So, got an email from a potential client who wants to be able to make star ratings on a per product basis from within the admin;
I will like only myself (the admin or owner of the website) to grade the items that I’m selling with stars or with numbers. Let’s say that i have 5 stars icons and if the item is in good condition I will light up or show the 5 stars if it not so good maybe only 4 stars, and so on
So, I came up with a simple system.
In the Admin area;
As the only star rating is made by the shop owner, the only database entry is a single vote (0 or 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5), so an “int” added to the products table is quite enough.
In the shop side;
Draw the value from the database and show a nice graphic.
Files changed were;
- admin/categories.php (and language file)
- product_info.php
And a few new files to show the stars.
Conclusion
And the cost for all this was just $75, and the time to get it from initial email to finished and working was less than a couple of hours. As you can see, it is sometimes preferable to pay a little amount to someone who can easily come up with code, than to waste a day or two trying to work out how to do something yourself.
I also agree that *sometimes* it is preferable to hire someone to help on your site BUT I also think that learning how to work on osCommerce yourself is invaluable. You have helped me several times when I couldn’t figure something out and the coding is clean, minimal, and most of all, it works great! Something about figuring out solutions myself is very satisfying though and a great learning experience (I think), even if it takes a week to figure out! I have learned a lot from your work and I really enjoy reading up on these projects and seeing that the best solution is often the simplest one.
Best Regards,
Matt
I agree that for me it is invaluable to have Gary do the work i can’t.. I prefere to spend time doing product research, improve the product range, do some social media work or even get in touch with the customers, instead of spending a week figuring out some kind of coding that might as well mess the whole shop up.
For me, having you do the work, is worth much more that you charge! It frees up so much time, it works, and i feel fairly free to ask for almost anything i might come up with 🙂