Stocks by attributes

[lankeeyankee]

Hi Kuroi!

First, let me thank you for this excellent addition to zen cart functionality!!

I have started to get deeper into using this mod and I have realised some of the limitations when you have so many attributes in one product and are trying to update the stock levels.

Perhaps my situtation is somewhat unique, I don't stock individual items with various attributes such as " this t-shirt with this screen print in small, medium, large sizes in green, red and blue". Instead, many items have various options such as "which length mounting screw would you like", "do you want gaskets with that drum lug", etc. Really, it's combining several individual products into one instead of having a lot of similar products that are individual, if you see what I mean.

My problem lies in when one of the attributes, one of these various combined products, is out of stock. I then have to go into SBA and change large amounts of variants.

My question is: Is there a way to make global changes? For instance, say I have a product with the attributes of plating (chrome, brass, gold, satin chrome, black chrome, etc.), screws (6 different types for different drum shells), and gaskets(yes or no), and the gasket is out of stock. I have to go in and make all of the variant changes for the different platings and screws with gasket "yes" and "no". That is a lot of variants. And we have over 2300 products and by the time I am done there will be over 7000(not all with attributes, but many will have them). I would like to be able to specify that attribute "gasket" is out of stock, and therefore any variant that cascades from that is out of stock, instead of having to manually enter every single variant.

Is this possible? I am in the equivalent of my second semester of PHP/MySQL/Javascript/DOM/etc. programming education so I am not yet at the skill level to make the changes or even to figure out if it's possible.

Basically, what I am asking is: Is there a way to select a heirarchy in zencart, and more specifically in SBA, that cascades down with stock levels? So if "chrome" plating is out of stock then all variants that include chrome plating would be out of stock instead of having to go through all of the variants? I know that there are many zen cart users that would benefit from this.

I am willing to pay for this ability, it is really crucial to me since we stock so many items from various vendors and it is becoming a nightmare to try to work through all of the variants since inventory levels can change so much.

It would be most helpful to be able to select which attribute is the "top level" attribute that cascades down to the other variants.

Is what I am saying making any sense? I am having some difficulty expressing what I am trying to say. If you need any further elaboration please let me know.

Thanks again, Kuroi. It's the folks like you that make zen cart even better than it already is, and my hat is off and I am bowing low to your skill level with making these awesome and powerful mods!

Matt