Attribute price based upon another attribute

I don't find a way to do this but surely there must be a hack or something to help.

I am selling letters. I have it set up so that it uses a text box and price per letter. The customer types the text of the letters into the text box and it adds that number of letters to the cart. Example. If they type TEST into the text box, the add to cart button adds 4 letters to their shopping cart.

One of the attributes is an "option" to purchase an installation pattern. I now have it set up the same way but this means that the customer must AGAIN type their text into a text box to add the installation patter to their cart. The installation patter is also unit cost x amount per letter. The better way would be to have a single radio button to add the installation pattern to the cart. I can't figure out though how to get the "Pattern" attribute in this case to look at how many letters were purchased and add it to the cart. The price of the pattern is a constant for all letter styles so it would just need to be a function of total letters purchased X "unit price per letter" of pattern and then that amount added to the shopping cart when the pattern option is selected.

I think I have understood your post, but it was not that easy to do so.

I think the functionality you want is not available out of the box. You will have to get in there with PHP and javascript to make it work to your liking I think. At least that is what I did.

(I had a requirement to change the price per letter, dependant upon what option a user had selected in a drop down box. In my case, the embroidery cost was dependant upon the color of the thread to be used.)

Thanks for the reply. I had pretty much determined that it is not possible without custom programming which I don't understand how to do. I tell you, I think that Zen is a very nice program but these limitations on ...I guess this would be conditional attributes..not sure...is really a killer for me. As much as I hate to after all the time I've already put into trying to build my store, I may have to look for another software option.

This is NOT a slam against Zen, like I said, I really like it but just not sure it's going to work in my case.

Freebird:

I don't find a way to do this but surely there must be a hack or something to help.

I am selling letters. I have it set up so that it uses a text box and price per letter. The customer types the text of the letters into the text box and it adds that number of letters to the cart. Example. If they type TEST into the text box, the add to cart button adds 4 letters to their shopping cart.

One of the attributes is an "option" to purchase an installation pattern. I now have it set up the same way but this means that the customer must AGAIN type their text into a text box to add the installation patter to their cart. The installation patter is also unit cost x amount per letter. The better way would be to have a single radio button to add the installation pattern to the cart. I can't figure out though how to get the "Pattern" attribute in this case to look at how many letters were purchased and add it to the cart. The price of the pattern is a constant for all letter styles so it would just need to be a function of total letters purchased X "unit price per letter" of pattern and then that amount added to the shopping cart when the pattern option is selected.

I may not be understanding, but for simple text, could you use dropdowns where letter1 is A-Z and costs something, then letter2 is A-Z and adds yet another letter cost?

For your TEST example, you would have 4 dropdowns. Then perhaps an option for the installation pattern.

Use the 4 dropdown boxes to enter your text:
A|A|A|A|

Want an installation template?
YES ($1.00)

I understand what you are saying but that is NOT a good solution. Some customers buy 20,30, even over a hundred letters. That is a LOT of dropdown boxes. A lot of work to start with and NOT very customer friendly for the buyer.

Also, the pattern is priced per letter.