The countries and states tables and the way they are used have not changed in the 13 years since I started using Miva Merchant.
The problem:
1. These tables are not relational. If they were, we could add states from any country in the world, linked to the the country table. Then after selecting a country we could populate the state field appropriately. Merchant seems to assume the USA is the only place in the world with states. Shipping services need to know the country and state codes to provide accurate shipping rates and expecting customers to key in the province code when asking for the province name is unrealistic.
Solution Link these tables with an ID field and allow adding states by selecting the country first.
2. We are unable deactivate a country and must delete it to remove it from display. The first problem, if later we want to ship to that country, customers have to recreate the database record. But more importantly, when creating shipping or payment rules, Merchant provides a country inclusion list. So if I want to exclude a list of countries that support terrorism, we have to Select All of the records and then deselect the ones we want to exclude. Then we have to repeat that process for every place we want to exclude country in shipping or payment options.
Solution Provide the ability to deactivate a country without removing it. Of course API Queries have to take account of this new field.
In short add a country.active field, a state,country_id field and a state.active field to the tables. Then link the table and update the interface to reflect that link. Finally at minimum add Canadian provinces to the states table.
In new store templates, change the customer information interface to prompt for the country first, the via Ajax, query the table and populate a state select box or prompt for a province code.
While I enjoy getting paid to make this happen for clients, shouldn't this be built in?
The problem:
1. These tables are not relational. If they were, we could add states from any country in the world, linked to the the country table. Then after selecting a country we could populate the state field appropriately. Merchant seems to assume the USA is the only place in the world with states. Shipping services need to know the country and state codes to provide accurate shipping rates and expecting customers to key in the province code when asking for the province name is unrealistic.
Solution Link these tables with an ID field and allow adding states by selecting the country first.
2. We are unable deactivate a country and must delete it to remove it from display. The first problem, if later we want to ship to that country, customers have to recreate the database record. But more importantly, when creating shipping or payment rules, Merchant provides a country inclusion list. So if I want to exclude a list of countries that support terrorism, we have to Select All of the records and then deselect the ones we want to exclude. Then we have to repeat that process for every place we want to exclude country in shipping or payment options.
Solution Provide the ability to deactivate a country without removing it. Of course API Queries have to take account of this new field.
In short add a country.active field, a state,country_id field and a state.active field to the tables. Then link the table and update the interface to reflect that link. Finally at minimum add Canadian provinces to the states table.
In new store templates, change the customer information interface to prompt for the country first, the via Ajax, query the table and populate a state select box or prompt for a province code.
While I enjoy getting paid to make this happen for clients, shouldn't this be built in?
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