Home

The Joomla Blog

Virtuemart Flypage fix - flypage not changing on product pages

Blogs - The Conticreative Joomla Blog

Virtuemart Flypage fix - flypage not changing on product pages

Attention: open in a new window.

Written by Marco Conti Wednesday, 16 September 2009 14:09

If you use Virtuemart with Joomla! and you have tried to assign a different "flypage" to each product category, you may have noticed that this feature doesn't always work. Fortunately, I have found a solution and made an easy to follow tutorial that anyone with server access or an FTP client should be able to execute fairly easily.

But first a bit of context: for starters, the obscure term "Flypage" in Virtuemart simply means "Template". No more no less. Why it is called "Flypage" is beyond me. My clients usually have all sort of reactions when I mention the technical name of Virtuemart Templates. Mostly they are baffled.

However, using "Flypages" In Virtuemart can allow you to change the appearance of certain pages in your shop; either the category list display (where all your products are displayed in a list), or the product description itself.

You cannot change the template (flypage) in an individual page (although it would certainly be nice) but you can change the product description flyppage at the category level.

If you go to Virtuemart > Products > List Categories and choose a category at the very bottom you'll see this box at right (img:1):

(img:1) Virtuemart Flypage Controls

Flypages are kept in your Virtuemart template (usually default unless you created your own) which in turn is located in:

/components/com_virtuemart/themes/(your_template)

However, ever since I can remember, handling Flypages in Virtuemart can be tricky. For one thing, changing the Flypage in the virtuemart configuration [configuration > Site > Layout pane (img:2)] will only change any new categories to the Flypage. Old categories will need to be changed individually.

But the most infuriating issue is that even after one goes to the category page (img:1) and changes the category flypage, most likely nothing happens. The product description pages will continue sporting the same old Flypage they always did.

(img:2) Virtuemart Flypage Controls

Recently, as it often happens, I became very aggravated at this behavior and I researched it in the Virtuemart Forum. There I discovered I was not alone, but I also found a fairly easy fix for the problem. One that it's not yet in the Virtuemart Core, as far as I know (I am using 1.1.3, the latest version).

Apparently, in the Virtuemart core code some instances of 'flypage" are in lower case when they should be in upper case. The fix is really easy and it's beyond me why it hasn't been rolled into the core, but here it is:

1) Navigate to this directory on your Joomla installation:

administrator\components\com_virtuemart\html\

2) Once there, find these files and change (or paste directly for this code) the indicated instance of 'flypage' to 'FLYPAGE' in upper case. Make sure that in your copy 'flypage' is not already in uppercase (as in the example below) or your problem is most likely different):

shop.ask.php (line: 24): $flypage = vmGet($_REQUEST, "FLYPAGE", '' );

shop.basket_short.php (line:30): $flypage = vmGet($_REQUEST, "FLYPAGE", null);

shop.pdf_output.php (line:20): $flypage = vmGet( $_REQUEST, 'FLYPAGE');

shop.product_details.php (line:115): $flypage = vmGet($_REQUEST, "FLYPAGE" );

shop.product_details.php (line:422): $tpl->set( 'FLYPAGE', $flypage );

(line numbers may be slightly off)

3) Save and upload (of course)

I have done this on 4 different shops and each time it worked like a charm. Hopefully it'll work for you as well.

Be well.
/cc/

Set as favorite

Bookmark

Email this

Trackback(0)

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (30)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/hide comments

1 2 3 >

Thank you!

Oh man, thank you very much. Just made it in Virtuemart 1.1.9 and it works perfect! Regards S.B.

Pavel , June 05, 2012

Thank you.

Thank you.
Works perfect.

Bogdan , February 08, 2012

Dude, THANKS!

Saved me A LOT of work an research. THANKS!

Worked on 1.1.9 even though the line numbers are higher numbers.

kRemtronicz , January 04, 2012

Virtuemart Flypage 1.1.9

Thaaaaaaaaaaaanks a lot! great post !

still not fixed on 1.1.9 so that helped much! better : put the files in a directory "user_pages" of virtuemart tempalte so it modified them each time the template is used

SP , December 15, 2011

Great, away is the frustration !

After a lot of experimenting I finally discovered that I was using two flypages in my installation, while I only needed one. I changed something in one flypage and it was showing only on certain product pages not on others. I lived with it, made changes to both pages. Then I needed a different page, and it did not work. Spend hours trying to find the code that selected the page, but really overlooked upper case and lowercase. Spend again hours to find a workaround for this situation. Found this blog at the end, did the very easy instructions and it worked like a charm! Great work, like it. THANK YOU FOR THE WORK AND THE POST!

Frank Meijs , October 05, 2011

flypage change had no effect

Hi. I followed your changes but it did not have the slightest effect. ??? I am using Joomla 1.5.22 and Virtuemart 1.1.9. I took the .php files into Notepad+, did the changes and loaded them up. No effect.

Any idea?

William , September 08, 2011

Fixes Virtuemart 1.1.8

Thanks a lot, it fixed it easily. I wonder why this bug is still present in Virtuemart?

Acardenes , August 25, 2011

Thanks!!

Thanks a lot!!

This fix works like a charm!!! I was looking for long time!!

Studio 7170

Studio 7170 , July 21, 2011

someone can help me?

Hi

I went throught same prodecure but no change happened to flypage... and its not adding any quantity from flypage to cart.... I am using 1.1.9 virtuemart and joomla 1.5.23

Kindly someone can help me... its urgent...

kind regards.

Waqas , July 11, 2011