Sort Order of Products & Child Products

[RuggeroSB]

Running VM 2.0.10, Joomla 2.5.6, PHP 5.3.15

After reviewing the UI and the code, I've made the following determinations regarding ordering:

• Parent products have an order column, but only available when filtering the products list to parent products only. HOWEVER,
  
  
  
  • You cannot order the parent products by changing the numbers in the order input fields and clicking the little disk icon in the order column to save it. Doing so seems to "reset" the numbering to some random order I don't really understand.
  • Changing the order by using the up and down icons "sort of" works. I say sort of because moving a product up in the list decrements its ordering number by 1, but does not increment the order of the product above it by one, resulting in duplicate numbering. For example, If you want to move product in position 3 to position 2 by clicking the up arrow, you'll then have that product with order number 2 as well as the product above it with order number 2. You have to then click the down arrow on the product that was above to get the numbering correct again. Extremely tedious!
• Child Products cannot be ordered at all, yet despite this, the product model's query orders them by "ordering DESC", which is firstly incorrect (should be "ASC" - you wan't 1 followed by 2 etc, not 10 followed by 9 etc). Since "ordering" is not used at all with child products and you can't change their sort order at all (that I can tell) it's always NULL, resulting in a completely random order being outputted. See \administrator\components\com_virtuemart\models\product.php, function getUncategorizedChildren, line 1923 which reads:
  
  "$q .= ' GROUP BY `virtuemart_product_id` ORDER BY ordering DESC';"
  
  

The easy sorting of products of all kinds, be it parents or children, I would think is something that should be standard for any ecommerce platform, let alone one of Virtuemart's magnitude.

So, either somebody will (please) tell me that my observations are completely wrong and I've missed something entirely (I really hope that's true), or there's a major problem with ordering of products, both with manual ordering of parents and the fact that child products cannot be ordered at all.

[blackrat999]

Nope you are right - its a dogs dinner that is all over the web - looking forward to a fix on this !!

[RuggeroSB]

Nope you are right - its a dogs dinner that is all over the web - looking forward to a fix on this !!

Agreed - a terrible mess that's hard to explain away to clients! And God-forbid you do Step 1b on several hundred products and then accidentally do Step 1a (see my OP for steps I'm talking about) - you can then kiss your all your hard ordering work goodbye!

[RuggeroSB]

Bump. Somebody should address this issue. I've looked around the VM forum and noticed this issue raised many times with no response.

If this is not where bugs should be reported and addressed, then somebody in the know please let me know where they should be reported where it will get the required attention (although this forum is called "Virtuemart 2 Development and bug reports", so I would think this is the right place).

[wpompen]

RuggeroSB, I totally agree! I'm struggling with this since I migrated to VM2 over a month ago, there's no turning back to VM1 since I dicovered it too late.
Otherwise it probably would have been smarter to wait ;-) I'm surprised that this seems to be neglected by the devs and hope to see it fixed soon, until then it's a p in th a...

[RuggeroSB]

Well, it only gets better I'm afraid: If you try to reorder the shopper fields, that breaks too! If you use the arrows, you get some error about permissions and if you try using the numbers it's totally futile.

I have yet to find a single list view on VM2 who's reorder function works as it should!

[blans]

Dear Dev Guys,

We have all been very patient on this subject but I think it's now time to shed some light on why this issue has not been solved yet.

Already beginning of last year I posted about this problem but I simply cannot believe more features were added before solving this basic E-commerce functionality.
Not to mention the whole reason me and a lot of others have still not updated our webshops to VM2 is the complexity of setting up a simple parent/child list in VM2 and get it to work.

Ordering child items in a drop down list (not solved since 2006!) - http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=81241.msg267720#msg267720
Stockable variants: sorting order of child products in dropdown box - https://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=108097.0
How to Order (List Order) your Child Products - http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=107423.0
Product Display Dropdown Order - http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=104180.0

We all want T-Shirts --> T-Shirt XS - €9,95 | T-Shirts S - €9,95 | T- Shirt M - €9,95 etc....

Ordered from XS to XL !!!

[Jimmie]

I keep it simple.... me too.  I am searching for two days now. And many people have this problem. What is the solution? Can't be that hard to program. I donate € 50,- if a decent solution is posted next week 
Regards, Jimmie

[wpompen]

I'm with you guys! Fix this already, I'll gladly donate also!

(... however that should not be the reason to finally get the job done)

[afon]

Yes will be very nice and helpful... when you fix it

here also a other one http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=108333.0

Thanks!

[blans]

Thanks guys for the support. It also shows the importance of this problem.

The support for J1.5 has ended so people using J1.5 and VM 1.9 are in the corner here. What to do...?

I would like to rebuild the website on J2.5 and VM2 but then this issue need to be fixed. I don't want to rebuild on J2.5 and VM 1.9.

We also have an external developer waiting for my "go" with a VM - Navision coupling.

But this aside I'm also just flabbergasted why this issue has still not been resolved and why there is no feedback from the devteam.

[RuggeroSB]

I can't believe this issue is simply being ignored! There's a clear need for this to be sorted out as a matter of priority - there are dozens of IGNORED POSTS on this very topic all over the forum!

Ignoring the problem is not going to make it go away! Some sort of response from the powers-that-be, apart from being good manners, would be appreciated.

[blans]

I agree with RuggeroSB,

It's not so much this problem that's worrying me but more so is the continuity of Virtuemart with this attitude of the devteam.

On the OpenCart forum you are scolded when even mentioning a possible improvement in security matters or anything else. On the Magento forum you are simply not answered at all.

Here I always loved the community and the great feedback that you receive, A bit dependent on the same people, but great.

Now it's becoming very worrying to see where it's going... Please assure us that we are not moving towards the OpenCart or Magento model but stay user focused...
This situation is exactly why so many turn away from Opensource and also what I was warned for so many times before picking up Mambo years ago and again when implementing Virtuemart for a commercial website/shop for a rock solid but innovative company.

Joomla / Virtuemart but also the businesses that use these tools have grown. This means we are dependent of the continuity of Virtuemart. Having some insight into the status of a problem like this seems therefor very justified.

[CE WebDesign München]

hi,
this worked for me, please test:
http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=108844.msg365111#msg365111

[RuggeroSB]

hi,
this worked for me, please test:
http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=108844.msg365111#msg365111

Credit to Umbobabo for fixing ONE of the nuances/bugs identified, but that doesn't solve all the other sort issues.

• Child product ordering NOT working
• Shopper fields ordering NOT working
• Arrow ordering icons NOT working properly for product ordering (see OP)
• And just every single other ordering column in VM that does not work (I have yet to find any that do work).

Additionally, this code doesn't appear 2 have been added to the main repository, basically rednering it useless if you update VM.

How long are we just going to be ignored one has to wonder? Well, I've moved on - I've purchased an alternative. At least that way I know I'll get support and won't simply be ignored. Time is money and this is just beyond ridiculous now.