Can I "Hide" a product?

Hi Everyone - This may sound like a strange question, but I would like to add a product which can only be accessed directly from it's product id URL. The product should not be visible on the homepage or listed under the categories etc.

The reason: I need to track a referrer and thought I would create a specific product that they could link to.

TIA
Suffrinmick

Why not make a note of the url of a product then turn it off in admin>catalog>Categories & products ?

I can't think of any reason why it shouldn't work.

Actually it won't work as we block products_status = 0 as this field is to block people from finding products intentionally or by accident that you have disabled ...

You have to get trickier ...

Make a Category Hidden Stuff ...
Set the categories_status for this one to 0 or OFF

Make a SubCategory ... Custom Product ...
Put your custom Product in here ...

What this does is hide the Category from the Cat box and Cat tabs etc.

Then, edit the Product in the products table and change the products_date_added to something older than your New Products Limited to date range ...

Next, you will need to alter the All Products listing to skip this products_id or categories_id to prevent showing it there either ...

If you use Specials on this Product, you will need additional alterations ...

Then, edit the Product in the products table and change the products_date_added to something older than your New Products Limited to date range ...

Next, you will need to alter the All Products listing to skip this products_id or categories_id to prevent showing it there either ...

If you use Specials on this Product, you will need additional alterations ...

I did the first part and it worked fine, now how do I edit the product table (througth ZEN control panel or something else) and how do I alter the All Products to skip this categories_id since I will have a few items in there.
Thanks
Sean

https://www.gotwood.com/cart

You would edit the products table via phpMyAdmin and change the products_date_added to be older than your New Products Limit on date ...

On skipping the product in the listings, you can alter that by customizing the code for the listing to check either the master_categories_id or the products_id to know when a product should be skipped or excluded from the output ...

The cleanest method is to alter the select statement so that it excludes the products_id(s) or master_categories_id when the list of products to be displayed is generated ...

One place to start is the /includes/modules/pages/products_all/header_php.php file ...

NOTE: there is no override for this file ... be sure to maintain backups of both the original file and your custom file for future upgrades ...

I'm getting nearer - but please can you tell me where the "New Products Limited to date range" is defined and how can I alter it?

TIA
Suffrinmick

The New Products Limit is set in the Maximum Values ...

Our company is doing local repairs, with pickup and delivery. I've been trying to figure out how to handle this in zen cart. Our service works like this:
The customer "buys" a Pick-up product, which has no price but he pays delivery, i.e., we come to his house to get the product that needs repair. Then, when it's finished, we need him to pay for the actual repair, plus the delivery fee again.

I was thinking we could use a hidden product, like described in this thread. When the product is ready, I could create a product with that price and put it in the customer's cart (with master password or super orders, if possible?). It would be hidden as Ajeh explains in this thread. He would be notified to login by email, and the product would be invisible to everyone else, but in his cart and ready for him to checkout and pay for it.

Since we launch our shop on monday, I haven't actually ever used Zen Cart except for testing. Is this feasible? If not, do you have a better idea? If it is a good way to do it, how do I actually add a hidden product like this to a cart, without making it visible for a moment, which defeats the whole purpose.

Note: when using multiple hidden products in the same Category ...

Issues on hidden products will come out with the Prev/Next as all hidden products in the burried Category now can be listed ...

You might be better off using a product type to also help control this such as Document Product or make your own ...

This way you can have more flexibilty on the product _info page and customize as needed for the hidden product ... turn off Prev/Next ... or what have you ...

Also setting the Category as restricted to Document and Document General will prevent them from showing in the Categories sidebox when you navigate through the products ...

The restriction on a Category of Document forces a mask of the Category from the Categories Sidebox ... and restricting further to Document Product makes Document Product type follow more rules similar to Document for the sideboxes ...

This can also give you another validation method for including/excluding hidden products using their Product Type ...

Thanks Ajeh.

When you say prev/next, you're talking about the prev/next at the top of the product info page?

So, let's say I use master password to get into a customer's account. How do I add a hidden product to their cart?

You would add it like normal ... but the Prev/Next if you have many products for many customers would be a bad idea to allow to show ... as now if they click to look at the product they would see the other products ...

If they never need to see the product you could also create a block on the display of the product _info page for all products is categories_id XX

That would be another way to control that ...

magicpants:

Our company is doing local repairs, with pickup and delivery. I've been trying to figure out how to handle this in zen cart. Our service works like this:
The customer "buys" a Pick-up product, which has no price but he pays delivery, i.e., we come to his house to get the product that needs repair. Then, when it's finished, we need him to pay for the actual repair, plus the delivery fee again.

I think using ZenCart for the finished price is just overkill. Just send a PayPal invoice which they can pay. Simple!

