I am trying to modify an existing XML package of Aspdotnetstorefront Multistore. It's an internal XML package to show the variants of a certain product. What I did to start with was to copy-paste the whole code as is and throw it into a new custom XML package. The problem is that it works fine in the original package but not in the copied package. When I try to run it the function "AddtoCartForm" crashes the page and show the following error while display in red the line that contains the function call:
An HtmlHelper is required for this method. Make sure to specify one when you call the RunXmlPackage method
The format of the function is:
<xsl:value-of select="aspdnsf:AddtoCartForm(ProductID, VariantID, 1, 1, $SelectedSize, $SelectedColor)" disable-output-escaping="yes"/>
I removed the line with the function just to be sure and then everything else works fine. I have no idea what's wrong here. Everything is identical unless by the structure of the url which calls the package:
For the internal package it is: \product\123456
For the custom package it is: \topic\packagename?ProductID=123456
I checked the XML produced by the SPs, the runtime and requested data and it's basically the same in both cases. The ProductID and VariantID values are there. SelectedColor and SelectedSize are not in the XML (not even in the internal package) so it may be just providing null value and probably it's not necessary anyway.
And there is more. If I supress the productid value from the url like this:
\topic\packagename
It won't crash the page (but also won't render because there will be not be any value to process).
In any way I cannot see why it wouldn't work just passing the variable in the querystring (that is basically what it does in the original package even in a different format) and the var value (productid) it getting there. However it seems that it is indeed the url format that is not pleasing the package but it doesn't make too much sense to me. I am over this for several days already and nothing I do seem to produce any positive result. :-(
I looked up online for some documentation but didn't get lucky and didn't find absolutely anything. In extreme cases I try to reach the Vortx support (and they usually answers me giving some valueable clue) but this time it seems that for this specific issue there will not be any help unless I pay an obscene hour fee and unfortunately it's out of question... LoL!
Any idea?
UPDATE: We don't use Multistore regular search tool. Due to the nature of our products (recycled car parts) we have a custom search tool that will try to find 'similar' items that MAY fit the user needs when we don't have the EXACT part. I don't know if you are ware of but several mechanical car parts are interchangeable among different models and makes (like alternators, AC compressors, battery, suspension, cooling system, etc), so when one of our customers needs a part to fix his car he won't tell us the part code; instead he will tell us the car model, year, and generic name of the part so we will try to find the part for him. It does mean that a certain Corolla part will fit perfectly in a Honda Accord and so on. Some times we have some parts in stock that MAY fit his car but we are not absolutely sure. When it happens we will show those parts for the customer and he will decide if he can take his chances. For the sake of customer comfort we want to show all these parts in the same page, but since they normally are variants of different products we cannot use the regular product page for this purpose (because the product page will only show variants of ONE product at time). For this reason I am going to write a package - a modified version of the product page - that will do that but I am struggling with the AddtoCartForm function. In fact I JUST found a workaround by adding the item to the cart accessing directly the /shoppingcart/addtocart script and now my problem is being to force it return to a specific url after to add the item to the shopping cart...
The error has to do with the topic token able to properly get html helper filled out.
I do question why testing is being done on a topic. To test a new product xmlpackage I normally change change the xmlpackage for just one product in a testing environment.
If chaning the product xmlpackage isn't possible then I suggest using the XmlPackageController/engine instead. Which is documented on page https://help.aspdotnetstorefront.com/1000/xml_packages.htm under the heading of "Invoking XML Packages by Themselves". If using the XmlPackageController make certain that the allowengine attribute is set to true in the xmlpackage otherwise that will throw an error as well.