Product Downloads listed on Product Page

Discussion in 'Customization & add-ons' started by baker, Nov 3, 2019.

  1. baker

    baker New Member

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    Is there any way to list the available file downloads for products on their individual product pages (preferably without manually adding each one).

    If you offer a lot of files it seems like this would be a mess listing it in the dashboard. I'd really like to be able to list what downloads are available with a product on it's page. If the links are there but protected it shouldn't let people download. Is there someway to add this?
  2. caesar

    caesar aMember Pro Developer Staff Member

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    Hello,

    You need to use Content Categories for it. These categories will be shown in user's menu if user has access to resources in this category. You can uses these categories to organize your content by pages.

    So within files records you need to enable option 'Hide from Dashboard' and add it to some content category 'Content Categories':

    content-category.png
  3. baker

    baker New Member

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    What I'm using this for is for downloads of high resolution files that are zipped. There are often more than one version at different resolutions.

    The way it is using the method above the user doesn't see what the product (the image) looks like in the dropdown list. If they have a lot of images then it can get confusing as to which download is for which image.

    I want the user to be able to see the image and then see all the available downloads for that image. I might want to also included some support files with the same product as well. For this reason I want the downloads to show up in a list on the detail page for the product that you get to by clicking on the list of products.

    Is there a way I could do this?
  4. caesar

    caesar aMember Pro Developer Staff Member

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    You can create content category for each of your product.

    Then put URL of corresponding content category to "Link (optional)" within product settings:
    aMember CP -> Products -> Manage Products -> (edit)

    You can remove "Resource Categories Menu" item from user menu if you want:
    aMember CP -> Configuration -> User Menu

    Also you can add image preview to "Active Subscriptions" block:
    DtFYXZ4XgAA6a6L.jpeg

    Product titles become links to Content Category page with list of downloads (thanks to Link product setting).

    You need to enable Shopping Cart module (in order to upload product images) and then use this
    code snippet to add images to Active subscriptions widget:
    https://gist.github.com/cgi-caesar/ef51ac63e5d81a2d62ea6e8b809258ea

    You can enable cart module at:
    aMember CP -> Configuration -> Setup/Configuration -> Plugins

    and then upload product image within product settings:
    aMember CP -> Products -> Manage Products -> (edit)

    Best Regards.
  5. baker

    baker New Member

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    Unfortunately, this still is very cumbersome to what I'm doing. If the user had a subscription that allowed all downloads this could be literally hundreds of downloads on the dashboard page. Doesn't seem like a clean solution.

    I have an example of what I'm trying to do with another site: You can see the cart page here:
    https://www.powerframeworks.com/account/cart
    account is the amember folder.

    I redirect the amember product detail page to my own custom one. Where you can see the available downloads. (I have them grayed when you don't have the proper subscription, links are still live but take you to the login page when grayed) If you have a lot of individual products and then individual file downloads this can become cumbersome having them all on your dashboard page.
    This is an example of a page with multiple downloads
    https://www.powerframeworks.com/series-VF001

    To get this the way I wanted I customized a couple amember pages that I will need to be careful of when updating. That is of course less than optimal and I want to try to address it later.

    However, for the site I'm currently working on I don't need as many customizations but I would really like to be able to get the downloads on the detail pages to keep the dashboard from being overloaded. Also I think it's cleaner to have the downloads on the detail page where the customer could read additional information about the product see what downloads are available with that purchase.

    Is there anyway to add the available file downloads to the detail page of a product.
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2019
  6. caesar

    caesar aMember Pro Developer Staff Member

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    In my suggestion you will not have any downloads on dashboard.

    On dashboard you will have only product Name that hyperlinked to
    dedicated category page where all downloads for this product is listed.
  7. baker

    baker New Member

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    I don't get your instructions then. On this part:

    Then put URL of corresponding content category to "Link (optional)" within product settings:
    aMember CP -> Products -> Manage Products -> (edit)
    Where do you get the URL for content categories, I don't see that.
    I looked up active subscriptions blocks and that looked like you save that to site.php in config
    That gave me the link with an image on the dashboard.

    Also, even though it just has link on the dashboard, this is a mess if you have 600+ separate links for products that they can download. If I understand you correctly they'd still have to search through those 600+ links to find the one that goes to the content category page they want. That still seems like a mess. On PowerFrameworks I find this is fine for the individual purchase but not a subscription to all downloads.

    Is there anyway reasonable way to get the downloads on the product page?
  8. caesar

    caesar aMember Pro Developer Staff Member

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    Maybe you have old version of aMember. Here is screenshot of product settings from latest version:

    product-link.png

    Also you will not have "Active Resources" widget at all. I suggest to enable option "Hide From Dashboard" for all your files.
    (screenshot in my first message in this thread)

    So if you follow my suggestion then user will see only "Active Subscriptions" widget on his dashboard. This widget will show only names of purchased products (You can optionally add images thumbnails to product names). Then each product name is hyperlink and if user click it then he open separate page for this product with list of all download available for it.

    Best Regards.
    polaris likes this.
  9. baker

    baker New Member

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    I'm using version 5.5.5
    I've hidden it from the Dashboard
    I added a content category of the same name
    It shows on the dashboard under Active Subscriptions.
    However the link goes to an error page; HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found

    I wasn't sure from your description if the content category could be a subcategory of another category, so I tried both ways an neither worked for me. I'd like to see how this download page works, but even if I get this working I don't think it will solve my problem.

    Here is an example. Lets say we have 985 individual images. Each one might have several individual downloads.
    There is another reseller product that gives you access to all 985 products.

    The link field you said to add the content category to will only let me add one link. So I can't add in both the individual product and the reseller product at the same time.

    I'm also likely to give away a few products and it seems like the dashboard where the active subscriptions show up could become overcrowded pretty quickly.

    Is there now way to get the downloads on the product page?

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Nov 11, 2019
  10. caesar

    caesar aMember Pro Developer Staff Member

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    If you have "HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found" then it means you added incorrect link.

    Here is example of correct link from my local setup:
    http://localhost/amember/content/Example.7

    format of slug is {CATEGORY NAME}.{CATEGORY ID}

    (You can temporary enable content category menu to see correct links for your case).

    You can add same file to multiple categories at same time. So you can add it to category "Product A" and in same time to category "Resellers". Each product need only one single link - link to category associated with this particular product.

    Same file will be shown on both pages:
    http://localhost/amember/content/Product A.5
    http://localhost/amember/content/Resellers.6

    Best Regards.
    baker likes this.
  11. baker

    baker New Member

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    I can work with that if I can get a photo of the product on the same page, or if I can embed those links in a non-amember page. But otherwise it's still a bunch of text links with no visual reference. That's what I really want to avoid.
  12. caesar

    caesar aMember Pro Developer Staff Member

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    You can modify templates for resource and display images.
    Each resource type has separate template:
    application/default/views/resource/_file.phtml
    application/default/views/resource/_video.phtml

    etc.

    I suggest to create theme and move this template to your theme folder before edit (so it was not overwritten with upgrade)
    http://www.amember.com/docs/Themes_and_Templates

    Important: copy to your theme folder only template that you want to change. Do not copy all templates.

    If you have active subscription for support and updates then you can contact us in helpdesk
    and our team staff will help you with template customization:
    https://www.amember.com/support

    Best Regards.
    baker likes this.
  13. baker

    baker New Member

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    Thank you Caesar, I'll try that out.
  14. caesar

    caesar aMember Pro Developer Staff Member

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    You are welcome!

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