oh, product types would be a great addition! then people can define lower costs for lighter items. perfect for a very small business like the one i'm working for where they have much more time than money.

but, maybe a kinda dumb question - where can i find the development version of the taxes module? i seem to remember trying to get development copies before and not being able to successfully install some kind of cvs software on my computer. i'm quite low-tech when it comes down to it. :/

Oh, I might have to have a look at how you did the tax in the development version as well. I also needed a more complex way of defining shipping. Different product types have different amounts and setups for shipping, so I actually took the tablerate module that was contributed and extended it so a table rate can be entered for each type of product, and so country, zone and postcode can have different amounts. It is quite annoying though because if you need to define different rates for many different areas, plus each different product type, it is easy to make a mistake, and also very time consuming.
So basically you can enter the following:

country_code|zone_code|postcode 1:4,4:8,8:10

Or, if you leave out country_code, zone_code and postcode, it is just the default version that is used if there isn't a match in the specific ones. Unfortunately you have to know the codes of the country and zone, so like Australia is 36, and one of the zones is 86...something like that. I was going to make it more user friendly later, but I just think the whole thing is too complex to begin with and should have a full user friendly way of entering shipping stuff.

I also thought of copying the way the tax module works for shipping, but I just didn't have the time to work on the frontend bit for my project. I'm hoping that after this big project is over, I'll be able to turn a handful of solutions I worked on into general solutions and be able to give them to the community. I'd be interested in helping in this shipping solution you have put together by copying the tax module if you like, because like I said, I had the same thought.

great that other people will use this module, too! tomorrow i will clean out the unnecessary fields mentioned by lyle above and then put it in... uh... ?contributions? so that anyone interested can use and/or improve it.

my client also wants to offer free shipping on orders over a certain amount, so i'll try to implement that as well before i upload it.

then the only thing missing will be the "per product" settings, but that shouldn't be too difficult to integrate once we get our hands on lyle's new and improved tax module.

by the way, i called this module 'geoshipping' because it's shipping based on geographical area, but if anyone else thinks of a better name let me know.

Each shipping module has it's own shipping type that can be assigned to products that it can work with. Nearly all of the ones made so far are for small package or parcel type shipping, but now I think there should be one for digital products. Tomorrow I'll work on rebuilding the documentation for making shipping modules, in case someone wants to take this on.

In the dev version, taxes now can differentiate between product types, so that will be in the next release.

No, the page you're looking for is Shipping Quote settings, right above the Shipping settings. Since it's looking like I won't need any shipping settings, I'll probably do away with that page.

If you only have Flatrate, then you'll only have the default 'box' type available because it's designed to work with every kind of product. If you had more, you could set the default shipping type in the "Quote Methods" section. You can also set it for individual products on their edit page.

To do all that you need, I'd suggest creating your own custom shipping quote module. It can define as many shipping types as you need and return the exact rates you want based on the conditions you specify.

what are you getting inside max_amount?

great, got max_amount working! (it was a problem with my understanding how the calculation actually worked). now i'm working on the product types.

hi,

don't want to be a pain, but i'm really looking forward to this module. as I need it in order to migrate for e-comm to ubercart.

Idan

Hi,

First of all thank you very much. I installed it and I haven't encountered any problems or bugs.

Just a few questions:

1. I noticed you can have two rules for the same country, and at the end the both apply. is this on purpose?

2. another thing is that there is no consideration for product weight...maybe the rule should have a flat rate like it has now, and a price per weight. (this is really important I think).

3. in the checkout page, there's a section to calculate shipping rates...maybe this should be added there too?

4. Maybe there should be a heirarchy in the rules, I mean if you configure a price for a zone, and then another for the country of that zone, what happens? currently I suspect that both are added. Maybe it should be the lowest in the tree (the zone)?

Anyway...I think this is a great module, but the weight thing I think is very crucial and very missing I think.

I'll keep on testing...

the module works for me with the shipping quotes module, and flat rate, and weight modules.

hi guys,

glad you like the module and that it didn't do anything weird to your system, arbel. now, about your questions:

1. I noticed you can have two rules for the same country...

this is something i didn't think about at all - i guess it's just a check that's missing. i'll look into it last as i think some of the other points raised are more important.

2. another thing is that there is no consideration for product weight...

that's true. since you both mentioned this, i think it's the most important thing. probably more important than getting the module working "per-product" even. so the weight would be grabbed from the individual products and then added together to calculate the total weight of the package as zmove suggests? i can probably pinch this code from the shipping module. i guess the idea would be that we can specify different shipping costs for different weight ranges (0-100g, 100g-500g, etc), adding a rule for each different weight range per country? let me know if that's what you guys had in mind.

