APF Bridge Demo And Development Site

Hello and thank you in advance for your time. Here is a problem that I am encountering:

Problem:
The generated query string is missing the "Itemid=" parameter.

Store Setup:
We've organized Amazon products, such as books, as follows:
Each book is a content item with a description (joomla intro text) and an APF feed for that book such as {APF Action="ItemInclude" ItemId="1570714347"} (joomla main text). This approach allows us to add our review of the book and allows us to search for the book in the joomla admin to see if a particular book has been added. The books are displayed based on their category assignment.

Trouble shooting:
I verified that the APF Bridge is working by going to the store page at http://engagingdiscussions.com/index.php?option=com_apf_bridge&Itemid=94

Notice that the Itemid parameter is included in this query string. Everything works if I start from this initial page. I can search for product, view the larger image and add the item to the shopping cart etc.

Here is what the url looks like after clicking on a book based on a search: /index.php?option=com_apf_bridge&Itemid=94&query=Operation::ItemLookup--ItemId::1570714347

Notice the "Itemid=94" parameter is included here.

The Itemid issue is encountered when we use our main menu to navigate to the books we recommend, for example:

from the main site (http://www.engagingdiscussions.com) I click on the "Resources" menu
clicking on the first item ("10,000 ways to say I Love you") brings up the APF Bridge feed for the item
All the links on this page however are missing the Itemid query string argument and clicking on any of the links, for example "add to cart" produces the following error:

You are not authorised to view this resource.
You need to login.

If I manually add the Itemid query string argument directly in the address bar url it works fine.

I have searched your support forum as well as google and google groups but have not found a solution. I am not sure where I can correct this and would appreciate any information you can provide me to lead me in the right direction.


Edited by Dean - just to try and make post fit better on page.

Post edited by: DeanMarshall, at: 2007/12/31 01:39

The bridge and Mambot try to detect the correct Itemid by searching the Main Menu for the APF Bridge component's menu entry. When an Itemid is already present in the url it is used, if not the autodetectin kicks in.

If it isn't present in the main menu, the bridge and mambot build links without the Itemid - which used to work fine. The changes to Joomla from 1.0.12 onwards where the method of 'guessing' the Itemid was changed *may* be causing this problem.

If you are using Joomla 1.0.13 there is an option in global config to revert to the pre J 1.0.12 system. This may work for you.


Alternatively you may need to publish the APF bridge compnent to the main menu to get things working. You *should* be able to add the component to the menu but unpublish the link - but again this is dependent on Joomla and these things have changed a little over time.

Hope that helps.

Dean

Thanks for the quick response Dean.

We are currently using Joomla version 1.0.12 Stable [ Sunfire ]. I looked in the global configuration section but did not see an option to revert to an earlier version but that may be because I started with this version, it's not an upgrade.

I did create the menu item as you suggested and that did not correct the issue wether published or not.

The issue seems to be related in the way the content item link calls the APF bridge (the link to the main text which actually has the APF feed). If you notice the Itemid parameter is included in the content item url.

Is there a way to include the Itemid in the APF feed string? for example: {APF Action="ItemInclude" ItemId="1570714347" id="32"}

I am just now getting familiar with Joomla but I am a programmer and would not mind digging in to help resolve this issue. I just need some direction as to where to get started. I am not a php or perl expert but I pick things up fairly quickly. I typically program in c#, java or vb.net (asp.net, javascript).

The Itemid of the content item (article) doesn't count. It is the Itemid of the store that is needed.

When in the store the Itemid propogates - elsewhere the Itemid is looked up from the main menu.

So the problem is *probably* down to Joomla1.0.12
The new way of guessing Itemids was introduced in 1.0.12 - the backwards compatibility option wasn't added until 1.0.13 - good eh?

If the store is published to the Main menu - and it must be the MAIN MENU not another menu the itemid of the full store should be discovered and used.

All I can think is that your content has been 'cached' earlier and you are looking at a previously generated page stored without the Itemid.

Does that sound feasilble?

Try clearing out the APF rlated entries from the /cache/ folder.
I'd be glad to take a look for you in a few days time if you haven't got to the bottom of things.

Dean

Post edited by: DeanMarshall, at: 2007/12/31 05:01

Ok, problem solved.

I was publishing the store to a menu item under the "mainmenu" menu, this did not work.

To solve the problem I created a new "menu" and then published the store as a sub menu item.

Thanks again Dean for your input.

Martin