Quote Originally Posted by cubmanky View Post
are the 100 product truly individual product in the store?
yes each item is a new product

If so, do they have only the color attribute or some additional attribute?
Color only.

Then once a color is not available, do you want the option to still show in the list (out-of-stock or similar) or do you not want it to appear at all?
I like the out of stock option, but open to it now showing also.

Is stock actually maintained in Zen Cart for these color/product combinations or is it more of a go/no go?
I would say more of a go no go. Where I can go in and mark a color out of stock.
Ok. So. First overall issue I see for this method of implementation as it relates to the current options made available is initially populating all of the product with the associated color attribute "quickly". Now, I haven't gone through the export/import feature that potteryhouse had incorporated in a while, but it seemed to be written with single attribute (color) type functionality and likely could help with that aspect.

So, how to address the rest. Once the color is associated with the product and a quantity of at least 1 is applied (assuming that the stock configuration settings are such not to decrease the quantity), then if want to show the out-of-stock option, a sql query would need to be written to set all of the item's attribute to a quantity of 0. If wanted to just not display the color option, then could use the catalog->iption Values manager to delete the color option from all product (problem there is that when it came back in stock it would also need to be added back to all product which can be done in much the same way but then also have to add back to the attribute tracking section).

Now if the product had not yet been generated, there is the ability to copy attributes from an existing product to the new product including those tracked by SBA.

If the sql route were used, a similar sql statement would be used to change the stock quantity to 1 (or whatever number) when the product came back in stock.

It can also be set to not show the out-of-stock attributes.

Now, I did just think/remember something. Not that long ago, I added a feature that would allow designating that an attribute was not tracked by stock (meaning can get indefinitely until it was turned off), which is a lot like you are seeking. Currently it is controlled only by sql statements, but it supports the ability of saying that an option value is in stock for all product (or all product that have a given option name (color)). The display and management of that feature hasn't been developed yet because the full possibilities haven't quite yet been realized. Didn't want to create something that was going to be difficult to expand upon and would prefer the interface to be understandable.