How-To: Add new Properties to your Products

[ElBasha]

Can someone please help me? I don't understand the first step. Where do I change what you are talking about? I don't see anywhere where it just says Product. Please help me.

Step 1 is what I don't understand.

[ElBasha]

Please someone can help? I don't understand step 1. What exactly and where exactly you want me to change this? I don't see a table anywhere.. Can you please give me specific steps. And what exactly do I want to write if I want to add physical condition and warranty as the options?

[magneteye]

You need to open up your database and add your new properties to the "products" table.

You can probably do this using MyPHPAdmin through your webhosts control panel.

[ElBasha]

Okay,
Here is what I got now.

Add 1 field(s) At End of Table, then clicked next.

Field TypeDocumentation Length/Values1 Collation Attributes Null Default2 Extra Primary Index Unique --- Fulltext Comments

I got that in a line and under it they tell me to choose what I want. Also they ask where I want to store this in.

I didn't know what to put in there. Any help?

[k4satin]

Okay,
Here is what I got now.

Add 1 field(s) At End of Table, then clicked next.

Field TypeDocumentation Length/Values1 Collation Attributes Null Default2 Extra Primary Index Unique --- Fulltext Comments

I got that in a line and under it they tell me to choose what I want. Also they ask where I want to store this in.

I didn't know what to put in there. Any help?

I'm not sure if I can help, but it worked for me. I got the exact same line of fields that you show here (starting with 'Field'...). I filled in the ones that crazy_chris mentioned & left the rest blank (unless I knew I wanted something else, such as 'unique').

I didn't have a question after this about where to store info, but did have a question on the 'Add 1 field' line. It gave me the option to add at the beginning, end, or after a specified field. Nothing else regarding 'where'. Were you already in your 'products' table when you clicked on 'Add 1 field..."?

[k4satin]

Yeah! Only one day, and it works!!! (I had to focus on my live site for awhile, and just got back to working on this...)

It took me longer to uninstall the Additional Products Fields mod than it did to create fields using this method!

I made one mistake that I caught and thought I'd share, just in case somebody else has the same problem. When I finished all the instructions, I had the fields in the product pages in Admin & could enter data, but they didn't show up on my site in my product info display.

It turns out I'd tried to use the override system in a place where it doesn't work. I knew you couldn't use overrides in the admin section, but usually should in the storefront section. I tried to use zen overrides for includes/modules/pages/product_info/main_template_vars.php
When I was trying to figure out what went wrong, I remembered that there was one section of the storefront that doesn't accept overrides either, and I thought it might be 'modules'. Sure enough, when I modified the file in its original location (no overrides), my new fields showed up on my site!

Now, one question for the zencart team. I noticed when I was in phpMyAdmin that if I removed the 'auto_increment' condition from products_id, it looked like I could then enter my own values for product id (I'd like this to be my sku's). Would this mess up other functions in zen if I did this? Would the answer depend on if the skus are integers vs. alphnumeric? That's all I wanted in the first place, was to use my skus as the id's.

Thanks, if any of you guys (zen team) are reading this!

[ElBasha]

Yes I was in the table already, but I mean what is written by crazy is kind of confusing me, I don't know how to fill it, he has both the products he wants to add on one line, but we have to add each of them seperatly.

[lismith]

hey, trying this out. but how do I create dropdowns and text areas? you only give examples of a text field.

I tried changing zen_set_field_length to zen_draw_textarea_field but it gave me errors.

I need mine as a text area too. Any help?

[k4satin]

Yes I was in the table already, but I mean what is written by crazy is kind of confusing me, I don't know how to fill it, he has both the products he wants to add on one line, but we have to add each of them seperatly.

The line that crazy_chris wrote, "ALTER..." is the SQL query itself. The menu that you found is an alternative to writing your own SQL queries for us SQL-illiterate folks. When you fill out the form and save your new field, phpMyAdmin creates the query for you, and it'll look like what crazy_chris wrote. You have to do it separately for each field. If you want to write in SQL query form instead, click on 'SQL' from the menu along the top. I think that if you're writing an SQL query you can include as many fields as you want at the same time.

[k4satin]

I need mine as a text area too. Any help?

I looked at what they did for the 'description' field (its in TABLE products_description) and they just put 'text' in the 'Type' field. Have you tried that?

As for the drop-downs, I'd suggest trying to duplicate what they did for manufacturers_id. It looks like there's a column there for 'distinct values'. I haven't done it, but I'd try that...