eCart Object Help with changing options

Hi there, ok, wellI have reviewed the PDF on Product Options and its example describes how you would add 'color' and 'size in the COLUMNS tab.

However, with the website I am creating, the 'Product Category' would be different depending on what products are created by the stores Admin. For example, in your PDF tutorial it assumes thats the Product Category would be 'Color' or 'Size' But for my client's Admin area, they may want to create a new set of product options and to title it themselves. How can this be possible with eCart.

Would this be done by in the eCart COLUMNS tab create 2 different columns eg:
Column4SingleOptionTypes
Column4ListedOptionNames

I am attaching 3 screenshots of different product options for 3 different products. to give an idea of complexity of what I want to achieve.

Once I get myhead around the workflow then hopefully I should be ok.

Please let me know the best way to achieve this.

Chris

from what i see in your screen shot, it looks like you have 9 unique options:

name
carrier
reverseDate
charmType
charm2Type
smallCharm
largeCharm
charm1Name
charm2Name



you will need a column for each one in the eCart object. In the add to cart button, you set what type of updateable field to use for each option column


to allow the client to set a unique title for the options o a product basis, you would need to add a new column in the product options table for the optionTitle, the recordset used to populate the option element can be used to retrieve the title as well.

Hi there thanks for the response and that makes sense. However from this list of unique columns you mentioned. What IF later the Admin decides to add a product which will include 4 more different Charms? since Charm1Name, Charm2Name is hardcoded in the webassist ecart code. then the Admin wouldnt be able to add Charm3Name, Charm4Name...and so on?

you would need to update the eCart object to add the new columns,

and update the add to cart buttons to use those new columns.

Ok is there any other solution to what im asking to do. currently my client is using a free ecommerce system (called osCommerce) and it seems it can do it. So im wondering if there is a different approach I could take with eCart?

Actually Jason, I was thinking, the difficultly would be knowing how many additional Charms the client would add in the future to new products. So to solve this issue, in the eCart object Columns Tab, rather then creating Charm1, Charm2, Charm3... Could I simply name the column Charm (this will allow flexability for the client to add how many charms are needed per product. (however some charms will have different drop down options). Would this approach make sense and be possible in the eCart Object?

Chris

no, you would not be able to reuse the same column for multiple entries.

So what would be the alternative solution to what I need? The only way I can see it is by creating say 20 charm columns to accommodate the option for having 20 charms in the future (currently the most is 5 charms but I need to allow for this to be increased for future products) so 20 I think would be plenty. But saying that, isn't that a stupid way of coding?? Do you see my problem here? Once if finished the coding then it's left for the Admin to add more
Products with or without more or less product options. Please help me understand the logic of my problem. Chris

theres not another way of doing it.


the options columns in the cart object cannot be set by the database. the database can only control the values that are displayed for the options.

So the only way to solve this is to add say 20 or so additional columns in the eCart Object to allow for future additional options (ie more charms if client wanted to them to products).

or rather then using the Options method. How about in my detailed page where I out the 'buy now' button, couldnt I simply create 'add to cart' buttons for each optional extra?

At the end of the day I need to allow the system to allow the client to add additional options for the future (currently 2 or 4 charms for current products..but the client may want to add say 6 or even 10 charms to the product)

How can this be done?