, it may be necessary to adjust the permissions for this directory to avoid "access denied" errors during the upload operation.

Actinic network settings for use with ActiveStock

Currently, ActiveStock uses the network setup field 'Path from CGI-BIN to Online Store Folder as viewed by the FTP Server' to find the correct folder when sending the stock file by ftp. If you have left this blank (which is often the default), then you may get a 'null' error when trying to upload your stock file. Please enter an appropriate value in this field to get round this error. Possible entries are '/public_html/acatalog/' or '/httpdocs/acatalog/'. Just look at the value entered in the 'Path from CGI-BIN to Online Store Folder' field and remove the '..' at the beginning. Please make sure you leave the '/' at the beginning and end of the entry.

(Note: some users have reported that an extra '/' is required at the begining of this field, so try '//public_html/acatalog/' or '//httpdocs/acatalog/' if you are still experiencing problems.)

Help file in Windows Vista

Some users have had problems reading the help file after downloading it from the links provided here. You may need to 'unblock' the file so that you can open it. The screenshot on the left shows the 'Properties' for the file - right-mouse click and select Properties, then click on 'Unblock' at the bottom.

Q&A: Can I still set Maximum Order Quantity for products?

Yes, the modified perl scripts for ActiveStock look at the stock level and the value of "Maximum Order Quantity" for each product and only allow a customer to add up to the lower of these 2 values to their basket. However, please be aware that these 2 scenarios are covered by the same Actinic error messages (in Design Text Go To -1,59 for the error message on the cart page and -1, 60 for the Product page error), so please choose the wording carefully!

Q&A: Could ActiveStock manage stock levels from a common source on more than one website?

Yes, this could be possible. If the websites are running on the same server then it should be fairly straightforward - all the sites would be able to directly access the uploaded stock file. Of course, they would also have to share the same off-line (i.e. Actinic) stock data source for uploading changes to the stock levels.

If the sites are on different servers then some more involved customistaion would be required so that one site acts as the master and the others issue http calls to the master site to read from and write to the stock file.

Q&A: What happens if your Actinic installation isn't in a "Site1" folder - how does ActiveStock know where to look?

You're right, ActiveStock is expecting the Actinic installation to be under the My
Documents/Actinic v9/Sites/Site1 folder. It only uses this during installation to take
backup copies of the relevant perl files before creating the modified versions. The best
way around this is to create a Site1 folder temporarily and copy the ao000001.pm,
ca000001.pl and os000001.pl files from your 'real' Site folder in there before running
the ActiveStock Setup file. That should work fine.

ActiveStock on the Actinic Community (click here for link to thread)

There has been some recent discussions on the Actinic Community forum about ActiveStock. It was good to get some initial feedback, especially from some very experienced Actinic desigers / developers / users.

Also some good pointers for where I should focus my development effort!

I'm now working on a method of dynamically replacing the Add to Cart button with an "Out of Stock" message as soon as a product goes out of stock. I've got this working on a test site and it will soon be up and running on MumStuff.co.uk. The method will also allow live stock levels to be shown in the product pages (although this isn't something we plan to do on our site).

Check back soon for an update on this!