Just curious about the "Add to Cart" option. I've found that you can manually set a button (which is just as well as I don't want to have to create 100 buttons for all digital items I'm offering) So I can dynamically create buttons for each item. Yes, I know there are ready made carts, but they don't quite suit my needs as you'll read.
So they click the add to cart button, and the form goes off to PayPal. But there doesn't appear to be any 'customer tracking' value. Does Paypal create some sort of 'association' to the browser or the IP address? (If 10 people click on buttons simultaneously, and the same 'generic' button code is submitted, how does it know which customer ordered what? Or what to display when "View Cart" is clicked?)
This what I propose: They click on "Add To Cart" below a thumbnail. I also store A REFERENCE to that image in localStorage. Eventually, they click on "View Cart" to pay. Using the "return" value, they come back to my site.
(Just a thought: It's time consuming to submit a form each time a button is clicked, so do you feel it might be possible to dynamically create a SINGLE "Add To Cart" button at end of proceedings? So they click 16 buttons, each at £1 ... and script creates a dynamic button with an amount of "16". One button click. They then "View Cart" and see a £16 'product' which they purchase)
Using most commercial carts, customers would now be shown links to each digital file. (NONE seem capable of offering a zip file of all the files just purchased!) Makes life difficult if they have purchased 20+ images to download! What I propose is to use the "localStorage" file - and my script - to 'pull in' the thumbnails of the purchased files. I then display a 4x4 grid (HTML5) with a drop down menu below each. They select one of the files from the list, and the thumbnail appears in that cell. Once all cells are filled, they click a button, and my script generates a new file from the full res images on server, based on the filename at position x/y in the grid
In a nutshell, they are arranging the 16x A4 images they have purchased into a grid that is turned into a print ready A0 PDF they can take to a printshop. (At this stage, not even sure if API2::PDF can handle AO, so might have to try ImageMagik or similar) They do not handle the full res graphics, and only see thumbnails on screen. And when the form is submitted, only a file reference is passed.
In a nutshell:
1) Is it OK to use dynamically created "Add To Cart" buttons?
2) How does Paypal track what's in each customer's basket?
3) Would the single "Add To Cart" option work?
3) Any other ideas on how to get the same net effect?
