Dependant Attributes - Can I do this?

[dogsndubs]

Hi - I am new to the firum and would like to ask a pre-sale type question.

Does anyone know whether Zen Cart will do the following or can someone code this option for me?

I have a number of T Shirt designs which are all available on Unisex T Shirts, Kids T Shirts, Hoodies etc

What I need is the ability for a customer to intially choose a design, then choose a garment and depending on what they choose, the next option would only show sizes and colours that relate to the choice of garment the customer made.

Does anyone know whether this can be done?

I have tried Cube Cart but it will not allow me to achieve this, hopefully Zen Cart will :)

Regards
Marc

www.dogsndubs.com

[Twinge]

I just spent about 2 hours researching this, and came up empty handed. It appears that Zen Cart does not offer this at all, and it doesn't appear to be on the list of goals for the next year or two of development. I couldn't find any module add-ons that offered this either. AND I couldn't find any other free shopping cart solutions that had this functionality. D'oh!

You're left with basically 3 options:

1) Use notes in the drop-downs to tell the customers when options aren't available, e.g. "Royal Blue (Unisex Only)". This is the method I'm currently using, but it's not a very good one - customers are dumb (or not web-savvy, at least) and often pick attributes clearly labeled as invalid.

2) Separate top-tier attributes into categories. In this case you'd have a category for Hoodies, a category for Ladies' Cut, etc. This could be a fairly good solution depending on how many different options you want to have (too many and it'd get cluttered). This also assumes you only have 1 level of dependency - meaning that, different options are set for Hoodies/Ladies'/Kid's, but don't depend on anything else. If your colors ALSO depend on size, for example, this method would be too messy to use.

3) Code it. Either figure out the PHP or Javascript code to make it happen yourself, or pay someone to do it. This is the method I'll employ when I have the time to do so, but that could be a while. I also don't know how easy it would be to modify something like this and still make it 'external' enough to upgrade easily; you might have to do some extra manual steps each time you update, depending.



On a side note, this question should really be in the FAQ (if it's in there, I sure didn't see it). I've seen this asked a LOT here when I was searching for past posts in the topic, and they usually either go unanswered or are answered with "Zen Cart doesn't currently support dependent attributes".

[schoolboy]

Zencart's attributes feature in the current version, does not enable field validation on input.

I believe the devs are looking at putting it into the next version...

[gjh42]

For two sets of attributes, you can use the Product Attribute Grid mod to display the available combinations.

[schoolboy]

Good point Glenn... I forgot about this!

[modernm]

Check out Dynamic Drop Downs for Stock by Attributes in the contrib section. The sequenced drop downs work great for multiple attributes. Use the single drop down for single attributes and have the ability to show out of stock next to the attribute.


Cal

[modernm]

Here is an example of the Dynamic Drop Downs contrib in action...


http://www.modernmunchkin.com/mix-ma...hirts-198.html


Cal

[dogsndubs]

Hi - Thanks everybody for your replies. Sorry I didn't reply earlier - computer and work problems

I will look into the options you have suggested and see if I can work around it using the mods.

Thanks again.

[uvfch]

Check out Dynamic Drop Downs for Stock by Attributes in the contrib section. The sequenced drop downs work great for multiple attributes. Use the single drop down for single attributes and have the ability to show out of stock next to the attribute.


Cal

Hi, this feature is great. I tried installed it in my testing store which was runing with stock by attributes well. After installation, this message appear after the product description, and do not show the product attributes:

1146 Table 'lessuvco_store.TABLE_PRODUCTS_STOCK' doesn't exist
in:
[select quantity from TABLE_PRODUCTS_STOCK where products_id = '1' AND quantity > 0]

any idea on this?

Thanks.

[kuroi]

This is a problem with the integration of the osCommerce based product attribute dropdown mod into Zen Cart. in the current version of the mod (1.3) line 87 of the pad_sequenced_dropdowns.php class calls for data from a table that doesn't exist in Zen Cart or Stock by Attributes. Hopefully modernm will pop back and fix that.