Questions on how I should set up attributes that would be interdependent.

I've been racking my brain for a few days, and I'm sorry to say but I'm a moron.

Here is the problem.
I have one product, a alphabet pillow. I want to offer customers the option of all 26 letters in both upper and lower case. After they choose a letter, I want them to be able to choose a fabric - THEN be offered a list of color options available to that fabric type. The problem is i can't figure out how to set this up. Because I use 4 fabric types. Denim that only has 4 colors, Corduroy which has 20 colors, Velvet which has 30 colors, Satin which has 40 colors.

Is there a way to make attributes interdependent on each other. So if a person selects pillow 'A' they will be offered menus to pick fabric, and then the drop down below would populate based on which fabric was chosen?

Sorry, no. Dependent attributes aren't supported in Zencart now.

May I ask for opinions on HOW you think the best setup would be for products like this - So that I dont drive my customers insane before they reach the specific item/options they would like?

hillebrandts:

Is there a way to make attributes interdependent on each other. So if a person selects pillow 'A' they will be offered menus to pick fabric, and then the drop down below would populate based on which fabric was chosen?

As Steve says, there is no way in "conventional" zencart to make subsequent attribute selections DEPENDANT on what was selected previously. I have seen sites where people have re-written the way attributes work to generate this behaviour, but because each site is unique, there probably cannot ever be a one-size-fits-all solution.

The only way around this is to split up the product, so that there is no dependancy - in your case, by FABRIC type.

So you will have FOUR "products":-

Denim
Corduroy
Satin
velvet

This is perhaps not such a bad thing, because customers are likely to want to choose a fabric type first anyway.