Force attribute selection?

[jenpen]

Hiya,
I noticed that it's possible to place items in the cart without first selecting (in my case) colour or size. Is there some way of stopping a customer proceeding until they've made a selection?
Jen

[gjh42]

Add another option value to the option name (call it Select, Choose One or whatever you like), and add that as an attribute, marking it as Default and Display Only. This will force an actual choice to be made.

[jenpen]

Great, thanks - but I guess that means setting up this new value for each attribute and each product, one at a time?
And how do I make the new value (I called it Select) appear at the top of the list every time? Thanks, Jen

[haredo]

Within the attribute controller as you list the attribute values

1. Under this Heading: Prices and Weights
2. you will see: price, weight, order, one time
3. start with 0 for Select
4. and 1 for the first value
5. and 2 for the second value

[jenpen]

Thanks haredo but a little more detail if possible. I can see Price Weight Order One Time. Do I have to type my values into there somewhere? This has nothing to do with Price or Weight. Not finding this very intuitive, I'm afraid.

[haredo]

That is ok...

1. For the Value called Select under the Order will be 0
2. For the Value called " " under the Order will be 1
3. etc, etc

If, have any more trouble PM me...

[haredo]

This is a good reference..

http://www.blogadr.com/tutorials/fre...ttributes.html

[jenpen]

Thanks Haredo - please just confirm though: is it possible to add an order to the values after they are set up, or do you have to do it when you're first setting them up? ie do I have to start all over again with every product in my store? I added the order "0" to my pre-existing default option but it didn't do anything.

[jenpen]

And, can I say, this feels like a pretty dodgy workaround for a feature that should be standard, no? I mean, if an item is available in three colours the customer should be forced to choose a colour, shouldn't they? Without adding a fake invalid colour to force an error message. It's the kind of choice I would expect to see in Admin > Configuration > Attribute Settings, eg "Customer cannot add product to cart without selecting attribute (where attributes exist)."

Or do store-owners usually pre-select a default size/colour/whatever for their customers?

[nathant]

Add another option value to the option name (call it Select, Choose One or whatever you like), and add that as an attribute, marking it as Default and Display Only. This will force an actual choice to be made.

10 points for gjh, that did the trick nicely