Easier way to add buy buttons – Part 5
By Harry Kaplanian
April 10, 2004
As you were adding information about your stock photos into PayLoadz, the web page would create code for you to copy and paste into your HTML documents. If you paid close attention, you may have noticed a pattern.
Here is a typical piece of PayLoadz/PayPal generated code:
<![CDATA[
<form target="paypal" action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_cart">
<input type="hidden" name="business" value="emailaddress@mailhost.com">
<input type="hidden" name="item_name" value=stockphoto name>
<input type="hidden" name="item_number" value=151-5147_IMG.JPG>
<input type="hidden" name="amount" value="9.99">
<input type="hidden" name="image_url" value="">
<input type="hidden" name="no_shipping" value="1">
<input type="hidden" name="return" value="http://payloadz.com/d1/default.asp">
<input type="hidden" name="cancel_return" value="">
<input type="hidden" name="no_note" value="1">
<input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">
<input type="image" src="../../res/x-click-but22.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="Make payments with PayPal - it's fast, free and secure!">
<input type="hidden" name="add" value="1">
<input type="hidden" name="notify_url" value="http://payloadz.com/pay/index.asp">
<input type="hidden" name="shipping" value="0">
<input type="hidden" name="handling" value="0">
<input type="hidden" name="cbt" value="Continue to Download">
</form>
]]>
Instead of copying and pasting for each of your stock photos, you could simply take the exact same code and paste it as many times as you like in your HTML documents. However, you will need to change 3 lines every time you paste this code.
The first line that needs changing contains “name="item_name" value=stockphoto name”. Simply change “stockphoto name” to the name for the stock photo file that you want to appear on the invoice.
Second, change the line where “name="item_number" value=151-5147_IMG.JPG” to the actual file name.
Finally, you may need to change the price to match what was entered into PayLoadz. The price is in the line containing “name="amount" value="9.99"”.
There is a fourth optional change here. You may decide that PayPal's or PayLoadz standard “buy” buttons clash with the style and colors of your website. If so, you can change the button used by changing the line that contains “input type="image" src="../../res/x-click-but22.gif”, to the path and file name of the image you want to use. The example already has that change.
How do these changes speed things up? This may seem like a difficult way of doing things, but after you read the next section on batch loading of PayLoadz information, you will see a need for this method. Also, in chapter seven, we will cover using a batch file utility to automate the process of preparing your images for your stock photo web site. In that section, we will cover how to modify things so that the utility will automatically place this code and make the required changes for you! This will save an incredible amount of your time!
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