Hi,
Recently I've posted (http://drupal.org/node/172845) a suggestion for changing the anonymous purchasing scheme. In the suggestion, an account is created behind the scenes for anonymous buyer, which lines up with non-shippable items, such as files, as the user gets an access to the "myfiles" directory. This scheme however, can be used for any type of product.
What still can be improve is dealing with a recurrent user. What I'd like to accomplish is to log in an already registered user placing an order, while NOT logged in. In other words, say a user is returning to the site, has an account already, but at the moment the user is not logged in, the user fill out his email address as part of the new purchase order, and now for the tricky part - based only on the user's email address I'd like to log in the user.
Appropriate if someone can point me in the right direction.
Comments
Well as part of the
Well as part of the developments for v4 or e-Commerce I have been working to remove the differences between a registered user and an anonymous user.
The big change comes in the form of the customer interface (ec_customer) which its main purpose is to provide a method of dealing with any type of customer in a standardized method. It also makes it a level playing field for all types of customers and removes more the dependency on the address module.
So now there are a few customer types that are maintained via the address module, using the location module, and anonymous customers. before release I will get the interface to CiviCRM working again.
I have still not worked out 100% and I am still going though the security impacts, but all customers are given a customer number, and with anonymous customers using this customer number and a secure token they will be able to access all this information without needing a registered user.
Also this means that we could do things like populate the address information for returning anonymous customers as well. giving them a better buying experience than they would have normally.
So give this, an anonymous customer should be able to do everything a registered user can do. The main idea that I have is to save a 2 cookies, the customer id, and the secure token and then when they come back to the site they can see their information, get access to files, resubmit recurring payments, and maybe even if they register, transfer all this history to their newly created user account.
I am still working through all the security issues but any input is most appreciated.
Gordon.
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Gordon Heydon