Flat rate tied to item, UPS for the rest

Hi...

I'm looking to ship the majority of my products via UPS. No problem there, I have the UPS module setup and working correctly. The problem is I have some items I need to ship via freight which I setup using flat rate shipping. The problem is I'd like to only show that flat rate option on the items I need to ship bt freight. Can flat rate be tied to certain items? Or maybe by going over X amount of weight?

Thanks in advance..

You could customize the code for this ... but you need to consider what to do when 10 items are usually sent UPS and 1 item is for the special shipping ... how do you want to manage that?

The flat rate is setup for freight shipping so if one item qualifies, the 10 "regular" items could all be loaded on the pallet and shipped together..

How would I customize the code? is there a mod for this or maybe a walk through?

Thanks!

There isn't a mod for this ...

The idea is there has to be a flag or some type of indicator that can be tested for to know when the cart has any of these freight products in it ...

If 1 or more is present, then only the flat rate shows ... otherwise, use the standard UPS ...

Is there something that presently distinguishes these Products from all the others?

Weight could be one thing. Or maybe one whole catagory like "tires".. I wish there was a way to create product groups kind of like the zone definitions..

Thanks for the reply!

You could add a new field ...

Or use a large weight such as 5000 ... something where no combo of regular products can reach it ... so when the weight is >= 5000 or whatever amount you use ... it can be the trigger for which Shipping Module to use ...

Advantage of the 5000 products_weight is that you don't have to code in a new field you mearly have to test for it in the shipping modules to determin which is turned on/off ...

That's great and all, but I haven't the slightest clue how I'd go about coding that.. Would you happen to have any kind of examples to work off of?

Thanks again!

You can look at how the Free Shipping is managed via the function zen_get_shipping_enabled to test when and when not to allow a shipping module to display based on criteria for Free Shipping orders ...

For example, in the shipping module for Flat Rate flat you will see:
/includes/modules/shipping/flat.php

      // disable only when entire cart is free shipping
      if (zen_get_shipping_enabled($this->code)) {
        $this->enabled = ((MODULE_SHIPPING_FLAT_STATUS == 'True') ? true : false);
      }

That's a good place to start.. Thanks!