Specials by day of week

Is there a way to set specials to display by day of week?
I am thinking that having categories that display by day of week would work. Then all the items in that category would only display on the correct day.

Category = Monday
Monday sale items

Category = Tuesday
Tuesday sale items

Category = Monday
Tuesday sale items

etc.

This is Zen Cart ... anything could be customized ... but it depends on if:

1 you have your coder hat on ... :smartalec:

2 you post what your needs are and someone gets wild and writes it for you ... :smile:

3 you post your needs in the Commercial Help Wanted and hire someone to write it for you ... :cool:

Thank you. I will start with number 1 then hopefully move to number 2 and if that does not work then #3 is an option. :)

I am trying to implement a similar feature for a pizza place that has specially priced items certain days in a certain time period (e.g. Mondays only 1-3pm).

I was thinking the simplest approach might be to have a script change the prices directly in the database at the right times. What do you guys think of this approach? Any suggestions for a better one?

Specials are currently based on start date and end date where they utilize 24 hours starting at midnight server time ...

They are tested on First hit to the server and when the day changes at midnight for those who come in before midnight and are still there ...

You would need to customize them to work on time as well and to also be checked not just at midnight but at other times such as 1:00pm and 3:00pm ...

The idea of an additional program to run price changes at various times is an interesting idea ...

I would manage that by changing the status of the special that holds the right price for the given day and enable/disable them as needed ...

This allows you to edit the special when needed or remove them etc.

Changing the products_price is not something I would suggest here as there is nothing to "show" that there is a special if it is just the regular price that got lowered ... I, as the customer, cannot "see" this part ... but I can see when there is a special and it shows $10.00 crossed out and $7.50 as the current price ...

Ajeh:

Specials are currently based on start date and end date where they utilize 24 hours starting at midnight server time ...

They are tested on First hit to the server and when the day changes at midnight for those who come in before midnight and are still there ...

You would need to customize them to work on time as well and to also be checked not just at midnight but at other times such as 1:00pm and 3:00pm ...

The idea of an additional program to run price changes at various times is an interesting idea ...

I would manage that by changing the status of the special that holds the right price for the given day and enable/disable them as needed ...

This allows you to edit the special when needed or remove them etc.

Changing the products_price is not something I would suggest here as there is nothing to "show" that there is a special if it is just the regular price that got lowered ... I, as the customer, cannot "see" this part ... but I can see when there is a special and it shows $10.00 crossed out and $7.50 as the current price ...
I ended up going with your suggestion, and creating specials for these items, with an external script setting the special enabled or disabled at various times. It works well. But then I needed an additional feature...

We have some items that are "meal deals" and include for example: a sandwich, fries and a soda. These 3 items are only available separately unless the meal deals are going on, during specific times and days. So the "meal deals" needed to each be their own items, that are purchasable only at certain times, but always visible. Here's what I ended up doing: for these items, have a script set their quantity to 0 in the products table when it should not be available, and to a high quantity (1000) when they are available. I also changed the "sold out" alert to just say "unavailable" and have the store not subtract from quantities. It's working well right now on our live site. What are your thoughts?