SIMPLE Variant Construction - Product Color!!

[robert]

Just a little background & a warning that this is a bit of a RANT...

I dedicated myself to VM when it was one of the first carts available for Joomla. After several new versions of Joomla and VM, currently, I am building a site on Joomla V3 and using VM 3 and I can not express enough how FRUSTRATING it has been just trying to accomplish basic design features and functions, which I really believe are essential to a solid cart platform. I know the developers of VM have been working hard and I appreciate it, demonstrated by my loyalty to the product, but as this component has progressed, using it has gone backwards as far as ease of use.

I understand the VM business model of, give the core away for free and generate revenue for added features. I have bought into those features, namely "One Page Checkout" because VM's core checkout is overly complicated and it shouldn't be.

Now, I am faced with a task that should be simple. Like MANY if not all stores, I have a simple product which requires a simple variant. Choosing a color!

I have been trying to figure out a simple way to show a color variant, so far, I have about 14 hours into this task, from searching for a paid plugin to trying to understand the whole "Custom Field" aspect of VM.

In my case I have 3 products, each product has about 20 color options. According to what I have learned, I have to create the Custom Field Color, then I have to add that variant to the product and enter each color for each item. That will entail adding 60 variants individually to all products and intern it will add an equal amount of Child products!!!  REALLY?

With the talented team who has created this component, are they really unable to make this simple task easy for supporters to accomplish in the core of this component?

I see, that VM3 has 2 new core custom fields that allow you to easily add "Related Categories & Products"! That is wonderful, but don't you think it would have been more practical to have that as a paid feature and have "Color & Size" as a core simple custom field?

I wonder how many VM users have decided to use an alternative cart because of the complicated aspect of Cart Variant?

I know I am seriously considering using an alternative cart, not because I do not want to support VM, but because I could never train my client well enough to handle these simple functions on their own!!!

So far I have explored paid features to accomplish this like:
http://breakdesigns.net/extensions/stockable-custom-fields
http://www.joommasters.com/index.php/joomla/joomla-plugins?view=document&doc_id=20

AND I have tried to find a solution in the documentation and also reviewed the Santa Hat in the demo.virtuemart.com

But at this point I am reluctantly searching for an alternative cart.

with all that said, Has anyone been able to easily create these simple variants? It would be great to have color swatches to pick from but, I will settle for a text list.

Any comment Mr. jenkinhill? Can you point me in a direction? Hopefully at least to some documentation that makes the "Simple Variant" clear enough so that I can educate my customer with it? And remember they are not that technically saavy.

[robert]

Another note: Currently I have 3 products with 20 color options each. With the current way of creating variants, this simple commerce site with 3 "Products" will now turn into 60 products.

What happens when we add product and lets say get to 20 products? That means the "Products" link will show over 400! Products!!!!! versus showing 20 products and within each the 20 colors available.

[Jörgen]

Hello Robert

I haven´t had time to dig into the custom fields and Child Products of VM 2/3. I am still using VM 1.1.3. But I have some comments to what You are saying.
Today I have variants of my Product that I am selling. In some cases colour and in some cases colour and size. These are in my case all different products that all take up space in my warehouse.

If I would paint my Products just before delivery (which i don´t) then there would just one product. You don´t tell us how You do in Your case. In my case I would have 60 different Products all with different SKU. I usually copy a already used product when starting a new Child structure. I hope that the number of products isn´t the issue here, the reason is probably that it seems to be a bit hard to set ut the custom fields and Child Products. If You don´t need stock control then use custom fields, that should work for You.

Sorry that I can´t help You any further, but there will surely be others that can help.

regards

Jörgen @ Kreativ Fotografi

[robert]

Jörgen... THANK YOU for the reply! I really do hope & pray that at some point someone sheds some real light onto this entire portion of VM3

I am experimenting with the Custom Fields and Variant functions of VM more today, I have yet to figure it all out and I cringe thinking that once I do - I am going to have to try to teach my client how to do it themselves, I see a never ending call log of my customer calling and asking questions about this process.

I did install http://breakdesigns.net/extensions/stockable-custom-fields but without a real understanding of VM's Custom Fields that is even difficult to work with.

[robert]

OK the more I break this down the more frustrating it becomes.

Technically we have 1 product, which we sell as a single item (Needs Color option), then we sell the same product in a set of 4 (Needs Color Option), then we sell the same product again in a set of 8 - in that case we need to have 2 color options - 1 color option for 2 different sets of 4.

Could someone PLEASE help with this?

[AH]

If you do not need stock control on the variants

This is like the old VM method - it is free but built for my needs, so if it works for you :-)

http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=127362.msg436591#msg436591

[robert]

Hutson!!!! Yessssaaaaa!!!! 

Simple, yet Perfectly EFFECTIVE!!!!!!! Now I just need to sweep up my hair that's on the floor from tearing it out and I am good to GO!!!

Thank you Thank you THANK YOU!!!!!!!

[balai]

if you want a more fancy way to display color variants, have a look here as well
http://breakdesigns.net/extensions/customfields-for-all

[AH]

  ;D8)

[lindapowers]

When the only way to guess how some custom fields work is by checking the demo or testing for hours... We have a problem.

Personally I find the colour picker useless but I agree it should be easy to set up.

But this happens with all custom fields, creating a child product was an adventure.

Cart attribute? Am I supposed to know what that is by magic?

VM needs documentation. Examples of use for each custom field, explanation of how to set them up.

[AH]

Solved - yes variants may need better information  - but the original query from Robert is solved.