adding tinymce to wp ecommerce additional descriptions.
I’ve added a new category on this site to blog about various WordPress issues. I’ve recently closed my own personal web development blog because I just didn’t have the time to contribute to it on a regular basis. So this new category will hopefully make up for it.
Lost of styling option in wp e-commerce 3.8 additional description field.
If you’re a user of the wp e-commerce plugin for WordPress from getshopped then you’ll know about the major update that has just happened. It’s good news and will make the plugin much more powerful but there are a few problems with it as it stands. In the old plugin you could type in html code into the additional description box and do some styling – but that has gone in the new wp e-commerce 3.8.
While you had to hand code the description it was a useful feature. Sadly in wp e-commerce 3.8 it’s no longer available. I’m not sure whether it is a bug or intentional so I tried to join the forum at the site but I never got a reply back from the sign up form. I also tried to post a comment on the blog that covered the different bugs but again no joy – it did not get published for some reason. There was nothing else I could do but to roll up my sleeves and get dug into the code and fix the problem.
And while I was in the code I decided to go the whole way and install a tinymce editor for the additional descriptions field to make it much easier to style the content. I’ve now made the hack available for you to purchase for £10.00.
Adding tinyMCE to additional description field.
This new additional description tinymce editor works only in wp e-commerce 3.8. If enough people ask then I’ll code the file in wp e-commerce 3.7 version to give the same functionality. But there has to be enough people who want the change for me to commit the time to do it.
The standard tinymce editor for WordPress doesn’t give a lot of functionality regarding adding images so I recommend you install the tinymce advanced plugin. This give you the install image button. To add images to the additional description field in wp e-commerce just upload them using the standard WordPress upload image facility and then use the add image button to link to the image. There is no upload image ability directly within the tinymce editor for the field.
If you want to see the styling in action for the additional description field then take a look at phonelingo. Click the more details link at the bottom of the product to see how the content has been styled and additional images installed. If you click on the product link you will see the styling in action on the single product page.
Bug fix to do list in wp e-commerce 3.8.
There’s a couple of other bugs in wp e-commerce 3.8 that I want to fix after Easter if the developers don’t get around to it. These are fixing the problem with the price range widget and the product tags widget. Both of these return a no products in this group when a link is clicked on. These problems don’t seem to feature anywhere on the plugin home page.
For now though if you want the hack to add tinymce to the WordPress e-commerce plugin you can buy it now. Remember it’s only for wp e-commerce 3.8.
Update: some themes seems to be stripping out the <br /> and <p> tags when you save. To remedy this just add the tinymce advanced plugin and in the setting tick the box which says stop stripping out the tags.
You can get the latest version of this adding timymce editor to wp -ecommerce here.
