A2H GO
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Registered: 14th Sep 04
Location: Stoke
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Just looking for pointers on how to bring this to life. I sell iPhone parts and I'm having an eCommerce site done at the moment but its just a cheap job to get me started.
I then had an idea, I'd like to implement something whereby the user can 'build an iPhone' and through a series of selections/dropdowns they can choose the screen(colour, gold, silver etc), bezel(colour, diamond, gold etc), rear cover, buttons and home button. Once or as the selections are being made the phone is somehow built up below the selections.
Is that possible without spending mega money having someone do it for me? Wondering if to call off my website being made now as they're using Zencart (i think) and I doubt it would work with this anyway unless I had a link to say 'workshop' that took the user to another site from my shop that did this.
[Edited on 09-05-2012 by A2H GO]
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Whittie
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Registered: 11th Aug 06
Location: North Wales Drives: BMW, Corsa & Fiat
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It's a ballache with Zencart but can be achieved through a few addons, i did one ages ago for a t shirt company > red sleeves, white collar, black shirt etc etc.
Just had to get an image of every possible outcome really.
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James
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It sounds fairly bespoke so I would imagine you would need something custom built for it to look decent, that will cost quite a lot.
I'm sure you could probably modify one of the off-the-shelf packages to do it somehow, but it would probably look rubbish and be quite obvious that you've tried to shoehorn your solution into one of the existing packages.
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ed
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Registered: 10th Sep 03
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I'm sure you could get someone to build a little web app for you to be able to sell things that way - it's quite a time consuming process to build things like that so it wouldn't be a cheap thing to have done.
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A2H GO
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Registered: 14th Sep 04
Location: Stoke
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Yeah I'm having visions of having to get pictures of every possible obscure combination of which there could be 100's.
Another option would somehow be an 'exploded' picture so the chosen parts line up next to or on top of eachother without actually being togehter, if they were all photographed on a pure white or black background it could look like one image. Like this but only say 3 maybe 4 layers and actual pictures of the items
I think its getting the images to overlap without blocking the previous image that will be the issue.
[Edited on 09-05-2012 by A2H GO]
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Laney
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Registered: 6th May 03
Location: Leeds
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If you wanted to enter the dark world of Magento that does configurable products by default. The front-end you're describing would take considerable amounts of work though 
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A2H GO
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Registered: 14th Sep 04
Location: Stoke
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Dark world of magneto 
I could compromise with the parts simply lining up next to eachother, just wondered if there was anything out there I could bastardise (if thats the right word  )
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ed
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Registered: 10th Sep 03
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You could get someone to create a nice set of vector iPhone renderings, that way you could apply different colours to the components using SVG or canvas graphics in the browser - that way you'd avoid the need for loads of pics.
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Bart
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Registered: 19th Aug 02
Location: Midsomer Norton, Bristol Avon
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It actually sounds very simple? like standard product attributes, i.e
buying a t-shirt you select Size and Colour from drop down menus.
I cant see why you cant have each option with the drop down boxes.
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Whittie
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Registered: 11th Aug 06
Location: North Wales Drives: BMW, Corsa & Fiat
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Keep it simple imo. Standard shop with attributes for different colours or something.
Too much work for in effect, a standard shop.
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A2H GO
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Registered: 14th Sep 04
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I guess its just a gimmic to add that interactive feel of building something over just selecting an item from a box.
EDIT: I think I worked out if I have 10 screen types, bezels and backs thats 1000 combinations. 
[Edited on 09-05-2012 by A2H GO]
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Whittie
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Registered: 11th Aug 06
Location: North Wales Drives: BMW, Corsa & Fiat
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Few weeks worth of solid inputting there my man!
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A2H GO
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Registered: 14th Sep 04
Location: Stoke
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quote:
Originally posted by Whittie
Keep it simple imo. Standard shop with attributes for different colours or something.
Too much work for in effect, a standard shop.
Looks like this is what I'll end up with
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Dom
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Registered: 13th Sep 03
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Reasonably straight forward if you'd used Flash, although you'd be stuck with solid colours (to do gloss would require the use of images and using filters; bit more work but not impossible) 
Edit - Thinking about it you could also use HTML5, although you'd be limiting yourself to a few browsers.
[Edited on 09-05-2012 by Dom]
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ed
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Could do this sort of thing with JavaScript and CSS, could make it fancy with HTML5. Flash has it's place, but I don't think you'd need it to move a few images about 
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Dom
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quote:
Originally posted by ed
Could do this sort of thing with JavaScript and CSS, could make it fancy with HTML5. Flash has it's place, but I don't think you'd need it to move a few images about
Hence why you'd use Flash properly and use the AS3 colour filters (would require a single vector for solid colours; only gloss finishes would you require the use of a flat BG-image for the 'shine')  'Shifting' images around with JS would be slow and bloaty in comparison.
[Edited on 09-05-2012 by Dom]
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ed
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Or you use SVG's and change the colours or you use PNG's with the coloured bits left transparent and you change the background colours.
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A2H GO
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Registered: 14th Sep 04
Location: Stoke
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Sounds way over my head and not paying someone to do it so a standard shop it is 
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Rob_Quads
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Registered: 29th Mar 01
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quote:
Originally posted by Dom
Hence why you'd use Flash properly
Using flash for marketing an Apple based product is probably not a wise move.
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Dom
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Registered: 13th Sep 03
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quote:
Originally posted by Rob_Quads
quote:
Originally posted by Dom
Hence why you'd use Flash properly
Using flash for marketing an Apple based product is probably not a wise move.
I suspect creating and selling Apple parts is more of a 'not a wise move' than using Flash on a e-commerce site
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Laney
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Registered: 6th May 03
Location: Leeds
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I think it was aimed at the tiff between Apple and Flash
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A2H GO
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Registered: 14th Sep 04
Location: Stoke
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Looks like mendmyi beat me to it...
https://mendmyi.com/colourlab/iphone/iphone-4s/
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Ian
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Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
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Thing is - they're all separately positioned so assuming you could line them up, you wouldn't need to render the outcomes as single images.
I'd be using an SVG and re-writing the vector attributes when the user changes their mind.
Could also be done in Flash but is that not a tad ironic.
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Sam
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Registered: 24th Dec 99
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I don't think it's that difficult to do.
Just have images of every possible outcome as Whittie says, and use jQuery/JavaScript/AJAX to update things as per user selections. Your web designer should know how to do this alternatively hire someone off here to code it for you.
That way it'll work on all modern desktop and mobile browsers.
Edit - not sure how well the SVG thing will work as Ian suggested, but sounds easier than multiple images as per my suggestion
[Edited on 17-09-2012 by Sam]
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Ian
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Registered: 28th Aug 99
Location: Liverpool
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Do you need every possible outcome?
In that meandmyi.com one, they don't depend on each other, you're just configuring four independent images which happen to overlap on different layers.
Every possible outcome with four choices is a big number, even 5 you need 625 of them. Add another, that's another 125 images you need to make. Graft.
Its not like putting a body kit on a car and needing that same bodykit in different colours, those phone panels are completely discrete.
As I understand it anyway.
[Edited on 17-09-2012 by Ian]
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