php mysql shopping cart

chrisleon

I have a shopping cart that when quantities are placed in the input boxes and the submit button is pushed, it calls another php that adds the items into the sql table. This works great, but I would like to make it a little easier for the customer.

We have a catalog with about 9000 items in it. At times, a customer will view 200 to 300 items at a time and order anywhere from 25 to 100 items.

I would like to call a javascript or something like that to update the cart real time. ie. I want the customer to type in a quantity of 3 and have it add 3 to the shopping cart, instead of typing in all the quantities and pushing the submit button.

I know this is not a javascript forum, but I thought I would throw it out and see if anyone has ever done anything like this.

Is there a way to write a javascript function that calls a php script?

Any ideas or thoughts are very appreciated.

thanx

planetsim

So what happens to those that dont use Javascript? There is away look into XMLHttpRequest the first one from Apple is quite a good article I suggest reading. However you need to think of those users that dont have Javascript on.

Roger_Ramjet

While I'm sure very few of your users would even know that javascript exists, let alone know how to disable it, but over-complex javascript functions will fail on some browsers.

The same problem of cross-browser compatibility also arises with XMLHttpRequest . :rolleyes:

It is an easy thing to do in browsers that are running javascript, you just write the items to a cookie and read it on submit.

I presume, however, that your users will be browsing from page to page as they make their selections. Yes?
Well, you can pass their selections along from page to page embedded in an array in a hidden html field.

You could also use cookies with php and no javascript, to achieve the same thing.
You can also use a work table to store their selections in the db, provided you are using sessions of some sort.
In fact, if you are using cookies then you can also use a work table in the db.

Spoilt for choice really 😃