How to: Product & Document General for saleable & non saleable items

After a lot of back & forth I figured I'd compile it in one place (if it isn't already). If this can help the community that would be great. Thanks to Ajeh for her continued patience and brain power:

Creating a store and show case in the same Zen Cart:

Product Types:
Product General
Document General

The default, Product General is used for items you wish to have add-to-cart capability and all other typical Zen functions.

Document General allows you the option of not allowing the item to be added to cart. To have products designated as Document General you can do it in one or 2 ways:

1. Create your new category & products navtively as Document General,

or

2)Convert your existing items to Document General.

Converting Existing Items

• BACKUP YOUR DATABASE
• Using SQL Patch Tool in your Admin/Tools, enter the following statement:

UPDATE products SET products_type = 1 where products_id = 27;
DO NOT FORGET YOUR SEMI COLON AT THE END OF YOUR STATEMENT
Remember- the product ID # is the number of YOUR product id

Limitations to Product Type Document General

• Pricing Manager will be unavailable
• Model & Quantity will be unavailable
• You cannot link to other categories in this mode
• The item will not populate in the Featured or Specials lists
• If using quantity discount pricing matrix, once a converted product is edited, the lowest price range (i.e. 1-49) will appear 0.00

How to modify the above information for your Document General data

Simply, the products will have to be temporarily returned to the Product General status, and then back again:

• BACKUP YOUR DATABASE
• Disable the products while you're working on it. Use the following statement:

Turn off::

UPDATE products SET products_type = 3, products_status = 0 where products_id = 27;

• Change status to Product General:

Change Document General to Product General:

UPDATE products SET products_type = 1 where products_id = 27;

• Make your changes
• Return your Product Status to Document General:

Change Product General to Document General:

UPDATE products SET products_type = 3 where products_id = 27;

• Enable your products again

Turn back on:

UPDATE productsSET products_type = 3, products_status = 1 where products_id = 27;

Having items in Document General will trigger the sidebox so you can have saleable items and non-saleable items. Please see my site for example (still working some bugs through).

Ajeh says there is a way to write this into an option on your Admin panel, but I'll leave that to all you mad coders out there (but do share if you do):smile:

~Laura