Ecommerce / Shopping Cart

Rave offers the ability to hook into an existing shopping cart system. This allows webmasters to use Rave as a front-end for a shopping cart system. The idea being that each item within the playlist can include a link that will take the user to a page where they can purchase the item.

NOTE: Rave does not handle the entire check-out process, it only offers the ability to link out to an existing shopping cart system. Which means that a shopping cart system must already be in-place to handle the checkout process. Rave does not offer any kind of functionality to handle how the item will be delivered to the end user -- this functionality must be handled by your shopping cart system.

In order to leverage this functionality, you'll need to have:

- A shopping cart system already installed on your server
- A URL to each shopping cart item

Click here for a list of shopping cart systems that have been tested with Wimpy.

Once you have the shopping cart system installed, you'll need to incorporate the URL for each item. There are two methods for including the shopping cart URL.

1. When running Wimpy in "automatic" mode, where files are automatically read from your server... with ID3 tag reading "on": ( Advanced > Display ID3 tags in the playlist ). In your MP3 file's ID3 tags, put a URL link to the shopping cart item in the "comments" section of the ID3 tag.

2. When running off of an XML playlist, put the URL to the shopping cart item in the <link> tag.

Example:

<item>
   <title>My Track </title>
   <filename>http://www.yoursite.com/media/sample.mp3</filename>
   <artist>Foo Bar Fighters</artist>
   <album>My Item </album>
   <image>http://www.yoursite.com/media/coverart.jpg</image>
   <link>http://www.yoursite.com/store/script.php?foo=bar&id=434</link>
</item>

Setting up the "Info" button

The ecommerce functionality is based on the "Info Button", which can be configured to link out to a page.

To configure the "Info Button" to link out to a URL defined in the <link> tag, use the Customizer Tool and set the "Info Button Action" to "Link to page." This option is located in the "Advanced" section of the Customizer Tool.

Altering the "Info" button

The "Info Button" appears as a small arrow icon when a playlist item is "rolled over" with the mouse. If the small arrow icon is clicked, a new browser window will open referring to the URL defined in the playlists item's <link> tag.
The size, color, and position of the arrow icon can be altered using Skin Machine.
The tool tip text can also be changed using Skin Machine.
You can also use Skin Machine to replace the arrow icon with a custom image, which may be a JPG, PNG or SWF file. The image or arrow can then be repositioned as needed.