Category and product creation

[Troels_E]

Latest stable VM and J3.6.5
Two questions.

1. is it possible to create a menu item that links to a manufacturer and shows categories with products from this manufacturer instead of just mix of products?

Example.
Say I fex. sell car tires and have a category "racing tire" in this category I have four manufacturers subcategories with their products.
I also sell winter tires and again I have created subcategories for each manufacturer.

If I want to list all categories from a certain manufacturer as a category grid, can VM do this and how?

2. I have products that come in a lot of different colours and need stock control (which I have never used before).
I don't know whether to make a parent product category and then a new product in this category for each colour (up to 75 colours/products) or whether to do it with childproducts or so. Someone please advise.
I need people to see the colours as they pick the product (or preferably pick the product from the picture) and SEO is also a concern so whats the advice?

Thanks

[Studio 42]

1. is it possible to create a menu item that links to a manufacturer and shows categories with products from this manufacturer instead of just mix of products?

I think that it need code changes in the category layout,to do it, but should be possible, because Virtuemart permit to filter category & manufacturer in the same view.
This link should work for filter category and manufacturer

Code Select Expand

jroute::('index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=category&virtuemart_category_id='.$virtuemart_category_id.'&virtuemart_manufactured_id='.$virtuemart_manufactured_id);
Of course it's the base code and you need to prefilter manufacturers to only display manufacturers having product results

2. I have products that come in a lot of different colours and need stock control (which I have never used before).
I don't know whether to make a parent product category and then a new product in this category for each colour (up to 75 colours/products) or whether to do it with childproducts or so. Someone please advise.
I need people to see the colours as they pick the product (or preferably pick the product from the picture) and SEO is also a concern so whats the advice?

If the main product is the same and color need stock control and different SKU, the best is to use Child.
I wrote Professional product Child variants that i use myself for some customer to use a slideshow, you can override child display in the template, to use any code and use different  and own design if needed.
Another solution is to override Virtuemart sublayout with your own code for the child.

[balai]

Please have a look here:
https://breakdesigns.net/support/custom-filters
and here:
https://breakdesigns.net/extensions/stockable-custom-fields

[Studio 42]

Hi balai, the user need product image to switch.

[Milbo]

1. is it possible to create a menu item that links to a manufacturer and shows categories with products from this manufacturer instead of just mix of products?

http://dev.virtuemart.net/attachments/download/1054/com_virtuemart.3.0.19.6_extract_first.zip

use the last vm3.0.19.6 and you can configure the menu item that way. The second question is a Multivariant with radio and css so that you see images. You should work first with the Multivariant to understand the concept. https://docs.virtuemart.net/manual/general-concepts/186-derived-products-product-pattern-child-products.html
When you hit a limit, then take a look on the products of balai and Studio42, because then you understand better which is the right for your case.

[Troels_E]

Thanks everyone. A lot to loook into :-)