Rob

Ajeh:

You would edit the products table via phpMyAdmin and change the products_date_added to be older than your New Products Limit on date ...

On skipping the product in the listings, you can alter that by customizing the code for the listing to check either the master_categories_id or the products_id to know when a product should be skipped or excluded from the output ...

The cleanest method is to alter the select statement so that it excludes the products_id(s) or master_categories_id when the list of products to be displayed is generated ...

One place to start is the /includes/modules/pages/products_all/header_php.php file ...

NOTE: there is no override for this file ... be sure to maintain backups of both the original file and your custom file for future upgrades ...

This would be great for my shop, but I am not clear what select to alter here, when I deleted p.products_id, all products displayed as sold out:

$products_all_query_raw = "SELECT p.products_type, p.products_id, pd.products_name, p.products_image, p.products_price, p.products_tax_class_id,
                                    p.products_date_added, m.manufacturers_name, p.products_model, p.products_quantity, p.products_weight, p.product_is_call,
                                    p.product_is_always_free_shipping, p.products_qty_box_status
                             FROM " . TABLE_PRODUCTS . " p
                             LEFT JOIN " . TABLE_MANUFACTURERS . " m ON (p.manufacturers_id = m.manufacturers_id), " . TABLE_PRODUCTS_DESCRIPTION . " pd
                             WHERE p.products_status = 1
                             AND p.products_id = pd.products_id
                             AND pd.language_id = :languageID " . $order_by;

I don't see anything mentioning master_categories_id in the select statement. Am I looking in the right place?

/includes/modules/pages/products_all/header_php.php file

I am trying to create a hidden (Out of Stock) category in which products can be found in a search but not found in "All products"

I guess a work around is to create a category "sold" turn it off and comment out the "All Products" link, kind of ugly but my only option.

This thread is a little old, but I found it very useful. However, it seems that nobody figured out the SQL changes requiered to remove a hidden category from the All Products link and the search engine. I have done it (it seems) and here are the changes that I made. For me, the category ID that I want to hide is number 20. That number will be different for you.

includes/modules/pages/advanced_search_result/header_php.php
Changed line 249 from:

AND p2c.categories_id = c.categories_id ";

To:

AND p2c.categories_id = c.categories_id
AND p.master_categories_id != '20' ";

includes/modules/pages/products_all/header_php.php
changed line 30 from:

AND pd.language_id = :languageID " . $order_by;

To:

AND pd.language_id = :languageID
AND p.master_categories_id != '20'" . $order_by;

yes,simply write url at the time of adding product and than turn off product category this will hide your product and you can access it through URL
Cheers
numan

numan:

yes,simply write url at the time of adding product and than turn off product category this will hide your product and you can access it through URL
Cheers
numan

I tried this and cannot find a way to remove the item from the search results. I want to create a special offer for another company's customers that are referred to my company only available to them, but that they could add to their cart and shop the other items that are available to everyone as well.

Ryan

faithofgod:

I tried this and cannot find a way to remove the item from the search results. I want to create a special offer for another company's customers that are referred to my company only available to them, but that they could add to their cart and shop the other items that are available to everyone as well.

Ryan
See Post Number16 in this thread

jammin320:

This thread is a little old, but I found it very useful. However, it seems that nobody figured out the SQL changes requiered to remove a hidden category from the All Products link and the search engine. I have done it (it seems) and here are the changes that I made. For me, the category ID that I want to hide is number 20. That number will be different for you.

includes/modules/pages/advanced_search_result/header_php.php
Changed line 249 from:

AND p2c.categories_id = c.categories_id ";

To:

AND p2c.categories_id = c.categories_id
AND p.master_categories_id != '20' ";

includes/modules/pages/products_all/header_php.php
changed line 30 from:

AND pd.language_id = :languageID " . $order_by;

To:

AND pd.language_id = :languageID
AND p.master_categories_id != '20'" . $order_by;
I would also add that if you don't want it to show up on the new products listing, find includes/modules/pages/products_new/header_php.php and replace line 31:

<CODE> AND pd.language_id = :languageID " . $display_limit . $order_by;
</CODE>
with this line:
<CODE> AND pd.language_id = :languageID
AND p.master_categories_id != '13'" . $display_limit . $order_by;

where my subcategory number (not my category number for some reason... I tried using my category, 12, and it didn't work) is 13

We needed this desparately, as we want to send out free samples to press people and potential large accounts, and needed a category dedicated to free samples that the public could not see or have access to. We wanted to be able to make up "Sampler Bundles" just for this purpose. So now, I just give the URL to the category to the PR/Sales team, and I'm implementing a payment module add-on "Accounts Only" in the downloads section from here, and they can order samples to send out without paying for it, but we keep it on the books and in the system.

Thanks!