Merchant OrderForm v1.53 Single Input Examples

The examples on this page show you how to use SINGLEPOST mode in Merchant OrderForm v1.53. This mode is used for collecting products from around your Web Site and keeping a Shopping Cart of items. Usually products are submitted one at a time from various pages around your site that display products and product information. Consult the page on OrderForm Examples if you want to use the OrderForm modes for MOF.

Here are two basic ways to have products put into the Merchant OrderForm v1.53 cart from various pages around your site using the Single Post method.

1. Submit via Hidden Input, using Anchor or Get
2. Submit via Form Post input

In order to adapt your Web Site pages to submit products to the Merchant OrderForm system, you should have some basic skill with constructing Forms in HTML. If you use a Web Page Editor like Front Page or Page Mill, then you should know how to use them to Construct Form Input.

This example page includes suggestions on how to use Links, Get, and Post directives to submit products from various pages around your Web Site. You can follow the examples in the underlying HTML syntax on this page to get you started. When you View the Source or HTML for this example page you will also see many Comments embedded around the input syntax. If you need help on the basics of building Forms in Web Pages, there are many free tutorials around the internet.

1. How To Submit via Hidden Input

This option sends predetermined information about a product to the MOF cart system. You can place these types of links to MOF from any page on your site, next to any products on your site. You cannot use this option if you want to allow customers to select types of information about the product, such as type, color, size, quantity, etc. Read the documentation section on Submitting Products via Hidden Input to review detailed instructions. You will be submitting 6 Fields of information under the name=order in these three examples.

• order=Quantity----Product----Description----Price----ShipCode----Tax

1. Send a product via a hyperlink anchor this way:
   Order World Class BaseBall Cards Set of 14

2. Use the same hyperlink method with a picture:
   
   Use a Form Get directive with a button:
   

Tip: Hold your mouse pointer over the hyperlinks for example 1 or 2 above, and check out your browser's Status Bar at the bottom. You can see what's happening with this type of submission. Your product info is sent to the location of the MOF processing script as part of the line, and MOF processes anything past the ? mark.

2. How To Submit via Form Post

This option allows for various ways to accept user input on the product that will be sent to the MOF cart system. Important: Your configuration settings must match what you want to do with this kind of input. Make sure you understand the documentation on Configuring Form Post User Input Options to populate your site pages with this kind of input. That part of the documentation will tell you how your Form Input options must be identified in the MOF configuration file. If your Form Input is not identified exactly in the MOF configuration file then MOF will not know what kind of input and options it should be looking for.

This method also requires some "hidden" input. Read the Documentation or the comments in this underlying HTML to understand what "hidden" input is required.

A Submission from The Web World Hat Store

This example is used to submit a product appearing on a page of your Web Site to the MOF cart processing system. You must enclose this Form Input between the FORM POST tags. Two types of "hidden" input are required:

1. postmode=SINGLEPOST
2. order=Product----Description----Price----Ship----Tax

Note in this example that only 5 Fields are submitted under the name=order. The quantity is seperate input. You can include a "quantity" input box, or send quantity as hidden input. If you do not send "quantity" then MOF will default to one for quantity input.

You can add an unlimited number of options for your Product Input using "SINGLEPOST" mode, as long as you declare all your settings in the MOF configuration file.

The User Input Options will be added to the Description section for that product, and you can tell MOF which of these Options are required input. You can also tell MOF how to format your User Input when it appears in the Description Field of your product.

The World Famous Propeller Hat
	Qty Hat Color Select Color Rainbow Purple Stripes Yellow Solid Sunburst Red Size Select Size Small Medium Large Extra Large Prop Color Propeller Color Bright Red Dull Green Metallic Purple Shinny Yellow

Use a button to send this to the cart
Or use a custom image to send it along to the cart Grouping Submissions Together: The Web World Hat Store

This example follows the "SINGLEPOST" mode above for each item, but simply groups all the seperate POSTings together on one page. You probably don't want to go too far with this layout, before using one of the OrderForm Modes. The OrderForm layout may make more sense for grouping products.

The World Famous Propeller Hat
	Qty Hat Color Select Color Rainbow Purple Stripes Yellow Solid Sunburst Red Size Select Size Small Medium Large Extra Large Prop Color Propeller Color Bright Red Dull Green Metallic Purple Shinny Yellow
The Industrial Work Hat
	Qty Hat Color Select Color Red Blue Yellow Black Size Select Size Small Medium Large Extra Large
The Hardy Caravan Hat
	Hat Color Select Color Red Blue Yellow Black Size Select Size Small Medium Large Extra Large

Happy Ordering
Copyright © Merchant OrderForm v1.53
All Rights Reserved, April 2000 by RGA
These programs may not be distributed without consent of owner.