Alternative Options For Attributes!

[devnut]

Hi There,

Alrighty, I've recently successfully setup two Zencart sites, and I'm on my third :)

This third site I am developing is for a cellphone store.... Let me cut right to the point...

The store sells Refurbished, and New cellphones.
http://bestbuygsm.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=33_39

I have looked into attributes, and tried them out. I do not like them at all to say the least. The issue I'm having is not about laziness or tediousness, but rather on the front end for the customer.

With attributes, I can setup the following:
Option name: Condition
Option Values: New, and Refurbished


But the problem is....
I would like the customer to be able to sort, or browse by refurbished, or new without having to go the product info page. The only thing I have been able to do is setup the attributes above, and when someone goes to the product info page they can choose "New" or "Refurbished" at which point the price would be altered. However, what if the user wanted to just browse for example: Cell Phones > Motorola > Refurbished ?

I know I can setup sub categories...
The issue I have with sub categories is that if you go to: Cell Phones > Motorola you then MUST select the "New" or "Refurbished" sub categories. Rather it would be ideal if you can go to: Cell Phones > Motorola browse all the "New" and "Refurbished" products together, with an additional sorting option to show ONLY "New" or ONLY "Refurbished"

Anyway, if anyone has any tips, mods, or information on how to accomplish this it would be greatly appreciated!!

Perhaps, I haven't looked around enough?

[devnut]

Hmm, I may have hacked a way around to get this working. It's by no means clean, but it will do the job. What I have done is renamed all the products, starting with either of the following pre-fixes

"RB - Title of Products"
"New - Title of Product"

Then I will manually place 2 links on the prouct listing that will obtain the current URL, and add the correct variables to sort the products by alpha characters. In which case will be the following:

Refurbished Phones = Current URL + &sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=82
New Phones = Current URL + &sort=20a&alpha_filter_id=78

This will work when viewing any cell phone product because it will get the current URL, then add the correct variables to sort starting with the letter "r" or the letter "n"

I know this sounds yucky, trust me, it is. But in my current situation, it's better than attributes, and sub categories.

I would love to use sub categories if only you didn't have to initially chose "New" or "Refurbished" when browsing in Cell Phone > Brand

[gjh42]

Since products can be linked to multiple categories, you can have New and Refurbished subcats, and all of them also listed in an All subcat.
It accomplishes the same thing in a slightly different way.

[devnut]

Would this require the user to first choose a sub category before seeing products?

[gjh42]

Yes, you would have in your categories sidebox

Cell Phones
  Motorola
    All
    New
    Refurbished
  Next Mfr
Next Cat...

[devnut]

Thanks but we don't want to display sub categories in the categories menu. What would happen if they clicked on "Motorola" ? It would require them to choose a sub category, correct?

Thanks for your help!

[gjh42]

Correct, although it would not be required to display the subcategories in the sidebox. It is a simple matter to limit the subcategory depth displayed there (I have posted the code previously.)
This would mean that users choosing Motorola would be presented with three options in the center column (All, New & Refurbished).

It should also be possible to write code that would automatically go to the product listing of All when clicking on Motorola, and then have the option of going to the New or Refurbished subcats.
If you get into adding a new session variable, you could allow the user to choose ahead of time (and re-choose) to look at only new, only refurbished, or "all" subcats.