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There have been a lot of threads dealing with this issue lately, and the frequency of them serves to hilight the importance of this issue. I’ve recently installed most of the competition (justaddcommerce, oscommerce, creloaded, zen cart) on one of my domains and began experimenting with the way they handle configurable options.
In each of these sites, from the simple product page (there are no grouped or “configurable” products in these cart solutions), the store admin is given an option to edit the attributes of that product.
One place where Magento succeeds when other ecommerce solutions fail is the ability to add custom attributes for products, and display them on the product information page. This also allows you to incorporate those attributes into the search function and filtered navigation sections of your site. This is a great feature, and surely sets Magento apart from the competition.
However, this is NOT the same thing as configurable options, in the sense that these other carts have implemented them, and in the way which has become the standard among the ecommerce community. Store owners need the ability to quickly and easily add a range of configurable options (I use the term options instead of attributes on purpose). They need the ability to create options with selections of more than one type, not just dropdown.
We should be able to go into a simple product, head over to the Options tab on the left nav, and start adding “Option Set“‘s (like Size), and “Option Values” (Like Small, Large) on the fly. When we are adding a new option set, we should have the ability to select what kind of input we want from the customer, whether it be a dropdown, check boxes (multiple select) or radio buttons. We should also be able to create standalone options such as for customizable name tags and engravings. For example, a text box on the shopping cart page asking a customer to enter a phrase to be engraved on a plaque.
The way magento is handling attributes is wonderful, but they have almost completely overlooked options. Now, from what I’ve read about the bundles package, it will not address these situations. It will simply be a better way of handling the current implementation which is configurable products. This is not what we need.
What we need is the ability to add new Option Sets and Options to a product on the fly, in a number of different formats ranging from dropdowns, radio boxes, and check boxes, to text boxes, text fields, and image select.
What I want to accomplish in this thread is to get clear understanding of what you guys want to see, and how you all think this should be handled, so we can convey our concerns to the Magento team, or any other interested developer, in the correct manner. I’m considering attempting to custom code this functionality for my own site, but to be honest this is something which is standard in literally all other ecommerce solutions, and there’s no reason it should be anything but simple for the Magento team to implement, considering how much of an amazing product they’ve already made.
So, to put things into specifics and sum up my request, I’d like to see this:
A new tab in the left navigation for the New Product screen called Options.
Within that new tab, I’d like to see two buttons, New Option, and Add Value, the latter only appearing after the creation of a New Option. Upon clicking New Option, the site should prompt the store owner, asking him what kind of Option he wants to add. He should be able to choose between Radio Buttons, Dropdowns, Check Boxes, and Text Box.
Once the store owner chooses one of those four option types for the New Option prompt, a new Option Set should be created, for for a Text Box, a single option should be created.
Once the new Option Set is created, another button should appear to the right side, allowing him to add specific options, much the same way dropdown attributes are currently handled. There should be two fields to be entered for each option selection. Name, and Price Adjustment.
The store owner should be able to add any number of Option Sets, and a combination of set types should be possible. This way you could make a product with many options, some of them being check boxes, some being dropdowns, and some being radio buttons.
I would like to re-iterate, this is something completely different than the current attributes system. The attributes system seeks to handle the creation of items with custom attributes, and it works great. I put all of the specifications of my items into my cart as attributes, allowing my customers to easily search out the items. However, the handling of customer-selectable options should not be handled in the same section as these attributes. Something new needs to be done.
Please take the time to read my post and let me know if you understand the point I’m trying to get across here. If needed, I will gladly clarify my idea for you, and would love to hear some of your input on what would further improve this idea. I think it is necessary if Magento hopes to take a sizable percentage of the market, as a sizable percentage of ecommerce stores thrive on the ability to sell custom products to their customers, with many options of many different types.
Brett
*edit*
I’ve included a screenshot of the way JAC handles product Options. This might help to clarify my intentions. Keep in mind, this screenshot was taken while adding a new product. The information you see there is part of the new product screen.
*edit 2*
I added two new images. They explain my compromise suggestion. We don’t need to add any new functionality, just use the existing functionality and add the ability to auto-generate a range of simple products based on the configurable attributes.
For example, if i was creating a configurable T shirt with two configurable attributes, size and color, each of which have three options… Then, it would auto-generatethe 9 simple products.
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