product_types.php details

[MarkRS]

Does anyone here know about this file (under "admin") in detail?

It looks like it's been setup for creating new product types, and as a relative newcomer to php I thought I'd just ask before going too much further.

Whilst there's some code there for it, it doesn't look very convincing, so unless I'm missing something (which is quite possible) I think it's just the beginnings of something, rather than actually functioning properly. Is that right?

Regards
Mark

[Xyon]

Think your right in your assessment. I have just started creating a new product type - it's more involved than I thought but from what I can gather so far involves the following.
Adding your new type to the product_type table in the db, duplicating or creating a the associated product_type_layout table entries for the data fields your interested in, duplicating and modifying about ten .php files with the new product name.
Then hopefully your type will be available for use - but the reason I'm creating a new type is because I want new data fields and actions and this means you have to modify the type handler to deal with your new fields. I've not got that far yet!
That is the limit of my knowledge I'm afraid.
All the best!

[Xyon]

This may help,

http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.p..._product_types

http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.p...ct_type_layout

[MarkRS]

Yes, I know there's no available interface for adding product types.
I've got some code that (I think) does the job and I'm now in the process of linking it in to the admin panel.

Whilst in that process I found "insert" code stubs, and I just want to check that they are stubs, and it's not that I'm misunderstanding.

You're right, the process of adding a product type is not very straightforward. There was a thread here about this in which Dr. Byte gave me some useful pointers.

I'm close to producing something that I hope will fit the bill.

I s'pose if it can add then it ought to delete as well...

Regards
Mark

[Xyon]

Am very interested in what your doing as it could be a quicker route for me. If I can help in any way let me know -I'm not particularly fluent in php cos I'm a hardware eng but can hack my way around a bit.

[MarkRS]

Thank you.

I will need to have someone test it. Once I've been able to run it through a few times I will ask you. if that's ok.

Regards
Mark

[Kim]

Have you downloaded and studied the files for the Book Product Type that is available?

[MarkRS]

Yup, thanx

[Xyon]

Yeah count me in as your personal tester - I'm good at breaking things!

[MarkRS]

Not quite the "quick route" either of us had hoped for p'raps

I've not forgotten about this.
The (main) problem I've come up against so far is entries in the product type layout table. Yeah, I could miss this out, but that makes the exercise even more toothless than it might be anyway, and if you know enough to add the layout keys yourself, you probably know enough to do the whole thing manually.

The configuration key (names of the layout elements) needs to be unique across the whole table (which seems a little perverse to me, but then what do I know).
I could make 'em up, it would be great to think that all the keys contain the name of their corresponding product type and that would be easy to replace, but that's not the way it is at the moment. I don't s'pose there's a sensible way to enforce that even if you wanted to.

Also, it looks to me as if this is presenting the user with more of the technicalities of the internals than anything else does, so I don't have any precedents to go by which is making me hesitate about it too.

Ah, the problems of the creative process .
Anyone got any (useful) thoughts at this juncture?

Regards
Mark