Aleix Cortadellas

OpenCart: display stock levels in storefront, as numbers or colour icons

As I mentioned here, a military, police and adventure gear store has hired me to set up their online presence and an e-commerce platform for them (not 100%  ready yet, but soon!). I had a tough time finding the adequate solution for their needs, because even though OsCommerce is the typical script used by similar stores in the country, I agree with critics regarding its security issues, complex code architecture and too long delays when releasing updates. So I tested other scripts (Zen Cart, Magento, Prestashop, etc.) but definetly, the one which gave me the best overall impression is OpenCart: fast, simple yet powerful and highly customizable, and above all, very well rated by its reviewers. So that was my choice for the project.

Two weeks ago, I had no idea OpenCart existed; but today I am pleased to post my first humble contribution as new OpenCart’er: a tutorial on how to customise storefront appearance!

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Hide content from registered users in PHPBB3

You might have been in forums where they show ads to guests but not to registered users. Ever wondered how do they do that? Of course there are specific hacks and plugins which do exactly this, but perhaps you’re looking for the most simple and unobtrusive solution. This is exactly what the code in this post offers: it is extremely simple to implement, yet not every PHPBB3 admin knows it.

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Hide modules from registered users in Joomla 1.5

While Joomla 1.5 allows hiding modules from guests (and just show them to registered users), it lacks the ability to do the opposite, namely hiding modules from registered users. Of course such thing can be very useful when there are modules inviting users to register (how pointless to show them to already registered users!), or modules showing advertisements to guests.

As said, the backend does not allow you to set a module to show to guests only, but this can be very easily done in a couple of minutes and minimal effort with a simple hack to the template code. NO need to install plugins or add-ons! It is a simple yet very useful trick.

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Summer holidays

Hey there everyone,

I just wanted to let you know that I’m back from a three week long holiday to the United States; that’s why I did not post new stuff and why some comments took weeks to be moderated. I thought I’d share some pictures of Chicago I took myself during that time (amazing city btw), I hope you like them! if you’re interested, the full collection is hosted at my Flickr page. Very soon I’ll be publishing more pics of Montréal (Canada), Boston and New York.

That ain’t all: regarding computers, a local company has recently hired me to set up their online presence and their e-commerce platform. This means I might be sharing contents related as well to what I might learn new in that area (e-commerce CMS and so on)…

I wish you all a nice summer time, and enjoy your holidays (if you have)!

Aleix

Requiring JavaScript to be enabled

There are many JavaScript scripts in this blog, and those related with AJAX also involve the use of this language. So I thought that it would be useful to know, when implementing such scripts in a site, how to deal with users who do not have JavaScript enabled in their browsers (or rather requiring them to enable it).

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AJAX add content to favourites script

It has been a while since I last wrote a post but, as I said, I’d be back again! Not that I have much free time, but I’ll keep posting stuff whenever I’m inspired and have the time to do so

Today’s post is a response to deepali’s comment here. There are lots of ways to achieve the result, and this is just my approach to the issue. The following script allows users to favourite/unfavourite posts, pictures, etc. with AJAX, PHP and MySQL, without reloading the whole page. A clear example of that is Youtube.com, where users can add videos to their favourites with just one mouse click and without reloading the whole content of the page.

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Concerning inactivity…

Hello everyone,

Apologies for the current inactivity of the blog and lack of new posts. You will understand, students have exam times now and then and I’m currently preparing for mine, therefore cannot invest the time I’d like to into posting new stuff. I am planning to continue posting on a regular basis in the beginning of July, so stay tuned!

The day CafePress ceased to be appealing

Yesterday was a very sad day. For some, a tragedy. Millions of CafePress shopkeepers were shocked when they read an e-mail from CafePress announcing imminent changes in their policies, mainly concerning the markup scheme of items on sale. I am one of them as well.

Basically, the deal is that shopkeepers – starting June 1st – will no longer have the right to set their own markups on their designs: they must resign themselves to obtain a mere 10% of the sale price in the Marketplace (fixed by CafePress, of course).

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Two methods for generating random strings and passwords

Many websites and boards, upon registration, send the new users an e-mail with their user name and a random password. This is just one of the many purposes for which generating a random string or password is useful.

Ever wondered how this is done? Actually, with PHP, it’s very easy. I will explain you two ways of doing so, and provide the necessary code for you to have the script up and running immediately; you may use the one which suits your needs most. Of course, those are not the only ways to achieve the same goal, but are very effective and in the same time, easy to understand. Note that in this post, the random string will be used as password.

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The dark side of AJAX

Today I’d like to share an interesting article written by Earle Castledine back in 2005, where he considers the potential risks that certain implementations of AJAX pose to the security and privacy of web users. It is titled “Using the XMLHttpRequest Object and AJAX to Spy On You”.

“Currently, user profiling helps Web site owners detect trends, track page viewing habits and iron out usability problems. Until now though, developers could only analyze posted data—data that users decided they wanted the server to get, and were happy to send off for processing. But in a subtle shift, this balance of power has changed hands. With AJAX, a user’s actions can be constantly and meticulously monitored. Because it can be done, it will be done, and that will lead to a headache bigger than just wasted bandwidth, terabytes of useless information, and slower page load times…”.

Read the full article here.