Custom field type plugin - how does it work?

[Menace]

Hello,

I'm using VM 3.0.4 and Joomla! 3.3.6.
I am creating a clothing shop and do get issues that are already discussed a lot here in several threads about product sizes and colors etc.

I played around a lot with the custom field options but no combination really worked out well for me. Either parent product is orderable which it shouldn't be when I use generic childs or the output in the frontends dropdown list has no option if I just use custom field type child variants.

So I thought plugin VM-custom product specification might be what I need. But how does this work? When I configure it and save I can chose it in the products custom fields tab but nothing happens no custom field is added. How is custom field type plugin supposed to work?

[GJC Web Design]

I don't know either (haven't had time to check the latest mods ) but Max says this now works and is demonstrated on the example data

easiest is do a quick install of the example data and check (I think) red body something

[Menace]

Thank you GJC.

I tested with clean new setup of VM on test server before posting the question. There is no custom field plugin 'product specification' in the sample data and I can't assign one to a product after I created it. Custom field plugin 'custom text' does work but is not what I need.

Nevertheless as I really just want to add sizes and sometimes colors to products I can't believe there is no way to achieve this. If I dont't want to make parent orderable, there is no way I can see but using generic child variant but then there should be a possibility to add a custom attribute that shows in the frontend dropdown and not just 'name, sku, height, weight' etc.

[balai]

You can use this plugin
http://breakdesigns.net/extensions/stockable-custom-fields

[Menace]

Thank you Balai.

I've seen your plugin in the other post about size and colour issues. I think it's great and would be exactly what I need but I still get issues with that.
At first frontend dropdown looks OK but when one option is selected and the parameters are recalculated I get a second select box (see attached images).

I tested this with my actual shop configuaration as well as on testserver with clean Joomla and VM installation with standard demoshop.

What might be the reason for that?

[balai]

Seems like a js issue. Please contact me through this form and supply me your site's credentials
http://breakdesigns.net/contact

[Menace]

The additional dropdown is wrapped by a div of 'field-type-s' so it's the string itself that suddenly shows up.
I unpublished the string and it seems this solved the problem. I'm still testing but looks good now.

Are there any settings mandatory for the 'string' field used with your plugin or are things like 'cart variant'  and 'cart input' overwritten by your plugin?

[balai]

No there is nothing overriden.
I think there is a setting in the VM config for disabling the chosen dropdown scripts

Please send your feedback after you finished your test

[coelho]

Hi Balai,

Your pluggin is very good. A great option for those who need to be fast building child products, requiring stock.

I'm testing the potential of the plugin and noticed to be missing one important thing:

You can activate the "list" function to access the predefined default options?
One example is, if we have the colors previously defined in the "list", these do not appear when building the product and we have to write the colors manually.

[balai]

if we have the colors previously defined in the "list", these do not appear when building the product and we have to write the colors manually

What you mean? Can you describe it using the terminology/functionality of Virtuemart?

[coelho]

Thanks for your interest.

I am referring, for example, the custom field "String". If you have set as "default" some options, they do not appear when the field is inserted into the plugin.
However, if I use the same field outside the plugin, the list in dropdown appears correctly.

(VM 3.0.4, Joomla! 3.3.6.)

[balai]

It does not call the custom field itself, it just generates the output.
Though this option will be possible when it will work with plugins. In this case it will call the plugins to generate the output

[coelho]

Okay. When are you planning to launch this function?