attribute options based on previous options chosen

[dssprogrammer]

Forgive me if this has been covered before, but my search came up empty.

Scenario:
Product type has multiple variables.

based on the variable of product type, dictates what sizes are available

once the critera above has been met, now overall dimentions needs to be chosen.
So my dilemma is that there seems to only be a two-tiered option/attribute available.

Example;
type can be ceramic gloss (economy), ceramic gloss, ceramic matte, ceramic textured, tumbled stone, porcelain, textured glass, smoth glass.

Based on the choice above, various sizes are available.
e.g. ceramic gloss (economy) only has 4" x 4" and 6" x 6" available, regular ceramic gloss, matte and other types as well have 4 1/4" x 4 1/4", 6" x 6", 6x8, 8x8, 8x10

now, once that has been determined, overall size needs to be chosen. e.g. 12.75 x 17 (in the case of 4 1/4" tiles) or 12 x 16 (in the case of the 4" tiles)

needless to say, there are a lot of variations possible. I don't have a live site to point you to as I'm working with this on local host until it is ready for a production environment.
Hopefully I have provided enough detail to expalin my situtation.
Comments, advise gladly accepted.

[dssprogrammer]

OK, due to lack of response here and further research, it appears what I would like to achieve above is not possible without major re-coding.

So here is what I have resorted to (which brings up seperate problems):

I set up Option Names/Option Values as follows:

Ceramic Gloss
Please choose only one: - (set as default attribute)
4" x 4" x 3/16" - 8" x 16"
4" x 4" x 3/16" - 16" x 12" .....etc
4.25" x 4.25" x 1/4" - 8.5" x 17"
4.25" x 4.25" x 1/4" - 17" x 21.25".....etc
6" x 6" x 3/8" - 18" x 24" ........etc
etc....

Ceramtic Matte
Please choose only one:
4.25" x 4.25" x 1/4" - 8.5" x 17"
4.25" x 4.25" x 1/4" - 17" x 21.25".....etc
6" x 6" x 3/8" - 18" x 24" ........etc
etc....

Ceramic Texured
Please choose .... etc.
etc......

Glass Textured
Please choose .... etc.
etc.....

Tumbled Stone
Please choose .... etc.
etc.....



Now here is the problem. Not only can the above be confusing for customers, but when you go to the cart all the Option Names show (albeit as "Please choose only one") and the item selected.
This is not a good layout and can be very confusing to customers. Is there any way to lock out the Option Names that have not been chosen so only the option/value selected shows in the cart?

If I may slide in another issue:
Due to the wide range of variables I have listed above, I'm setting up using 3 model products; landscape, portrait, and square (as each of these will have different dimmensions available) and it will be easier to copy attributes to all the products if I have them grouped in to the 3 seperate catagories. My question here is; can I have this grouping transparent to the end-user? i.e. when they are looking at art available from Van Gough, they would see all of his works listed instead of having to chose the orientation, then looking at the available products?

Wow, that was a little wordy. My appologies, I couldn't think of any way to summerize the above more efficiently.
I look forward to your recomendations. Thanks, in advance....

[schoolboy]

What you are referring to is called Field Validation - where the populated content options of one field are determined by the choices made in other fields.

Field Validation is not a feature of the current Zen Cart, but I understand it may be included in later versions.

[dssprogrammer]

Thanks for the reply schoolboy. That confirms my suspisions.
I'm still looking for answers on my second post in this thread, any thoughts there?

[hrm]

Due to the wide range of variables I have listed above, I'm setting up using 3 model products; landscape, portrait, and square (as each of these will have different dimmensions available) and it will be easier to copy attributes to all the products if I have them grouped in to the 3 seperate catagories. My question here is; can I have this grouping transparent to the end-user? i.e. when they are looking at art available from Van Gough, they would see all of his works listed instead of having to chose the orientation, then looking at the available products?

Have you considered using a custom product type. I have recently adapted the book product type (adapted by hareslade for 1.3.7 found in this thread http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showth...k+product+type) for my specific needs and have found it to be very flexible. It includes sidebox search filters for Author, Publisher, Genre, etc. that could maybe be adapted for your purposes. (Artist, Type, Size, etc).

This involved some pretty intense work on my part, but I'm new to PHP and I was able to do it successfully. I've been very happy with it.

Lots of luck!

[virtualahmad]

there is a commercial solution available.... the price isn't very "commercial" though... when i google "zencart attribute validation" its the first result. (sorry, don't know if i can't post URL's here)

[dssprogrammer]

Thank you for your sugestion hrm, although it won't address the pricing limitation I've come access (need legth x width calc) it is very appealling to have the search by artist sidebox and I may add this contrib once I have everything else sorted out.
In the mean time, I had already searched and found the link that virtualahmad mentioned and had already been in contact. Unfortunely, I couldn't get a straight quotation out of him so we were unable to do business together. I continued searching for outside support as I realize Zen Cart cannot be everything to everybody. Even though some tried to persuede me to go down different paths, I stuck with Zen Cart as I really appreciate the open source structure and the community that goes along with it.
I came accross affordable progrommers who have taken on the task of building a module for me. The price is $320. but concidering the time I've waisted trying to get around this, it is a small price to pay.

[virtualahmad]

that same "software guy" has a length x width one as well. I was actually looking into that for a client as well. Client didn't end up wanting it so I didn't purcahse. I will say that I have purchased a few modules from this person and he is very professional and knowledgable.

Second point I would like to add that $320 (not sure what the scope is), but I just spent almost $1000 on custom module, but it is WELL worth it. This developer was absolutely fantastic... a dream come true really.

If anyone wants to see it, please let me know and i'll post a link, but not until next week when i am launching it. Heck maybe you'll buy something from it ;)