New Vm3.0.14 feature does not seem to work

[brandiware]

Hi all,
Hi,

in search for a solution to my parent->child product relationship issue I found the following new feature in 3.0.14:


* product parent id editing field in product edit, so products can be attached to patterns

The field is there, but it's function is unclear. If I want to attach a product to a product pattern what do I do ?
I tried entering the id of the  pattern into this field in the product description of the to-be variant and hit "Save" - no effect.
I did the same again, hitting the "create variant" button - itcreates a variant, but an empty one...

Any explanation of this feature is greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Stefan

[biltong]

I'm experiencing a similar problem.

Using VM 3.0.14, J3.5.1

Created a parent pattern product called Wigs then a child product called Amore Wigs then want to make this the parent of a bunch of existing migrated products by changing their Parent ID to the id of the Amore Wigs pattern product.

So the 3 level pattern tree is Wigs->Amore Wigs->Wig1, wig2, wig 3 etc.

Note, both Wigs and Amore Wigs are unpublished as per this advice http://docs.virtuemart.net/tutorials/product-creation/47-manual/concepts/186-derived-products-product-pattern-child-products.html

[biltong]

This works, changed the product's Parent ID using phpMyAdmin....

The best way is to create a pattern product. It is just a normal but unpublished product.

then add the customfield to this parent and the derive all your child products from the parent. In VM3, you can then easily override single customfields to adjust the child product. In vm2, you have to override all of them, if you want to change one (yeah, not very handy, the big reason for VM3!).

In your case, create a new empty product, use a sql which set the parent_id of all products to the new product and thats it. The advantage is now also, that you can change just the parent customfield and the children have the new value (if not overriden of course).

[brandiware]

Have you managed to get multi-variant fields to work ? I have tried the DB parent_id solution a couple of days ago.
The product detail view does not update when changing the options.

[biltong]

Product Patterns and Multivariants are not the same concept (although they are related to achieve certain behaviours) so not sure what you're asking here.

My solution above specifically relates to Patterns and how to change the Parent ID of a child using phMyAdmin so that the child inherits custom fields assigned to the parent.

Getting multivariants to work is another Topic entirely so you will need to be more specific and post your question in an appropriate topic.

[brandiware]

What I learned, is that the pattern concept is used to allow inheriting of field values to childs. I am aware of this
and also that it is advised to not publish the "pattern" product.
I used exactly this concept to create product variants. So there is a "master variant" - the pattern product if you will.
And then I attach child products to it, thus creating the variants.
The multi-variant fields bring in a new concept of allowing the user to select attributes of different variants.

So, guess you are right - they are different concepts. However, my question relates to the one line that I copied from
the VM 3.0.14 release. This feature does not do any attachment of products to patterns. This failure can be easily
verified using phpadmin.

[biltong]

Updating the Parent ID in the Product Edit page now seems to be working fine with VM 3.0.16.