3. in the checkout page, there's a section to calculate shipping rates

this would be really cool, but could be beyond my capabilities. i'll take a look after i've worked out the weight thing.

4. Maybe there should be a heirarchy in the rules

yes! i assumed that this would behave the same way as it does in the taxes module (where smaller areas override the rules for larger ones). if it's not working, it's probably something i removed by accident. i'll check it out.

5. comment from zmove about customs tax

would it be better to calculate this with the taxes module? i didn't check how the two modules work together. shall do more testing.

got a few things to do today, but i'll try to take a look at the weight issue either this afternoon or tomorrow and let you know.

Actually, smaller area tax rules don't override larger areas any more. That's the way it was originally intended, but it got changed pretty quickly.

The latest tax module does give tax rules a weight, so they're applied in order, but that only matters when you have taxes taxing taxes.

i was working on it yesterday evening (woke up this morning realising a small sql omission, now that is sick) and am making a bit of progress.

it should work so that you can define as many rules as you like for each zone:
australia 0-250g $10 max:$100
australia 250g-500g $20 max:$100
australia 500g-1000g $30 max:$100
australia 1000g-5000g $30 max:n/a

each rule will have its own maximum amount, so in this example all orders to australia over $100 are shipped for free, unless they weigh more than 1000g.

it would be nice if i can figure out how to have a 'no max' weight definition, otherwise the upper weight ranges will have to be defined as very large in order to make the calculation correctly.

a couple of questions:

- i have no idea how this would work for pounds and ounces. how do these quantities usually look? will they have to be converted to a metric amount before calculation?

- the system is returning the weights rounded up. can anyone tell me if ubercart does this automatically, or is this perhaps a bug in this module?

and a question for lyle (or perhaps another phper can explain):

- in line 435 of the taxes.module, this statement appears:

thanks for the advice about the weight units (pounds, grams, etc) and the = sign!

i think i'm almost there with the flat rate weight ranges (0-250g = $10, etc) but i have another coding question:

for a few reasons, i'd like the variables for minimum weight, maximum weight and maximum amount to be optional. i've set them so that NULL = yes and DEFAULT = null in the database table, but blank fields are still being set to "0" instead of remaining empty. i suspect this is something in the php? these variables are all "float" and "unsigned". i tried removing floatval, but to no avail. none of them are passing through the validation script, so it can't be that...

Hi,

Great work on the updated module....Is there any chance you might add this:

no possibility for defining price per unit of weight (e.g.: 200g x 0.10p/g = $20);

I really need it for my shipping. I know a bit of php and i've looked at the code of the module, but it seems to be above my knowledge...I don't even know where to start =)

Idan

Ok, I've modified the module a bit..

I've added another field to indicate whether the rule is to be a flat rate or a per weight muliplication.

It all works well...except that there's a bug. I'm not sure if I created it or it was there before (most likely I did it).

The order page only takes into account the first rule, and adds a line that there was an error in shipping calculation...

I can't find the bug...

Ok...I fixed everything and it works now!

I'm uploading it here for megg to take a look and give the ok.

As mentioned in the previous post. I simply added another field when adding a rule, this field allows you to choose whether you'd like the value to be added only once per order, or multiplied against the weight ($1 per kilo for example).
If you wish to use both, simply create two rules.

If you have one for use over a specific weight and the other below it, simply use the min max fields megg created.

I think this is a superb module. Good job megg.

Idan

wow, idan! you added the price per weight feature - yay for you! i'm going to install this and test it hopefully thursday.

i totally agree about the multi-country feature. i'm going to see if i can think of a way to do that...

yes, that's what i was thinking, too. so from the users' perspective, they create their shipping rules (or rule groups, in the case of 0-250g, 250g-500g, etc) and then assign any number of countries/locations to each rule with the multiple select you describe. once assigned to a rule, that country is no longer available in the multiple select, so it can't be assigned twice...

thanks!

Hi,

I'd ask that you consider two features:

1) make each rule have a flat rate and a per_lb cost
with a 0 default for either coefficient if nothing is entered.
This "linear" rule (y = ax+b) covers a wide range of shipping options.

2) have a default rule that applies for the case when no other
rule has been applied. For example, if there is only a "US",
and a "Canada" rule, then the default rule could apply to every
other country. It'd work great and could bypass in a lot of
cases, the need to enter multiple countries as groups.

