NFC paytag, and the related security woes thereto.

When we starting our much needed and long overdue website redesign we experimented with mockups internally.  We even went so far as to fully code 1 new design before we decided that it wasn't what we were looking for.

Eventually we commissioned Top Left Design who provided us with the basis (we can't help but tweak and tinker!) of what you see now.  Unfortunately however, we overlooked the obvious:

Our content and products were dated and not suited to the current market.

The default Lemonstand page setup doesn't come with blog pages at all (bizarre I know), however they very helpfully provide documentation which is enough for most people.

One of the missing features though, is a search page!  Oh noes!

It's very easily added though, steps below :)

1. Duplicate your main Blog Archive page.
2. Rename it to Blog Search, update the url as you like.
3. Add the following code at the start of the page:

   You searched for "<?= h(Phpr::$request->getField('search')) ?>"

4. Add the following code in the Post Action Code section of the Action tab:

   if($search = Phpr::$request->getField('search')){
   	$search = '%' . $search . '%';
   	$posts->where(
   		"title LIKE :search OR 
   		description LIKE :search OR 
   		content LIKE :search", 
   		array('search' => $search)
   	);
   }

5. .....
6. Profit!

Now just create a search form that submits to your Blog Search page using a GET method and search variable "search".

The first step in turning a fantastic design in to a usable, refined e-commerce website is experimenting with the various platforms available.  Stumbling on to the winner straight away is nice, but 2 or 3 iterations is more usual.  Eventually you discover the best foundation for your vision.

For the new 3DPixel.net website, we experimented with Wordpress which seemed intially to provide a fantastic platform for the website.  Half way through development though a friend of the company introduced us to the Lemonstand e-Commerce Engine which we immediately recognised as a future industry leader.  It wasn't until we helped develop the new Mountain Valley Wines e-commerce website though that we really realised aside from being fantastic for e-commerce, it's also the best framework we've ever worked with, offering unparalleled customisation that simply removes any restrictions on what is capable with the platform.

I wanted to access the user session for the backend to use in the frontend so that I could give administrators rights to things that only subscribed members would normally be able to access.

Took a bit of digging, but here it is:

$phpr = new Phpr_Security();
$phpr->userClassName = 'Users_User';
$admin = $phpr->getUser();

By default, the Phpr_Security class uses the Phpr_User model, which isn't as fully featured as the Users_User model.  Fortunately Lemonstand added a way of changing the model that's used, so the following line is used to force it to use Users_User, which then allows us access to methods such as is_administrator();

$phpr->userClassName = 'Users_User';