Can I "Hide" a product?

[suffrinmick]

Hi Everyone - This may sound like a strange question, but I would like to add a product which can only be accessed directly from it's product id URL. The product should not be visible on the homepage or listed under the categories etc.

The reason: I need to track a referrer and thought I would create a specific product that they could link to.

TIA
Suffrinmick

[Ryk]

Why not make a note of the url of a product then turn it off in admin>catalog>Categories & products ?

I can't think of any reason why it shouldn't work.

[Ajeh]

Actually it won't work as we block products_status = 0 as this field is to block people from finding products intentionally or by accident that you have disabled ...

You have to get trickier ...

Make a Category Hidden Stuff ...
Set the categories_status for this one to 0 or OFF

Make a SubCategory ... Custom Product ...
Put your custom Product in here ...

What this does is hide the Category from the Cat box and Cat tabs etc.

Then, edit the Product in the products table and change the products_date_added to something older than your New Products Limited to date range ...

Next, you will need to alter the All Products listing to skip this products_id or categories_id to prevent showing it there either ...

If you use Specials on this Product, you will need additional alterations ...

[seanscully]

Then, edit the Product in the products table and change the products_date_added to something older than your New Products Limited to date range ...

Next, you will need to alter the All Products listing to skip this products_id or categories_id to prevent showing it there either ...

If you use Specials on this Product, you will need additional alterations ...

I did the first part and it worked fine, now how do I edit the product table (througth ZEN control panel or something else) and how do I alter the All Products to skip this categories_id since I will have a few items in there.
Thanks
Sean

www.gotwood.com/cart

[Ajeh]

You would edit the products table via phpMyAdmin and change the products_date_added to be older than your New Products Limit on date ...

On skipping the product in the listings, you can alter that by customizing the code for the listing to check either the master_categories_id or the products_id to know when a product should be skipped or excluded from the output ...

The cleanest method is to alter the select statement so that it excludes the products_id(s) or master_categories_id when the list of products to be displayed is generated ...

One place to start is the /includes/modules/pages/products_all/header_php.php file ...

NOTE: there is no override for this file ... be sure to maintain backups of both the original file and your custom file for future upgrades ...

[suffrinmick]

I'm getting nearer - but please can you tell me where the "New Products Limited to date range" is defined and how can I alter it?

TIA
Suffrinmick

[Ajeh]

The New Products Limit is set in the Maximum Values ...

[magicpants]

Our company is doing local repairs, with pickup and delivery. I've been trying to figure out how to handle this in zen cart. Our service works like this:
The customer "buys" a Pick-up product, which has no price but he pays delivery, i.e., we come to his house to get the product that needs repair. Then, when it's finished, we need him to pay for the actual repair, plus the delivery fee again.

I was thinking we could use a hidden product, like described in this thread. When the product is ready, I could create a product with that price and put it in the customer's cart (with master password or super orders, if possible?). It would be hidden as Ajeh explains in this thread. He would be notified to login by email, and the product would be invisible to everyone else, but in his cart and ready for him to checkout and pay for it.

Since we launch our shop on monday, I haven't actually ever used Zen Cart except for testing. Is this feasible? If not, do you have a better idea? If it is a good way to do it, how do I actually add a hidden product like this to a cart, without making it visible for a moment, which defeats the whole purpose.

[Ajeh]

Note: when using multiple hidden products in the same Category ...

Issues on hidden products will come out with the Prev/Next as all hidden products in the burried Category now can be listed ...

You might be better off using a product type to also help control this such as Document Product or make your own ...

This way you can have more flexibilty on the product _info page and customize as needed for the hidden product ... turn off Prev/Next ... or what have you ...

Also setting the Category as restricted to Document and Document General will prevent them from showing in the Categories sidebox when you navigate through the products ...

The restriction on a Category of Document forces a mask of the Category from the Categories Sidebox ... and restricting further to Document Product makes Document Product type follow more rules similar to Document for the sideboxes ...

This can also give you another validation method for including/excluding hidden products using their Product Type ...

[magicpants]

Thanks Ajeh.

When you say prev/next, you're talking about the prev/next at the top of the product info page?

So, let's say I use master password to get into a customer's account. How do I add a hidden product to their cart?