Thanks!

@ dkashen

yeah, it would be great to have some defaults b/c as it is now, you have to set at least 120 rules (1 per country) in order to use the module. :/

that kind of feature is a bit over my head, though - anyone else like to take a crack at it?

i also had a look at the possibility of creating another database table which would allow the user to assign countries to groups. then the world could be divided into, say, 5 postal zones and only 5 rules would have to be entered.

however, i'm sad to say that it's a bit beyond my skill level at the moment. i gave it a good try, but i could see that it would take me days to work out how to program something like that and i just don't have the time right now.

@ lyle

i'm not sure if this module uses the shipping hooks. i really just adjusted the taxes module on quite a basic level, so if the shipping hooks are used there, they'll be used in geoshipping as well.

i won't be surprised if the geoshipping module has a short life, because there's bound to be a better way to do all this. i see it as more of an interim measure than a longterm solution.

i found one tiny wee mistake in the last zip, so here it is again. i'll also update it in the contrib.

Megg, does your zip file include my addition for flat rate?

Also, I really think we need to solve the default problem somehow...so there's at least one default shipping value.

Idan

Well,

Another big update to the module.

Now it has default rules otherwise known as anywhere. Basically when you create a rule, you choose either, country, zone, state or anywhere.

If you choose anywhere, then this rule will affect all shippable purchases.
you can have as many of these rules as you wish, and also create flat rate rules, in addition to per weight rules.

If your purchase falls under the scope of a regular rule, then the default rule will not take affect. Basically it's a shipping rate for everything unless there's another specific shipping rate.

There is one small bug: after you choose the anywhere scope, you go to another page where for other scopes there would be more options, but here I tried to print out some text or even skip it but didn't quite get it to happen. So you get an empty screen and you need to press next again...doesn't affect the script what so ever, just looks weired.

Anyway...attached is the file, megg please take a look.

Idan

idan, that's fantastic! the "anywhere" location will definitely save us all some typing!

i've had a quick look at it, and although there are no errors, it's not working exactly how i would expect, but i am pretty tired, so i want to take a fresh look at it tomorrow evening and see exactly what's happening. but it looks like it's definitely almost there!

ps the previous zip i uploaded to contrib does contain your flat rate vs weight rate additions.

ah,
so that receiving quotes status bar is disconnected from uc_geo ?
maybe we can just suppress it's on screen display . . .

hmm,
I tried
commenting out the ajax in the uc_quote.js code ,
but there were still a few other places where
"click to calculate shipping costs" was visible.

Also, uc_quote is a prerequisite for having an ubercart store
as far as I can tell from the module admin fields.

So,
what's the easiest way to disable the active quoting (for now) ?

Thanks,
DK

i've been trying for a few hours now to get this module working with the new default setting, but am having no luck.

as far as i can tell, the default "anywhere" setting isn't working correctly because it applies to _all_ countries. so if the calculation hits the "anywhere" rule before it hits any of the specific ones, the calculation stops because it has a rule to apply.

i can't figure out how to loop through an array and then, if certain criteria aren't met (no specific shipping rules for the location selected), to then repeat the calculation based on the "anywhere" rule. by the time the script has figured out that there is no match, the loop has finished and the opportunity to grab any default rules is gone.

an elegant solution would be to figure out how to make geographical locations over-rule each other like we planned to do for postcode, zone and country. so that if there are no postcode settings, zone is used, then if there are no zone settings, country is used, then if there are no country settings, "anywhere" is used. does anyone have any hints on how to do this with php?

that's wiered because it's working for me...i'll take another look.

you can take a look at my site here: http://arbel-designs.com/drupal/drupal-5.1

there's a rule for anywhere, two rules for israel, and another rule for Afghanistan. If you ship to either countries, the specific rule is used, if you choose a different country the anywhere rule is used.

Hi,
On our own site I have six rules (flat+per_lb) for 3 zones (US,CA, and DF (everywhere else).
(see attached setup screen shot).

I've attached checkoput screen shots that
show the US & CA rules are applying correctly ,
but I haven't been able to get the DF rule to apply

I am using Drupal 5.2 and php 5.0
maybe that makes a difference . .

if I can find the simple "printf" equivalent for PHP,
I can help debug what's happening over&above just reporting
a bad result.

Thanks,
DK

ok, after a quick check that's the problem...i'll see about fixing it.