Stock by Attribute v4.0 addon for v1.3.5-1.3.9

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Originally Posted by webmiss

Do you know how long it will be til a newer version is available? My client really needs this. And I am running zc version 1.5.3.

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Free modules are built by volunteers on their own time.. So when it is available will be dependent on the author's schedule. If you are following this thread, you can see dev and testing are in progress... So you will just have to wait patiently while this process plays itself out.. That's how it usually works with free modules.. If your client REALLY needs this now and you don't want to wait, you can consider other options (commercial modules, paying a dev to update for you, etc..)...

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Originally Posted by potteryhouse

Hi,

I have been trying to resolve this issue for sometime (and a related Orders and Basket thing I see), with limited susses. I am currently working a significant change (new concept) to the mode locally as a possible solution. But that may not end up working, so if you have another option please send what you think so we can have other perspectives. As a note, this mod has never to my knowledge supported multiple drop-downs that change when one has a selection change. I think others have used a separate filter plugin to do that, but that plugin does not work well with current changes, so I hope to build that functionality into the mod.

We (jeking and I) have started working together on this, there is a GitHub working copy available, but it is not for formal release, just development. Obviously when a production version is available it will be placed in the normal Zen Cart Plugins.

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I've identified a solution to the issue of the custid not showing in those areas; however, am awaiting approval to share.

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Originally Posted by mc12345678

I've identified a solution to the issue of the custid not showing in those areas; however, am awaiting approval to share.

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When you do get permission from your client or whenever, I would be interested in looking at the code.
Thanks.

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Originally Posted by potteryhouse

When you do get permission from your client or whenever, I would be interested in looking at the code.
Thanks.

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Will be glad to as permitted. Interested in some of the newer features that are being considered such as the new "title" feature.

Btw, trying to figure out, how is one allowed to populate the custid after a "group" of attribute combinations has been generated (without significant other processes)? Did I understand correctly that this could be done through the export/import process?

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Originally Posted by mc12345678

Will be glad to as permitted. Interested in some of the newer features that are being considered such as the new "title" feature.

Btw, trying to figure out, how is one allowed to populate the custid after a "group" of attribute combinations has been generated (without significant other processes)? Did I understand correctly that this could be done through the export/import process?

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Yes the Export Import was created for another users needs, it allows the "bulk" changing of the Qty and Custom ID. Depending on how other fields play out such as the title/Description, parentid, childid, and siblingid (new concepts) they may be available in the future if it works the way I hope.

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Originally Posted by potteryhouse

Yes the Export Import was created for another users needs, it allows the "bulk" changing of the Qty and Custom ID. Depending on how other fields play out such as the title/Description, parentid, childid, and siblingid (new concepts) they may be available in the future if it works the way I hope.

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Interesting concepts, curious of their function. At least the sibling field. Seems like it is just an additional field that must be managed that can also be populated/determmined by looking at the parent's children.

Btw, I think I found at least one reason this plugin has not worked with multiple attributes. In the order class, when checking stock quantity for an attribute as compared to the quantity of the product, there is a search that is performed against the products with stock attributes table that is basically bound to fail and disable the product if one attribute has been exhausted. (A situation that I encountered in testing.). The resolution looks like it will take at least three queries in series that are dynamically built depending on the results of a previous query. This code is where products_status is set to 0. I think (since I am away from my computer) that it is in the function that starts with create.

Because this portion of the code deactivates the product if the attribute is exhausted, my plan is to rewrite it so that the only time the product is to be disabled is when there are no attribute options available. Then it will be on to the next applicable attribute disablement/reporting to ensure that the customer can better understand what is available and what is out-of-stock.

As a reminder I had modified the system response back to the way it was before that I only have one instance of each of the first attributes, and one of any subsequent attribute, not a combination/long listing like I showed up above. This condition is different than the current beta code.

As far as code modifications and "previous" versions, yes, there was javascript applied to at least one version that was to update other attribute selection boxes upon picking one attribute selection. IMHO, all well and good, but I prefer to first program from a non-javascript perspective as that is the base work, then addon javascript. Call it old school or something, but if someone doesn't want to run javascript on their computer I'd rather be sure they can make a purchase than prevent them from doing so...

Let me see if I can ask this question coherently, because it is a potentially complicated condition.

Trying to evaluate whether the products stock by attribute table is properly populated for a given product. Already have seen in the forum that when working with more than one attribute for the product that some have either properly or improperly added a product variant to the table with only one attribute tracked (or at least a number of attributes less than the full quantity available).

The question comes to what constitutes the products with attributes stock table being properly populated? (Correct number of attributes included in the combination of attributes.). For example if a product has three attributes, is it acceptable for only two to be considered for stock tracking purposes/existing functionality of the module. What conditions should automatically be considered as non-attributes to consider (ie read only only?)?

It's already evident that there are insufficient means of tracking if an attribute has been "turned off" from being important for stock tracking purposes as this would require an additional table to address properly/sufficiently (attribute when associated with a specific product is not to be considered). Sure it could be stuffed into a field of an existing table; however, that violates normalization principles of databases. (Yes I know that there are more than likely cases in the ZC default coding that also don't follow strict normalization, in fact this plugin doesn't either, but...)

Ideally, once a product is populated with it's stock attributes, the number of attributes to consider won't change, but I'm also trying to address "knowing" that there are not discrepancies in the database population. For example if a product is originally populated with three types of attributes, and then in the future one of those is removed, what also removes that attribute tracking from the database, the user only? If the same product having three attributes, has an additional attribute added to it, what happens and does that too need to be adjusted?

The way I was considering approaching the product is out-of-stock (needing to be made inactive) was to look at the maximum number of attributes being tracked and if the results from the database containing that number of attributes for the product indicated no available quantity when searched on the value of one of the tracked attributes, then to disable the product. Currently it disables the product if there is no quantity returned when there is no quantity for the combination of the attribute and I think it is/was all of it's siblings of that one attribute joined together. Ie, expecting that every possible attribute value of the product is considered for tracking the exhaustion of the product.

This is what I found in the error logs.
[27-Aug-2014 13:07:49] PHP Fatal error: Call to undefined function zen_get_ip_address() in /dir/mydir/public_html/admin-directory/includes/init_includes/init_sessions.php on line 34

Is there actually a commercial module for zc verion 1.5.3?