What your customers see – the frontend, end-to-end

This article covers what your customers see and do once TronDesigner is active – on the product page, in the calculator, in the cart, and after they order. It's intended for shop administrators.

In this article

• Designing from the product page
• Designing after pricing
• The shopping cart
• Guests
• Checkout
• After the order

Designing from the product page

With the "Show Editor launch button on product detail page" enabled, your customers see the Create design button. Clicking it opens the following dialog.

• Design & order: the same as Calculate & Buy with printing. The calculator opens next.
• Download Design Preview PDF: the Editor opens, and your customer designs and creates an independent print job. They download a visual proof. Nothing enters the cart.

The dialog exists because these are two different customers: one wants to see an idea, the other wants to buy. Asking once, up front, sends each to the right place.

Designing without buying

Your customer picks their print options, the Editor opens, and they design. When they're done, they can download a visual proof to keep or share – for example, emailing it to their team for approval.

The proof is a file a customer takes with them. It is an independent print job, which doesn't go into the cart or attach to an order. In such a case, a customer can add print options directly from the Editor, as it is not locked to the printing configuration. To order, they design again through Calculate & Buy. 

Within the same visit, they can still get back to it – the product detail page's Create design button changes to Edit design and offers to reopen the previous design or start a new one. Once their session ends, the button returns to Create design.

Products that can't be bought with printing

Create design button can also appear on products that aren't available for purchase – for example, products with no price that only offer an enquiry. Your customer can design and download a visual proof, but there's no cart to add it to. In that case, the dialog offers the design route only.

If a product doesn't support printing at all, Create design is disabled – there's nothing to design.

Designing after pricing

Your customer clicks Calculate & Buy with printing and configures the printing details in the calculator – variants, quantities, position, technology, colors, size. Then, two ways out:

• Add to cart: the user is taken to the shopping cart. The product item has an option to design (if allowed).
• Add to cart and open designer: the Editor is opened, and after designing, the user is taken to the cart.

In this case, the Editor opens locked to the selected configuration: print position, technology, colors, and size can't be changed, because those are what your customer just priced. To change them, they go back through Edit calculation in the cart.

The shopping cart

The cart answers two separate questions about every design in two separate places.

Does the design match what was priced?

Shown once, on the Product Printing group, as a chip: green when the designs match the print specifications, orange when they don't.

A mismatch means your customer changed their print configuration after designing. The design itself can be fine – it just no longer matches the calculation. This never blocks checkout. They can update it with Edit design, or leave it for your team to resolve.

Is the artwork itself sound?

Shown per design, as a tag: Design valid, Design warning, or Design error. Each carries an "i" – hovering opens one tooltip covering both the match-to-print options and the design itself.

The two are kept apart on purpose. A design can be sound artwork that doesn't match the configuration, and a design can match the configuration and still contain errors. Two different problems, two different places to look.

With several motives, each gets its own tag – so your customer sees exactly which one needs attention rather than a warning about the whole item.

What's shown for each design

From your design – the real values pulled from the design: 

• Position
• Technology 
• Actual size
  • Not the calculator's maximums. The calculator might say "up to 50 cm²" while the design says "38 × 24 mm" – both are correct.
• Actual colors
• Preview image

Actions and logo upload

Create Design when there's no design yet, Edit design when there is, Edit calculation to reopen the calculator, and Download PDF proof. The delete icon removes the design from the item – the Product Printing section stays and offers Create Design again.

Where there's no design yet, your customer can upload a logo directly. Once a design exists, logo upload is disabled – the logo is managed inside the design, and a tooltip explains this.

Product-level notices

Two product-level notices can appear: a gray one when a logo was uploaded but no design was created, and a red one when an item has neither a logo nor a design. Both are prompts, not blocks – if your customer proceeds anyway, your team arranges the print.

Guests

If guest access is off, every design button is still visible but disabled, with the tooltip "Log in to design". Visible rather than hidden, so a guest knows the feature exists and has a reason to register.

Checkout

With Require design before placing order set to NO, your customer checks out normally. Warnings stay visible; nothing blocks.

With it set to YES, an item without a design blocks checkout, with a message explaining where to create one. Two things it never does:

• It never blocks on a mismatch – only on a missing design.
• It never blocks a product your customer isn't allowed to design. If the product doesn't meet your Required mockup precision setting, it doesn't trigger the requirement – they'd have no way to resolve it.

Designing is never required unless you choose it. A customer can also upload just a logo or order with neither – you handle the print setup afterwards, as you do today.

After the order

Where an item has a print job, your customer can download the visual proof PDF from their order in their profile – at the Product Printing level, covering all motives.

This means a design you prepared yourself in the admin portal is available to your customer to review and approve, the same as one they created. The uploaded logo is available as usual – no change.

Next steps

• Work with designs on your orders: Print jobs on your orders  – the admin order-detail workflow
• Change what your customers can do: Setting Up the TronDesigner Integration in TronShop
• Questions about your license or a demo? Contact sales.