Custom Product Configurator?

[TrailorParkKid]

I have a Computer store, and I am looking for a configurator similar to what the "big name" companies use to offer their customers a way to completely customize their product. Is this possible in Zen-Cart? I have noticed that most of those companies use ASP for their storefront sites, and I really like ZC and dont want to have to change again. Any information would be helpful, or if someone knows where I might be able to find an add-on like this a link would be great.

[dbltoe]

You can use the attributes controller.
for example:
create an option name of Memory.
create values of

• Please Select Your Memory (make it default and for display only)
• 512 mb
• 1 Gb
• etc

this will present the customer with a drop-down for memory allowing them to "customize" their order. You can establish the value (negative or positive) for each value.
You can do the same for power supply, hard drives, video cards, etc. for as many options as you wish. If a certain option name is not available on the "double-wide" you simply don't attach that option name to it.

HTH

[TrailorParkKid]

Thx dbltoe, that is working out pretty good for me. But I now present another question. Upon creating these attributes and options, i have realized that there are some options that I need to let the customer activate. Example: Customer selects Hard Drive, But decides he wants a second Hard Drive for storage. What I want to do is have the radio buttons available for the second hard drive but grayed out until the customer checks a check box option to add that second drive. Is this possible?

Also, is there a way to get the price to update for the overall product before it goes to the shopping cart? I don't want to have to make the customer break out a calculator to see how much they are spending on the final product.

[gjh42]

The dependent attributes you would like are not currently possible, at least not without serious custom coding.

Likewise for the dynamic price info, though there was someone who posted recently displaying another feature (NewWay to save Attributes Modelnumbers) who also had this working. I suggested that it would make a valuable contribution if packaged as a mod.

[dbltoe]

Haven't seen an addon for adding/deleting options based on previous selection but you can still have it there with first option as "No Additional Drive". It would NOT be labeled for display only but would be the default. Repopulating options based on previous selections will be along soon, I'm sure. Until then, you will at least have the option there for the customer.

You could have some code to show the current total with an update any time one of the options is left. (on exit). For now, you could change your sort order for the right sideboxes to have the shopping cart show at the top when something is in it. That would instantly let the customer know the total when hitting add to cart.

On another note. If you haven't already, get a copy of firefox with Web Developer, Firebug, and HTML Validator. A MUST HAVE for the arsenal. You'll find you have navMain and navMainWrapper defined twice. And the size of your images makes your site very slow to load. the DWW 1000 has 200K of images not counting the logo.

[TrailorParkKid]

Ok, next problem.

I have set up attributes for one of my products, and i just realized something. I have 47 attributes for this product, but only 30 of the show in the Attributes Controller. I want to go back and add images to some of these attributes I can't see 31 - 47 to edit them. This could be even worse when I need to rotate out old attributes with new ones. Is this normal? If so is there a way to get more than 30 attributes to show? I don't see a "Next Page" link or anything like that.

[TrailorParkKid]

Ok, next problem.

I have set up attributes for one of my products, and i just realized something. I have 47 attributes for this product, but only 30 of the show in the Attributes Controller. I want to go back and add images to some of these attributes I can't see 31 - 47 to edit them. This could be even worse when I need to rotate out old attributes with new ones. Is this normal? If so is there a way to get more than 30 attributes to show? I don't see a "Next Page" link or anything like that.

Nevermind I even posted this. As soon as I hit submit I went back to the admin page and saw the |1|2|>> links. Forgive me for these types of posts. I'm setting this all up from Iraq, and our internet is realy slow, so I hate having to go back to fix stuff. I find that this is the quickest way to get answers for my problems.

On that note, I would like to say that this community has been very helpful, and it is very easy to see why so many sites use Zen-Cart.

And yes, if you are new to Zen-Cart, get the book. It has been extremely helpful for me.

[Ajeh]

You could also change the setting in the Maximum Values for:

Products Attributes - Attributes Controller Display
Maximum number of attributes to display in the Attributes Controller page

[lebrand2006]

You can also check here :

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=70184

[DeLaFe]

I have some serious problems with this. First, when you use attributes controller, it puts the dropdown menus AFTER the "Add to cart" button and if the customer clicks on Add to cart it just selects the first option in the dropdown.

Is there a way to FORCE someone to select an attribute before adding a product to the cart? I want to be able to have the customer select the color of a specific component on the item and this should not be rocket science...

Alfred

You can use the attributes controller.
for example:
create an option name of Memory.
create values of

• Please Select Your Memory (make it default and for display only)
• 512 mb
• 1 Gb
• etc

this will present the customer with a drop-down for memory allowing them to "customize" their order. You can establish the value (negative or positive) for each value.
You can do the same for power supply, hard drives, video cards, etc. for as many options as you wish. If a certain option name is not available on the "double-wide" you simply don't attach that option name to it.

HTH