Variations limitation - Shopping Cart Community : Forum Archive

Martin

2009-06-20 20:39:54

It's been bugging me for a while now but the issue of variations seems to be a bit of a problem for folks who have variations that require quite a few attributes and options.

Note: It doesn't help that the variations screen summary uses the word "options" when it means "attributes" either...

Anyway, the reason this has cropped up is if you try inputting a variation that has say four attributes and one of those has 12 options, you suddenly find the system starts gobbling RAM and before you know it you get a memory error and, most likely, a blank screen.

As near as I can tell, the reason for this craziness is that the code required to make the variations screen work, is so bogged down with long variables, and copies of copies of code that it just eats up the available memory and that's it, blank screen time.

I'm just wondering if there's a better way with all of this... and also, if it wouldn't be somehow smarter to have a configurable field <SELECT> field option as well. After all, there will be occasions when the variation isn't something that's pre-built or pre-made but is essentially a custom order that gets build/made/etc... once the order has been placed. In instances like the latter it seems that having that configurable select field would be a real bonus.

babyREFLUX

2009-06-21 09:37:52

The variations 'engine' is fundamentally flawed. I seemed to remember that it was an afterthought during beta and although the Interspire team did a great job to get it up and running before launch; I always figured that there plan was to go back and address it...which hasn't happened.

There are so many issues with it I think it needs requiring completely otherwise the hacks become top heavy and it will eventually fall over.

biophase

2009-06-23 06:48:42

The variations engine sucks big time. However, I've found that it seems to be able to handle a little more in 5.0.3 than 4.0.X. I have a product with 4 x 8 x 2 variations and I had a memory error in 4.0.x so I just worked around it. I just added it last night in 5.0.3 and it worked. This is all speculation because I honestly don't remember if I left out some variations. It sucks when you have to modify your store products to fit the store software.

However, the tedious part of adding the price changes took me 2 hours of just hitting tab, add, 15, tab, add, 10, etc... Then I went to my other stores which run zen cart and I was done in 15 minutes for the same product.

The only simpler workaround (if your variations don't change the price) is to make the customers type their choices in a text box. It's pretty sad that this engine would use such an archaic math model for pricing options. I don't understand why it cannot separately add a bunch of choices in series and come up with a total price. :shock:

Martin

2009-06-25 23:16:57

Good grief... This variations system is something I've just tried to use properly for the first time today and already my blood is positively boiling.

This thing is an absolute pile of cr*p...

No error messages, no attempt to warn you that a variation needs to be unselected saved and then reselected in a product to get the [expletive] to work when you've changed it, etc...

Right... Anger management session out of the way here's a few tips to "watch out" for.. :evil:

Keep your variations to a maximum of 10 items TOTAL (eg: 3 attributes with 7 options between them absolute max)

Anything else will result in your variations saving part way and then losing the last few items in an endless loop (see below).

Do not expect any error messages..

This system does not provide ANY errors for basic things like weights missing if you've indicated that order weight should change with your variation item

If you edit the variation at all you will find that you are unable to edit the variation for any product that used it.

Yes... that's right... any attempt to edit the variations for a product (even though it's showing the correct edited values I might add) will result in the loop effect and nothing being saved

If you edit the variation list you will need to untick the variations box for your product, save the product and then re-add the variation list again.

I can't imagine what this will do to people who use variations that cover multiple products in the single figure range, let alone hundreds or even thousands... In effect though this is one huge "feature" that requires a complete rewrite from the ground up.

Snooper

2010-06-27 21:51:56

A question I hope is relevant to this forum subject.

If for example, you are selling a line of clothes that has the make up of (say) a style reference - ABC and it has four colours and associated sizes S, M and L. To set up this in store you would not elect to show each item as a single option simply because a front page of 12 images would be a potential showing of 3 stock styles and not as ideally 12 styles with colour variations shown as dropdown, radio tick boxes etc.

So my question.. How the hell can you now give discount to a range (stock style) of a garments once you set that style up in variations ? In other words give a garment range the same discount and not as I can only see one garment at a time a discount as long as I am happy to show them as a separate item for sale.

Martin

2010-06-28 22:19:33

Short answer is that you can't setup variations to use any kind of discount... It simply hasn't been designed in a way that can make this happen.

Snooper

2010-06-29 00:07:42

Oh great !! NOT !!! This excluded ability is a flaw of reasoning.

Mind you, it does explain why I truly am finding it difficult to find a clothes outlet using ISC.

Thanks for the quick reply Martin… It was much appreciated… Do you know a credible work around ??

suddenhit

2010-11-17 17:33:19

Actually i was able to break it and have both discounts as well as variation (selling apparel)

P.M. me for instructions

Martin

2011-01-04 09:21:22

Actually i was able to break it and have both discounts as well as variation (selling apparel)

P.M. me for instructions
Missed this but could you please post up the instructions and/or attach them to the post here rather than requiring a PM..

It's great that you can develop and support something like this but there's a lot of modifications and fixes that have been lost because they aren't shared publicly despite being non-commercial. Naturally that can get quite frustrating especially when something like this has been solved but nobody knows how..

Cheers,