Can I add a custom attribute form, without using built in attribute manager?

[infocom]

I have a product that has hundreds, maybe thousands of attributes for each product, then there are thousands of products. So the database is HUGE, and there are regular time outs when using attribute manager. Its becoming impossible to manage.

Sooooo... I am looking for idea to allow me to add in these extra fields as normal HTML form in my product info page (I can do that OK), and when the values are chosen, they are added to some text field for that product so the data carries through the checkout etc, but without having these as attributes managed in admin. So adding custom data to the product info options which get added to the product info on checkout. I wondered what may be the best way to do it.

I dont need pricing or anything for these thousands of attributes. The data can happily be stored in a text field rather than have an attribute for each one.

Thanks a lot

[infocom]

Hi

Just wondered if anyone has any ideas about this.

Thanks

[infocom]

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

[DrByte]

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Rather than merely bumping your post, contrary to forum rules and just plain etiquette ...

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/faq.ph...aq_do_and_dont
* Don't Bump your post. If you have not gotten an answer in a reasonable amount of time. Post a reply to your own existing post with more details of what you have and haven't done to attempt to cure the problem or find answers to your questions. Try to explain it in a different way if maybe it's unclear.

... instead perhaps you might consider expanding on your post with some useful information?
Ideas which may help you make your posts more meaninful: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-...html#beprecise

Things like explaining what zany product has thousands of attributes, and anything else that could make your "need" make sense to those who have never seen your particular unique business model or situation ... those might go a long way to getting you a response which might be useful to you.

[infocom]

I dont know what else to say, I thought I explained it clearly, I did not see why knowing what attributes there are will change it... so I have explained the issue and am looking for a reply. If no one replies it is expected to ask again rather than forgot my issue, regardless of the rules. If you think there is missing info, then it is better to ask for it than ignore the question.

It is for an optical frame for a pair of glasses, in which you choose the following:-

Right Eye Sphere: ranges from -20.00 to +10.00 in 0.25 increments (so about 100 options in the drop down)
Right Eye Axis: ranges from -8.00 to +8.00 in 0.25 increments (so about 64 options in the drop down
Right Eye Cylinder: ranges from 0 to 180 in increments of 1 (so 180 options in the drop down)
Left Eye Sphere: ranges from -20.00 to +10.00 in 0.25 increments (so about 100 options in the drop down)
Left Eye Axis: ranges from -8.00 to +8.00 in 0.25 increments (so about 64 options in the drop down
Left Eye Cylinder: ranges from 0 to 180 in increments of 1 (so 180 options in the drop down)
Pupillery Distance: ranges from 47 to 80 in increments of 1 (so 34 options in the drop down)
Reading Add: ranges from 0.5 to 4 in increments of 0.25 (so 15 options in the drop down)

So that's hundreds of attributes for this product. It makes managing the attributes in Admin impossible. Then because the site sells hundreds of different optical glasses, the attributes database is huge.

It stems from the fact that even though every product needs the same attributes, the attributes are defined for each product, instead of some sort of link between a product and the attribute.

So if I can just take these options out of the Zencart Attribute manager, put in a custom HTML form in the product info page, which then adds the selected values into the product details in the shopping cart, then the other attributes we have that do affect the price becomes possible to manage.

Thanks

[Ajeh]

The only way to run a contact site is to be sure that you are on a very fast server to start with ...

Then, it helps to go through and customize the code based on pricing with the attributes in mind to turn off anything that is not really used ...

If you are having issues in the Admin, I have to wonder if the hosting provider has you on a server that is really optimized for your needs ...

I have worked on contact sites in the past, and the server is the first issue that has to be addressed as many hosting providers simply cannot handle the needs of your site ...

[infocom]

Our server is quite good actually... but its wrong to get a better server at more cost, to run a zencart site that would run just fine if we can take these attributes out of the Zwencart system and replace with a hard coded form.

Having hundreds of attributes means there are too many option name pages in Admin to manage, then when adding attributes to new products there are too many to add, the list is huge, it would take days, maybe weeks to add the attributes in Admin using the traditional method.

So I setup a "dummy" product to use with all these attrubutes so we can copy them to a new product. But there are hundreds of products without them at the momment. Using the Copy to Category to copy the attributes to a new product does not work, it timesout due to number of attributes its copying, so we have to copy to individual products so it will still take time.

I have also tried the stock by attributes add on gives an out of memory too, and becomes MASSIVE because it lists all products, and assigns each attribute a quantity, so you can image the size. But thats not a core zencart feature so not expecing you to help with that.

The problem is each product has each individual attribute assigned to it, when in theory it would be better if Zencart links a set of attributes to a product, for situations where every product has the same attributes. The DB would be small then, and quicker. But thats probably a huge change.

So having a custom form hard coded to take all these attributes out of the system and DB is probably the best option.

I will probably give it a go. All I need to do is intercept the POST values of this custom form and assign them to the "Additional Instructions" textarea. I think it should be easy, but wanted to know if anyone has any ideas before I spend time on it. If not then I will give it a go.

Thanks

[DrByte]

... there are too many to add, the list is huge, it would take days, maybe weeks to add the attributes in Admin using the traditional method.

It could take that long to write custom coding too.

So I setup a "dummy" product to use with all these attrubutes so we can copy them to a new product. But there are hundreds of products without them at the momment. Using the Copy to Category to copy the attributes to a new product does not work, it timesout due to number of attributes its copying, so we have to copy to individual products so it will still take time.

I wouldn't be surprised that there could be some optimizing done to that section of code, since it certainly wasn't tested using several thousand attributes per product to copy at once.

The problem is each product has each individual attribute assigned to it, when in theory it would be better if Zencart links a set of attributes to a product, for situations where every product has the same attributes. The DB would be small then, and quicker. But thats probably a huge change.

Yes, a pretty big change, but perhaps the development costs are warranted in your case.

All I need to do is intercept the POST values of this custom form and assign them to the "Additional Instructions" textarea.

Well ... putting them into the order-comments field is fine if you have only ONE product in your order. But, if you have multiple products, then you'll have a mess on your hands.
It would be better to assign a multi-line text attribute to each product, and stuff the values from your custom form into that attribute during add-to-cart. That way the information is kept with the product all the way through the order.
Just a thought.

[stevesh]

I guess I'm not clear as to why, assuming the customer knows the value of each of those 8 parameters (and it seems she must, to choose from a dropdown) you wouldn't just have 8 attributes, each a text input box ?

[DrByte]

I was actually wondering the same thing ... ;)