By Donovan on

Can anyone point me to a site with a properly functioning catalog module? I can't tell whether I am having a problem, or whether my catalog module is behaving as it should. Here's what I encounter:

1) No name is shown in administer/configuration/modules, just a very verbose description
-- I fixed the "no name" by placing $system["name"] = t("catalog"); in catalog_system function,
-- I fixed the "verbose description" by eliminating the "if else" statement in catalog_help

2) I created a term called "Library" of node type "catalog item" in taxonomy, then added "Books", "CDs", and "DVD" terms
-- However, there is no "catalog" or "Library" item shown in top navigation menu

3) The amazon module is activated and working, but there does not appear to be any interaction between the "amazon" and "catalog" when I add a catalog item like a book
-- For some reason, my expectation is that I should be presented with the option of entering an ISBN when I add a catalog item of type "Book." However, this does not occur.

I suspect that I am missing something to do with taxonomy; but as you may have already guessed, I am a newbie, and there is a lot that is still way over my head.

Any assistance is appreciated. By the way, my site is http://www.dillonsdomain.com if you wish to see what I'm talking about.

Donovan.

Comments

Donovan’s picture

Donovan commented

Well, I found the administer/catalog/catalog modes configuration settings and used this to align my Library terms with the Amazon modes ("General" -> Plain text, "CD" -> UPC, and "Book" -> ISBN/ASIN). However, I'm still getting weird behavior whenever I attempt to add catalog items that involve Amazon processing.



For example, if I add a "Book" item, the form displays a Title box, and a Library dropdown list.



Scenario 1:

If I enter an ISBN in the Title field, select "Book" from the Library dropdown list, then click "Submit" the form suggests that the transaction was processed properly. However, whenever I click on the "view" link I receive the following error:



"XML error: junk after document element at line 3"



Scenario 2:

If I enter an ISBN in the Title field, select "Book" from the Library dropdown list, then click "Preview", a new form with an ASIN/ISBN field is presented.



If I then copy the ISBN to the ASIN/ISBN field and click "Preview" the form indicates "You have to specify a valid title", prompting me to enter a title. If I then enter a few words of the book title then click "Preview" and "Submit" in succession, the entry is added with the relevant info pulled from Amazon.com.



Questions:



  • Is this how the catalog module is designed to operate? It seems a bit convoluted to me. Why require the user to enter a title, when the ISBN is then used to retrieve the title and other relevant information?



  • Is there supposed to be a link to Amazon to purchase the item in the catalog entry? The Amazon module is active and working on my site, and the Amazon web services are used to retrieve information. All of this suggests a potential level of integration that I am not seeing.



    If this behavior is according to design, I am a bit disappointed in the quality of these modules. Despite this, I am very impressed with Drupal overall; however I would appreciate any suggestions to improve the operation of this functionality.



    Thanks,

    Donovan.

    • "It always seems impossible, until it is done."
    - Nelson Mandela

    jfdill’s picture

    jfdill commented

    Do you know much PHP? I am mostly ignorant and struggling my way through it, but your comments were helpful to getting the modules to partially work on my site, however I am having similar problems. Unfortunately, I am already running druapl 4.3.2 and the modules appear to be for 4.2.0 or older version, not clear in the CVS versions which drupal version they would be for. I tried the CVS versions of amazon and catalog with no better luck. I'm going to try sending e-mail to the developer.

    If all else fails, I have the weblink module working fine with drupal 4.3.2, so my idea was to get generated links from Amazon Associates Central and plug them into the weblink catalog--not nearly as nice and doesn't do everything that I want, but it could work in a crude way.

    Donovan@drupal.org’s picture

    Donovan@drupal.org commented

    Sorry, I'm a PHP newbie myself so I can't help beyond sharing the steps I found to get the module working. I have searched but found little additional information on the catalog module. What I have found leads me to conclude that the experience I outlined is by design. This is disappointing because the Amazon and Catalog modules lead to unmet expectations that could probably be easily overcome with minor code revisions.

    Your fallback solution using weblinks sounds like a good work-around; however, I was hoping to use the Catalog Module for basic cataloging, and the tie-in to the Amazon module would have been icing on the cake. However, the short-comings of the catalog module is a show-stopper for me, so I just gave up on using it entirely. I'll keep my fingers crossed, however, that someone in the community will address these issues at some point.