Price Flickering using stockable plugin

[rainman2000]

Hi All,

Our development site which current has Joomla 2.5.14 and Virtuemart 2.0.22a installed used stockable plugin cart variants. We usually have 3 options the customer can select which are type, length color. We have limited this so that there may be up to 140 variants to choose from because it becomes painfully slow when trying to edit products with so many variants being created. Our Virtuemart 1.1 solution had a core hack that could actually handle thousands of stockable attributes but there are so many reasons for us to upgrade.

Although we're working around the limitation of the stockable plugin we are experiencing some flicker when users change options on the product details page. It eventually changes to the correct price but it can flicker for 5 seconds. Our developer has inform us that this is due to the stockable plugin that refresh the price based on selected values. He says since there are multiple dependencies, it refreshes many times. This is actually a deal breaker for us. Is there a solution for this. I hate to do it, but at this point we would even be willing to implement a core hack until this can be resolved in a future version. Please advise.

Thanks,
Rainman

[Jörgen]

Hello

If You check reply #250 in this thread You will probably find a solution to the flickering prices. I have not had time to check this myself, but i will certainly do that.

http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=103067.240

regards

Jörgen @ Kreativ Fotografi

[rainman2000]

Thanks for the tip Jorgen. Unfortunately it didn't correct the flickering problem. 

Do you or anyone else have any suggestions?

Thx!

[Maxim Pishnyak]

It eventually changes to the correct price but it can flicker for 5 seconds.

Could you be more specific? What is your issue: flickering or 5 seconds?

[Jörgen]

Hello Maxim

I can confirm this behaviour.

The flickering is simply a change through the different prices of the children.

Example

We have the following

Parent T-shirt SEK40
   Child 1 Medium size, Black,  SEK50
   Child 2 Medium size, White, SEK60
   Child 3 Large size, Red, SEK70
   Child 4 Large size, Blue, SEK80
   Child 5 Large size, White, SEK60
   Child 6 Large size, Black, SEK50

If I choose the between the different t-shirts i eventually get flickering between prices.

When i go from Black Large T-shirt, to Blue large T-shirt it goes through these prices during approx 3-5 seconds.

SEK50
SEK80
SEK50
SEK80

This could sometimes repeat more times than what i just gave an example of.
I am not 100% sure if any of the other prices were involved in the flickering, will check that once more.

I have tried the updated stockable.php from #250 on VM 2.0.22 with no improvement.
I have tried the updated stockable.php from #250 on VM 2.0.22a with improvement, but I will haven´t tried VM 2.022a with the old stockable.php. Will be back on that.

This is very simple to test. I have only created one custom field with stockable plugin using two of the available four options, calling them Size (Medium, Large) and Color (Black,White,Blue,Red). Then I created one parent with six children.

I am testing this on a local xampp installation and with Eugens VM template and theme. The behaviour seems to exists even without Eugens theme and template.

Best regards

Jörgen @ Kreativ Fotografi

[Maxim Pishnyak]

Pardon me, but isn't flickering intended behavior?

[Jörgen]

Hello Maxim

If this flickering is intended behaviour then we have a serious problem with VM2. I can´t say that I have seen this behaviour on any other commercial sites.

Why on earth would the display go through a number of versions for the price and then suddenly decide to stop on one of the prices. The switching between these alternatives is very confusing to a shopper. It looks broken, as if the price is changing randomly. Since I know what the correct price is I know when it has stopped on the right price. How can a shopper tell when it is ready ? This takes what seems forever and doesn´t happen every time You choose a new child product. 

The intended behaviour when switching from child 4 to child 6.

Select child 4
Showing the Price for child 4: SEK50
Select child 6
Showing the Price for child 6: SEK80

I don´t want to see the price for child 4 displayed, overwritten by the price for child 6, overwritten byte the price for child 4 and so on, during several seconds.

On selection and then one change of price, surely this must be the intended behaviour.

regards

Jörgen @ Kreativ Fotografi

[Milbo]

imho the version in svn has solved this http://dev.virtuemart.net/projects/virtuemart/repository/show/branches/com_virtuemart2.0.14mp

[rainman2000]

Hi Milbo,

I just downloaded the version of stockable.php from the svn and it did not correct the problem. I'll leave that version on for the time being and post a temporary link to our development environment if anyone cares to take a look at what is happening. Simply keep changing length and about after 5 times of changing from one length to another length it will begin flickering.

http://xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=productdetails&virtuemart_product_id=197&virtuemart_category_id=21

Regards,
Rainman

[Jörgen]

Hello Rainman

Nice shop

I have tried Your link with Firefox 22 and could see the flickering. But today I have not been able to see this. But I saw the following. I You go from Full Lace to Lace Front it remembers the length setting from Full Lace (24") but shows the price for 12" and also takes this to the cart if You press the Add to cart button.

You get some very strange product description in the cart. The first item has 24" only description, but the second item has both 24" and 12" description.

Regards

Jörgen @ Kreativ Fotografi

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[rainman2000]

Hi Jorgen,

Thanks. We simply need to work the bugs out by Sept. 1st re-launch and then perhaps I can stop working 20 hour days. I am not seeing the flickering anymore either and have no idea what I did to stop it. My developer was working on the the custom variants last night which explains the problems you were noticing. However, he said he did nothing that would prevent the flickering. If you want me to look at something on the server or share a file that may be helpful in resolving the problem just let me know.

Regards,
Rainman

[Jörgen]

Hi Rainman

Thanks for the reply, but the behaviour I saw is still there. You can get contradicting data and also saving this into the cart. Try this:

• Go to http://dev.platinumwigs.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=productdetails&virtuemart_product_id=197&virtuemart_category_id=21
• You have Lace front, length 24" and 169:95 (this is wrong, you can actually put this into the cart and get the price 169:95, the cart shows 12" and 24", confusing)
• Choose Full lace, notice that length is 24" and price 269:95 (wrong, should be 439:95)
• Choose Lace front, notice that length is 24" and price gets 169:95 (wrong, should be 339:95)
• Choose Length 24" and price is still 169:95 (still wrong)
• Choose Length 12" and price is still 169:95 (this is correct)
• Choose Length 24" and price gets 339:95 (this is correct)

The custom fields don´t seem to update as they should. Tested with IE8 and FireFox 22.

Just wanted You to know, this needs an overhaul 

Jörgen @ Kreativ Fotografi

[rainman2000]

Thanks Jorgen,

I was using Chrome and it works fine. But I just tested in Firefox and I see it's still broken.

Regards,
Rainman