New site, says category with subs cannot add product

[dougrun]

Hi, im setting up a new site (1.5.8) since our current one runs php7.4 and we need a better platform. I was adding categories and subs and noticed in the lower right corner it says "NOTE: Category has SubCategories, Products cannot be added". Is this true? I don't even have any products added yet but I was hoping products could be shown even if a category has subs??

[lat9]

Products need to be in their own categories, so if a category has sub-categories you need to add products to one of the sub-categories as the product's master-category. The storefront will "get confused" otherwise.

That's been a requirement of Zen Cart as long as I've been with them, it's just with zc158 that the admin-messaging (thankfully) was added.

[dougrun]

thanks, another ?, i want to limit access to a category, can I limit it to a certain customer group?

[swguy]

it's best to ask new questions in new threads with appropriate titles. - that way people who know the answer to this question (but not the first) will see them).

There is nothing built in; you'd have to add code. You can look at plugins like Hidecategories to see if they meet your needs.
https://www.zen-cart.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=254

[mc12345678]

Products need to be in their own categories, so if a category has sub-categories you need to add products to one of the sub-categories as the product's master-category. The storefront will "get confused" otherwise.

That's been a requirement of Zen Cart as long as I've been with them, it's just with zc158 that the admin-messaging (thankfully) was added.

Further the historical reason for this has been related to the design and implementation of sales on products (not to be confused with specials). The front end is also designed around this concept.

As to the admin side, yes a version or two ago, though it was possible in the admin for both product and a category to exist in a category even if disabled, a change was made to prevent creating that condition. There had always as far as I could remember been "difficulty" in creating a product in a category with categories, including words that said a product couldn't be added directly to that category. (Moved to it perhaps, but not created in it)

[dougrun]

thanks for the replies but im deciding not to use ZC, we sell mostly shoes and all the sizes have to be their own sku (model) and it seems too much work to handle.

[swguy]

Before you give up, look at this link:
https://docs.zen-cart.com/user/runni...-variant-stock

[dougrun]

thanks, not giving up yet. although now i'll have to start spending $$ to get things going. Still figuring out how i would export my orders with those order attributes.

[mc12345678]

thanks, not giving up yet. although now i'll have to start spending $$ to get things going. Still figuring out how i would export my orders with those order attributes.

And its sad that the only reference to doing something like that from this open source product is to a commercial product... Very disappointing that the responder giving that link is one of the controllers of that content and of this entire project who specifically updated that content and included it: https://github.com/zencart/documenta...7fb539e0a4328e

There is an open source module that offers some of the same features. It has been improved upon as issues and interests have been expressed. It is called Stock By Attributes and offers the ability to have individual model data as identified necessary.

Github link to SBA is: https://github.com/mc12345678/Stock_...butes_Combined

[carlwhat]

And its sad that the only reference to doing something like that from this open source product is to a commercial product... Very disappointing that the responder giving that link is one of the controllers of that content and of this entire project who specifically updated that content and included it: https://github.com/zencart/documenta...7fb539e0a4328e

There is an open source module that offers some of the same features. It has been improved upon as issues and interests have been expressed. It is called Stock By Attributes and offers the ability to have individual model data as identified necessary.

Github link to SBA is: https://github.com/mc12345678/Stock_...butes_Combined

its also very sad that this open source project was not able to somehow monetize contributions from talented coders so that they can continue their work and make things better.

and when i looked at the reference, it was to a zen-cart docs page that did, in fact, have a reference to an opensource project of which you are the author.

if you do not like the docs page, and the position of your contribution on the page, i would recommend a PR.

best.