add field to products

[earmsby]

Hi,

I'm setting up a shop for a client who sells Sheet Music. They need a field in the product table for "composer". I thought I had gotten around this by making Composer a product attribute, but the client really wants the Composer to show up in the products listings (category, search, all products, etc.).

So my question...

Should I leave composer as is in the attributes and if so, how can I get it to appear in the listings?

OR

How can I add an additional field to the products data?

Thanks for any insight you all may have. This forum is a really great resource!

Ellie

[swguy]

Could you put "Composer" in the Model number field? This way you'd get what you want with no d/b changes.

Good luck,
Scott

[earmsby]

Thanks. Not a bad idea but unfortunately I need model number (renamed Catalog Number).

Maybe there's another unused field I can co-opt, however. I will look to see.

Meanwhile, if anyone has added a new field to the products, I'd be curious to hear how you did it.

Ellie

[rstevenson]

Hi,

I sell greeting cards. I needed a field for artist as well as the categorys for things like landscape, flowers, etc. I ended up using the manufacturers field for my artists and renamed the sidebox and other locations to match. So if you're not using the manufacturers field now, that might work for you.

Have a look at http://www.artcardshop.com/store

Rob

[earmsby]

Rob,

How did you get the Manufacturer/Artist to show up on the indexing page?

Nice site, by the way!

Ellie

[earmsby]

Ok, it seems like it might work to use the Music product type and rename "artist" to composer. This works fine for the product detail page but I still can not see how to get this piece of information onto the products listing (ie New Products, all Products, search results, etc.)

This is a must-have for my client and I've already spent hours trying to figure it out. Surely someone has had to add something to the index pages???

Thanks for any assistance anyone can offer!

Ellie

[rstevenson]

How did you get the Manufacturer/Artist to show up on the indexing page?
Nice site, by the way!
Ellie

Thanks!

Are you referring to the lists that appear when you select a category or (in the stock Zen install) a manufacturer? If not, please ask again. If so, I didn't do anything special. I did, of course, enter my artists as manufacturers in admin. This is what you'd need to do with your composers too.

The only drawback I've found with this method is a fairly subtle one. When I select a Category, like Flowers for instance, then click on one of the listed cards to see its product page, Previous and Next buttons appear with Return To The Product List between them. They all behave as you'd expect. But...

If I click on an Artist instead of a Category, then click on a card to get the product page, the buttons that appear look exactly the same, but they now behave unexpectedly. That is, instead of clicking Next and getting the next card by that artist, I click Next and get the next card in the Category Flowers, for example. Which may not be by that artist.

So manufacturers (my Artists) are not quite the same within Zen Cart as Categories. It remains to be seen if this behaviour bothers customers.

Rob

[rstevenson]

Ok, it seems like it might work to use the Music product type and rename "artist" to composer. This works fine for the product detail page but I still can not see how to get this piece of information onto the products listing (ie New Products, all Products, search results, etc.)

Perhaps you mean having the Composer show up in each item listed on the page? (In my previous answer I thought you were talking about the sideboxes.)

There is a switch in admin somehwre to show the manufacturers listing (my Artists, your Composers) in listings. I will go now and see if I can find it again.......

.....yeah! admin/configuration/product listing. Turn on "Display Product Manufacturer Name" by entering a number other than zero. The number refers, apparently, to the placement of this item of info in the line of product info. I have mine set to 4 so it shows fourth. (What will they think of next?!?)

HTH

Rob

P.S.
I've made a few more changes to the site. You might want to have another look...http://www.artcardshop.com/store

[pleitch]

Having what appears to be a very similar issue with using the Music product type.

I would like more info to show up in the featured and whats new sideboxes but all i'm able to display is the title.

Concerning search, I can't seem to search for artists by name. If I search for *** Pistols I get nothing. Searching for Never Mind the Bollocks I get the album. It seems that right out of the box I should be able to search by artist name, if not then why go to the bother of creating a field just for artist name?

It's likely I'm doing something wrong, but I've flipped all the switches I can find to flip and I keep ending up with just the title. Once I'm on a product page it shows everything, so that part is fine.

But if shoppers can't search for merchandise by band name then I'm not sure what the point of using Zen Cart is.

[johnw]

I'm using the manufacturer's field and changing the box heading

hope that helps

jwebber
www.webbermusic.com


but my zen shop isn't online yet, still in design, so I don't know yet if it will work with email and paypal