AbleMods is excited to announce the new Returns Manager 2.0 module.  This major version release includes plenty of new features like shopper-side return requests, exchange orders and enhanced reporting.

Check out the Returns Manager 2.0 module today!

Click here to view the Returns Manager 2.0 Change List

Minor update to the QB module was released today.  A few performance improvements and a couple of obscure bug fixes.  Nothing super major unless you’ve seen noticeable site degradation since your module was installed.

Complete Change List can be found on our Support Site

Introduction

This article talks about manually handling the sorting routine of a GridView control.   When using an object class as the Datasource for a GridView control in AbleCommerce, the GridView control will not automatically manage sorting.  This only works when using a SQL-based DataSourceObject.

So you’re left with creating your own method to handle the Sorting event on the GridView control.  Not so tough, there’s plenty of programming code examples in Google.   What’s harder to find is an example that actually retains the previous sort order for each column.

Enter:  e.SortDirection.  It’s exposed in the Sorting event, but you need a way to store the previous sort order for each column so the routine knows which way to flip it (Ascending or Descending).  If you don’t handle it, clicking a column always results in an Ascending sort order.

Here’s a good piece of code that makes nice use of Viewstate:

protected void ProductsGrid_Sorting(object sender, GridViewSortEventArgs e)

{

    if (e.SortExpression == (string)ViewState["SortColumn"])

    {

        // We are resorting the same column, so flip the sort direction

        e.SortDirection =

            ((SortDirection)ViewState["SortColumnDirection"] == SortDirection.Ascending) ?

            SortDirection.Descending : SortDirection.Ascending;

    }

    // Apply the sort

    BindProductsGrid(e.SortExpression, ConvertSortDirection(e.SortDirection));

    ViewState["SortColumn"] = e.SortExpression;

    ViewState["SortColumnDirection"] = e.SortDirection;

}

Introduction

Often times you find yourself working with collections of products while programming in AbleCommerce 7.  But, now you need to sort those products on a specific field and you’re not sure how.

Well it’s incredibly easy if you use the AbleCommerce object class ProductCollection.  The ProductCollection class has a convenient sort method that works on any field.

Remember that the example variable _ResultProducts is a ProductCollection object.  This technique does not work when using List<Product>

// sort the results

CommerceBuilder.Common.GenericComparer _MyComparer = new GenericComparer("Price", GenericComparer.SortDirection.ASC);

_ResultProducts.Sort(_MyComparer);

If you haven’t noticed yet, AbleCommerce search methods don’t always use ProductCollection as the return object.  Sometimes it’s a List<Product>.  If you need to sort a List<Product>, just copy the items to a ProductCollection object using a foreach() loop like this:

List<Product> _OldProducts = new List<Product>();

ProductCollection _SortableProducts = new ProductCollection();

// POPULATE YOUR _OldProducts //

...

// Now copy the products to a sortable collection

foreach (Product _Product in _OldProducts)

{

    _SortableProducts.Add(_Product);

}

// sort the results

CommerceBuilder.Common.GenericComparer _MyComparer = new GenericComparer("Price", GenericComparer.SortDirection.ASC);

_ResultProducts.Sort(_MyComparer);

After upgrade of my MDaemon 10 installation to version 11, my WorldClient essentially broke.  I could log into my WorldClient, but the right window contents were always blank or empty.   I could see message counts in the left side, all the folders etc.  Left side worked great.  But no matter what folder I clicked, the right side was empty.

Since I only used WorldClient when I travel, it was more of a hassle than an issue.  I could use the Simple theme or Mobile theme to get what I needed.  But the Standard and LookOut themes continued to have missing content.  This morning I finally decided it was time to clean up some old issues.  So I dug into it via Google and finally figured out the cause.

Apparently the ability to customize the columns in the right-pane window of the WorldClient view is new to version 11 of MDaemon.  Unfortunately the upgrade install failed to actually SET those columns to be visible.  If you look closely in your right-pane window of WorldClient, you’ll notice there are no column headings.  AHA ! 

The solution is incredibly simple.  You have to tell WorldClient what columns you want to see in each view like Inbox, Contacts, Tasks, Calendar etc.  To do this, just click the Options choice at the bottom of your left-side window pane.  Then choose the Columns menu choice like shown:

On the next screen, notice how NONE of the checkboxes are selected.  So WorldClient is essentially told not to display any columns for anything.  Not sure why a developer would allow this scenario but that’s for another discussion

To resolve the problem, just click the checkbox for each column you want to appear like this:

When you’re done, be sure to click the Save button at the top:

Once your settings are saved, click back to your Inbox and you should see all your emails just you expect.

NOTE:  This has to be done per-user, so if you have multiple accounts you must do this for each one individually.  Joy !