I helped a buddy develop an ecommerce site in joomla using hikashop. Hikashop's cart module functionality is a bit limited. You either get a very verbose full cart or a very minimal mini cart. We customized the mini cart to include the ability to expand to the full cart in either a slider or popup. This makes the functionality similar to what you find at amazon, especially when you move the cart to the very top of the page.
The cart hidden initially because it is empty. Add an item (from those below) to the cart to have it appear. Then click the expansion image beside each to see how they expand.
Here are some demos of the expanding mini cart in action.
- Hikashop Mini Cart with Slider Demo: Mini Cart in right position that uses slider to display the full cart.
- Hikashop Mini Cart with Popup Demo: Mini Cart in right position that uses popup window to display the full cart.
- Hikashop Mini Cart at Top with Popup Demo: Mini Cart at top of the page that uses popup window to display the full cart.
If you would like to add similar functionality to your hikashop, I have packaged up the files.
BEWARE that I have made changes to the hikashop core files and that I have not tested the wishlist cart. It is likely that I broke it when making changes, but it is not an issue for me.
Note that to make hikashop carts completely disappear, you need to use advanced module manager as described in this post.
Back up your files before installing! And DO NOT EVER update a live server with these files without testing them out offline first. If you don't know how to do that, then you shouldn't be messing with these files. Simply upzip the download into the joomla root directory, adjust the cart module settings, then update the CSS as appropriate.
Downloads: