Change Product type from general to free shipping

I just added Zen cart to my website and first off i must say.. HOLY **** this is one cool ###### system. very involved but VERY cool.

I am selling everything on my site with FREE SHIPPING, although a few of the products, when created, I had selected Product -General. Even though i put the FREE shipping thing in the Description and chose the option in the 'always free shipping' I would like to change its type so it will display the FREE SHIPPING.gif when you go to that product in the store.

I am using the following version Zen Cart 1.3.8a and its a FRESH install on my go daddy hosting. It is on a linux server.

As far as customizations, the entire layout, coloring, look is all custom but not much as far as the structure and options.

PHP 5.? is installed

I tried running a quick search but I did not find anything, it wont be a HUGE deal for me to do the products over again as the right product type, but would be kind of annoying. I figured I would sign up here first and see if there was some easy way to do it.

Thanks in advance

You can either change all of the product types or just mark the products as Always Free Shipping ...

Changing the Product Type means it will use a different group of template files ...

Changing the Always Free Shipping on the Products will show the Free Shipping icon if it is turned on ...

To test which you prefer, make a new Product and change to Product Type Free Shipping ...

Then, make another new Product as Product General and just set the product to Always Free Shipping ...

Is there a way to change an existing product type?

I have everything as a General product and - now that we will be turning the cart on from showcase - I want to move some products into my new "Exclusive" type. Can I change a pre-existing General product to an Exclusive product, or do I have to re-enter all of these as new products, using the pulldown?

I don't see anything to do this in the admin and have not found a definitive answer in the forum here.

Thank you,
chrx

If the other Product Type is only using the products and products_description tables, then you can just change the products_type in the products table for the Products you want changed ...

However, if you other Product Type uses other tables, you will need to re-add them as the right products_type so that they have the correct table relations ...

Thank you very much!

chrx

Ajeh - I'm not sure I understand your reasoning. If the product records are currently using product - general, how could they have been using any tables other than those two anyway? Could you please explain?

Thanks.

Apsona
http://apsona.com

The question was could existing Product General products be changed to another Product type by just changing the products_type in the products table ...

If the new Product Type does not use other tables than the existing products and products_description tables then the products_type can be changed in the products_type field as that will just cause it to use the new Product Type set of files ...

However, if addition tables are involved in the new Product type then you would need to recreate the Products to obtain the new settings in any associated tables ...

So any word on when you guys will have this so we can actually switch it in the administrator panel? I don't want my client tinkering with the DB and I hate they have to cut and paste these into a new product just so they can change the product type.

Good point. I ran into the same circumstance where I entered products and then down the road decided to change the product type. I was trying to figure out, myself, how to change this in the administration panel............... and of course without any luck. :(

As Ajeh said, the only difference between ProductGeneral and ProductFreeShipping is that the "free shipping" option is checked by default when creating the product.
You can do that yourself via the admin today ... without having to get your hands dirty in the database. No need to change product types at all.

What about changing from Products - General to products - Music where there is no option in the admin? How would I go about changing this in the database. I have already entered 125 products which I would prefer not to have to reenter.

tcjay:

What about changing from Products - General to products - Music where there is no option in the admin? How would I go about changing this in the database. I have already entered 125 products which I would prefer not to have to reenter.

tcjay, I believe what is being said is that there is a reason there is not a "dropdown selector" which allows you to simply change from one product type to another.

The reason for this is that (it is possible that) other database tables are involved in one product type, and not another.

Take a new "book" product type, for example. This "book" product type may have a whole separate database table to store information about the book. This is information a "general" product type does not need.

If you did try to switch from "general" to "book" product type, at what point would you enter this new information so it goes into the database?

**There isn't a place to do this, is the bottom line, and why there is no dropdown selector easy option to do this.
**

I agree though - this would be a great feature. Perhaps a new .php script could be added to specifically handle switching from one product type to another.

In order to accomplish what you are trying to do (switch from "general" to "music" product type) you are going to have to figure out a way to fill in the database tables that music uses. I think there's only one table, 'products_music_extra'.

I would create a custom .php script that would insert values into this table for each of your existing products. A bit complicated, but I think that's what you're stuck with.