Digital Storefronts and or web-to-print re-visited

[Joe]

How are the people involved with this progressing?

I'm considering trying to roll my own storefront/web-to-print with some open source software like either Joomla or Magento.

I've installed Magento to play around with though it doesn't have any print specific stuff on it yet. You can take a look here:

Magento Demo

(Don't try to buy anything) :laugh:

There is a free web-to-print extension from ZetaPrint but any orders in the future you have to pay ZetaPrint a commission so I'd like to do my own.

digicorn, I know you've mentioned a PDF library of some sort you've used. What is the name of it?

[DigiCorn]

Blocks

We are still struggling with the integration of our storefront (Printlinqs)... but Printlinqs felt our pain, and they're fixing it all exactly the way we want it for $2500, so we're going to let them.

The PDFLib Blocks is for a customer to typeset their own business card, letterhead or whatever on our site. It imposes it and everything - takes us out of the equation. They have to pay via credit card, so a few times a day I get an email with a file to digitally print - they have to approve via pdf online, so I just take the order, load paper, and push the "print" button.

[Joe]

Who writes the code for PDFLib Blocks. You or Printlinqs?

Is your web site running under Windows or Linux/Unix? Or something else?

[David]

here is who we are using:
http://www.w2psoftware.com/

let me know if you need any specifics

[Joe]

I guess....how does it work? Customer logs on, creates their own product and you get a PDF like what digicorn said?

[Joe]

DigiCorn and David...are your sites similar to this?

https://www.sigpress.net/place-an-order.html

[DigiCorn]

We write the PDFLib code... but Printlinqs will if we ask them. If it's simple, they just provide free tech support. If it's complicated then they will charge us.

DigiCorn and David...are your sites similar to this?

https://www.sigpress.net/place-an-order.html

Ours will be when we beautify it. Right now it's really ugly, and I dn't know CSS which doesn't help.

[Joe]

Looking at the PDFLib website it looks pretty freaking complicated. Exactly what kind of code are you writing?

[David]

I'll send you a PM of one of mine, it's for a real client, so don't order anything.

[David]

pm off to you Joe

[DigiCorn]

Looking at the PDFLib website it looks pretty freaking complicated. Exactly what kind of code are you writing?

If I can do it, anyone here can... and probably faster and better

It's mostly similar to html. Here's a sample of what it looks like:

The first picture is an example of the interface and what it looks like.

The second picture is an example of code written for a dropdown menu for multiple iterations of multiple addresses custom tailored for font, font size, line breaks, and other formatting specific to what the customer wanted. This is the nightmare card from hell, and the worst/most complicated code I've had to deal with yet.

[David]

good gawd!
massive string code there!
Mine uses HTML, CSS and a little PHP, a little easier on the eyes for sure.

[t-pat]

Our EFI storefront runs on Unicorn poop.

[Joe]

Looking at the PDFLib website it looks pretty freaking complicated. Exactly what kind of code are you writing?

If I can do it, anyone here can... and probably faster and better

It's mostly similar to html. Here's a sample of what it looks like:

The first picture is an example of the interface and what it looks like.

The second picture is an example of code written for a dropdown menu for multiple iterations of multiple addresses custom tailored for font, font size, line breaks, and other formatting specific to what the customer wanted. This is the nightmare card from hell, and the worst/most complicated code I've had to deal with yet.

So you aren't writing C, C++, Perl, or PHP or some shit like that? And it is basically a GUI you fill in and it generates the raw code? I think to integrate it to your web site you do have to do some of the aforementioned "shit" and I assume Printlinqs did that in the beginning?

[DigiCorn]

Our EFI storefront runs on Unicorn poop.

Really? So that's where my sewage line runs.

So you aren't writing C, C++, Perl, or PHP or some shit like that? And it is basically a GUI you fill in and it generates the raw code? I think to integrate it to your web site you do have to do some of the aforementioned "shit" and I assume Printlinqs did that in the beginning?

No. That long code you saw was for a very complex card. I showed you the worst of the worst case scenarios. It looks intimidating but essentially it breaks down like this (for a business card):

Take a pdf of any business card and make note of locations, fonts, font sizes and if there are images (photos) that might be uploaded by a customer. Leave master items and delete all the changeable fields.

Draw blocks and name them easily identifiable fields (Name, Title, Address, etc.)

Each block can be customized with a special color, font, size, justification, etc. or you can create a paragraph block made up up multiple smaller blocks (and the smaller blocks are set with parameters and told not to print).

The parameters are defined by codes; there's basically about 10-15 codes and an infinite number of customizations you can create, although sometimes you are limited by your font. That code above is to make a pseudo Small Caps look for 34 iterations of 13 addresses in a drop down menu. A typical code for a specific in-line change is like this:

prefix <fontname=Helvetica fontsize=12 encoding=winansi>{Name}

{Name} refers to the block contents and location as drawn on your pdf.

Otherwise, most of the customizations are done through dropdown menus with the Blocks plug-in.