Explanation of options/attributes etc etc

[wuffy77]

Ok I'd like to set-up a shop where I can sell photos.

I currently enter the description text and price, however it'd also be hugely useful if I could have options of 'resolution', format (with tick box of jpg or tiff) and so on.

I thought I'd be able to do this with the attributes, however these seem to be the options that the customer chooses (ie the colour of the t-shirt they want or whatever).

Can anyone explain how I can add these options for MYSELF to choose - the customer should simply see what I chose (like the price for example!)

[neunetllc.com]

if you want to mention that the photo has a given resolution, but it's not a customer option, i would just include it as part of the product description.

however, i think the issue you're having is one with the arbitrary nature of attributes and more generally, how humans organize information. this is partly why zen cart allows you to list a given product in more than 1 category.

there's another issue you could be pointing to as well: an issue that zc by default doesn't address. for each product you add to zc with attributes, you must explicitly assign those attributes. what if you have many products (such as photos) that are likely to have some given option (such as resolution) but isn't always the case.

zc should in this case have functionality for product categories that have assigned to them, by default, option sets that you define. this should be available recursively, as for subcategories.

[neunetllc.com]

to clarify my last, placing a product in a category tree with this functionality would be as simple as choosing which attributes are available and eliminate the need for cross-listing any products with respect to attributes. categories would simply reflect product attributes. of course, some attributes, with large value sets would need to be left at the leaf nodes in the category tree, eg, hexadecimal color value set with 16^6=16,777,216 possible values.

[wuffy77]

Hmm, but the issue is that if there is a 'category' of 3mb photos rather than simply the word '3mb' in the description, then people will be able to filter results:

eg I can display only 3mb & 4mb photos with sunsets

where each of the bold items could be a category/keyword/attribute whatever that I can set and as a result the user can filter by?

This is fairly fundamental to most shopping systems - is this not possible at all in Zen cart?

[neunetllc.com]

Hmm, but the issue is that if there is a 'category' of 3mb photos rather than simply the word '3mb' in the description, then people will be able to filter results:

eg I can display only 3mb & 4mb photos with sunsets

where each of the bold items could be a category/keyword/attribute whatever that I can set and as a result the user can filter by?

This is fairly fundamental to most shopping systems - is this not possible at all in Zen cart?

in a nutshell, zc categories and zc attributes provide different functionality... is certainly possible to combine them.

however, if you have good descriptions, customers can find 'attributes' through zc's search tool.

if, however, you wanted to provide a menu system that reduces the product set based on attributes, the order will be somewhat important to search effectiveness. for example, if you have 2 photo attributes, say {resolution, isColor}, resolution may be more important to the average customer, but isColor would be a quick decision to make since there may be fewer choices (2).

you would need to gather user statistics or just guess to determine the order. the resulting category/attribute heirarchy + regular expression search would be a good way to go, imo.

on the other hand, if you can figure out optimal search, go compete with google and make billions.

[wuffy77]

Hmm - ok so if you look at a standard stock photo site:

eg http://photos.com

You'll see they always have a list of categories.

This I guess fits with Zencart categories perfectly - So I arrange all my photos into these categories.

However if you then click on a category in the site above, you'll see that there are search filters (eg in the above site you can show only color photos, b/w photos etc).

So is there a way to add such tick box filters to my zencart search so it'd only display results matching?

I've got it working with the various options as options when I upload the pics, but it's finding a way to sort by these options that I need.

I guess this is the same as just about every shopping system in the world, whether it's Amazon and you want to just show books by Dorling Kindersley or if it's dabs.com and you want to sort by price order low to high...

Is this kind of filtering possible in Zencart?

[neunetllc.com]

sure, just add an ORDER BY [field] {ASC || DESC} clause to your recordset.

but that's different from 'filters'; those are usually implemented as WHERE clauses in your query.

[kobra]

The specific type of search sidebox that your are referring to is not native to Zencart. Meaning to say that this is not a setting that you can switch on or off, or configure via admin settings.

There is an expanded search "advanced search" that currently displays in the center column and contains some of the features that you have outlined as desired.

As all this information can or does exist in the database, custom filters can query the DB for any features that exist. One would have to custom code this for the specific functions desired and could start with the "advanced search" as a basis to build upon and when as desired could then move it into a sidebox search function over the centercolumn location.

What you want seems to be at least a two step process.
1. Using the attributes, you can to define the available options, individually, or to a group. i.e.
Picture "A":
Size:
thumbnail(??k)
Med res(??MB)
High Res(??GB)

Format:
TIFF
JPEG
RAW

and so forth

2. Creating the search facilities to filter the desired type/groupings.

Bottomline, as ZenCart is generic enough to apply to many product types, it is DataBase driven and can be extended with custom coding to provide "niche" market functionality.