If you have an individual product that sells in different weights (such as "cake flour" for example), then you are correct in saying that the ATTRIBUTES govern the way the customer chooses what WEIGHT of goods to purchase.
So, in your shop you will have a product called "Cake Flour", and when the product info is displayed, the customer will choose from a Drop-Down menu, the weight of the item required and zencart must then apply the correct price and the correct shipping weight when the customer "Adds the item" to their cart.
There are several variables open to you, depending on how you incrementalise the price and weight values, but let's help you set up the OPTION NAMES and OPTION VALUES first.
(If you installed Zencart with all the DEMO PRODUCTS, then your attributes section will have a number of "example" attributes already).
In your ADMIN CONSOLE, go to:- catalogue>>>option name manager
You will now create an option called " Weight " (don't use the inverted commas).
Type this in the input field preceeded by "en: " (en means "english" - if you have other language modules installed, you'll get other prefixes.)
Where it asks for a sort order ( " order: ") type in " 100 " for now (you can change the sort setting later).
The next field lets you choose what sort of selection method you want. In your case, select " dropdown " (I think it is the default setting anyway).
Then click <INSERT> button.
There you are - step one done. You now have an attribute called Weight that will appear as a dropwown when attached / applied to a product.
Next, you need to give that OPTION some VALUES.
So, at the top of the screen, click <OPTION VALUES> button. You will go to the OPTION VALUES screen.
You will now see a list of option names, and underneath, a selection field (it's a Drop-down) with the names of current available OPTIONS. Scroll this box and select " Weight ".
Then, in the " en: " field, type in the first VALUE you need - let's say " 1kg ".
Then give this a sort order of " 10 " .
Then click <INSERT>.
You now have a VALUE (1kg) associated with the WEIGHT option.
Add other VALUES in the same way...
Select " Weight " again from the dropdown list, in the " en: " field, type " 2kg ", give it an order of " 20 ", and click <INSERT>.
Do the same for " 3kg " but this time give it an order of " 30 ".
Add as many OPTIONS as you need, making sure to incrementalise the SORT ORDER ( order : ___ ) in a logical way.
(The SORT ORDER will govern the order in which the selections appear in the drop-down you are creating, so you want your dropdown to start with 1kg, then list 2kg, 3kg ... etc.)
That's it...
You now have an ATTRIBUTE OPTION called Weight, with a range of VALUES 1kg to 3kg.
Now you need to APPLY that attribute to a product and specify shipping weight increases and price increases.
You do this when you ASSIGN the attribute to individuaol products.
You see, you now have an attribute that you can apply to any product, but price increments (for example) may differ from product to product.
That's why you don't set prices when creating the attribute, you do this when APPLYING the attribute to a product.
So, let's now apply that attribute (weight) to a product called "Cake Flour"
Find the product you wish to apply the attribute to... go to Admin>>>Catalogue>>>Categories/Products and either search for the product or drill down to it using the categories directory tree.
When the list of products appears, you'll see (on the right hand side of the screen) a selection of coloured buttons.
Click the black one with " A " in it.
You now go to the screen where you apply and configure attributes to the SELECTED product.
Scroll down to the grey area... ADDING NEW ATTRIBUTES
Your product name will appear just above two selection lists. In the LEFT HAND ONE, choose " Weight ".
In the right hand one, choose "1kg".
Underneath that, you will see additional input fields for PRICE and WEIGHT.
In the PRICE field, insert what a 1kg unit of cake flour costs. Say, $2.50
In the WEIGHT field, insert 1.0000 (that's 1kg)
Click the <INSERT> button.
You now have an attribute attached to cake flour of 1kg that will price it as $2.50.
(I'll talk about "pricing by attribute below).
Do the same as above for the 2kg and 3kg options.
Price by attributes.
In this case, cake flour must be "Priced by attributes", so it does not have a base price. You do this in the EDIT SCREEN for that product, so at the top of the screen you'll see a botton called <EDIT PRODUCT>.
When you get to the product's edit screen, click the radio button for "YES, priced by attributes". In the price field, put " 0.0000 " .
That's the basics of attributes. Not all products are "Priced by attributes".
You may have cake flour that starts at $2.50 for 1kg anyway, in which case (on the EDIT SCREEN) you leave the price of $2.5000 and (at the bottom) a weight of 1.000kg.
See how you go... It get's easier!
