Attributes/Custom Fields Thread

[stuffdone]

None of the screen shots even match what I see on my back end?

The tabs talked about in the WIKI and others don't even exist!!

Can someone post a STICKY topic with exact step-by-step to add attributes to products please?  After trying to read over 20 pages of replies I am no closer.
VM 2.0.1f

It used to be easy...why break something that was not broken?

Perhaps I need to check out another cart since VM seems to be working over time to make things harder and harder to manage.

[blans]

I don't think you'll receive any feedback stuffdone. This subject is avoided in any way possible.
Join the club: https://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=107411.15

I've reached the point of visiting the Milbers Virtuemart Seminar the 23th in Germany and asking him what the hell they are doing there.
Giving Virtuemart Silver Certification lessons when the could better use that time to get the software to work in the first place.

The timing with the Joomla updates is awful. Anyone with a stable running 1.5 webshop that is needed for there income will stay far away from VM2 until these problems are solved. But you need to switch to Joomla 2.5... AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH....!!!

Also attending a Opencart gathering this month to check my options. After using Joomla and VM since it's Mambo days... This is crazy!

[wpompen]

I've installed this extension, problem solved!
http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/extension-specific/virtuemart-extensions/virtuemart-products-display/22355?qh=YToxOntpOjA7czoxMDoiY2F0cHJvZHVjdCI7fQ%3D%3D

[WebStuff]

How to add Custom items and fields from Articles and Modules.
http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=110001.msg368585#msg368585

[alanbagl;ey]

dsrpmedia ,

here`s an example

here is a parent/child setup in vm 1.1 http://nutrawholesale.com/nutra-organic-plant-acids-opa/opa-daily-protection?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage_default.tpl&product_id=30&category_id=44
notice how you can see the prices / sizes in the dropdown
- and how the parent is not being added to the dropdown
-and how the parent itself has no price

Hi dsrpmedia,

in your example given above you seemed to have found a solution for not being able to add a product to cart without a drop down selection, could you explain how you did this?

I have a project I am working on that has a child parent relationship. At the moment there does not seem to be a way of making the child attributes mandatory, so example, house paint is the parent item, then K2 paints as child, the child product has attributes of volume, year and colour that need to be mandatory before adding to cart, this is for custom paint being made to order so the vendor needs to have the mandatory fields to be able to for fill the order.

Dev site example is here: http://integrousdemo.co.uk/ccs/shop/painting/paint/k2-paint-detail

I have been going through this http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=100330.0 thread but to no avail, any pointers or help would be great.

Using: Joomla! 2.5.7 & VM 2.0.10

Kind regards
Alan

[qme1ster]

I'm a VM 1.0/1.1 user and have been for years. I've set up many online stores with it and have been quite pleased with the results but I thought it time to try out VM 2.0. After many excruciating hours trying I've reached the conclusion that this product (VM 2.0)  is no longer economically viable for me. The time required to achieve basic functionality is mesmerizing. It's counter-intuitive and is simple not user friendly. Why so many complicated steps to be able to create child products with stock control? In earlier versions I managed to get my head around it despite it having its limitations, but this new version in its current for is rather unsellable from my point of view. What client is going to want to battle with it? In contrast, today, in a matter of MINUTES I set up a store with MijoShop and had a product with child variants set up WITH STOCK CONTROL. A child could do it, and that's really how this should be. Yes it's a commercial extension but when you balance the price with the hours saved ( it just simply works out of the box AND THERE ARE INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEOS) it's really a no-brainer. VM 2.0 I wish you well but I for one have to bid you farewell for now.

[blans]

Thank you qme1ster for the Mijshop link. I hadn't seen it before and it makes sense to integrate Opencart into Joomla.

What I don't like is that this setup would make one dependent on 3 software parties. Joomla/Mijshop/Opencart. I have the same trouble with Joomla/K2/Virtuemart.
Besides that the bad temper and constant scolding of the Opencart developer also concerns me. But his software is certainly one of the very best in usability and like you say, it simply works!

I think you statement is very legitimate and it hurts me to see you have to leave the software you have used with so much pleasure for so long.

I have checked out Opencart and CS-Cart and both have their pros and cons however I still think Virtuemart outperforms them if only these basic E-commerce needs would work.

Come on Virtuemart Team! You guys are losing users like a leaky faucet loses water...

[bunglehaze]

I am sorry to say this, especially after using VM extensively for many, many years and having donated a few times for projects during VM1.1 days. I will be stopping developing any sites using VM2 for the forseeable future and on the next opportunity for each client will look to migrate to a new ecommerce software once chosen.

This decision has not been taken lightly either, having jumped on the first releases of VM2 eagerly, and assisted in the bugfixing forum finding some of the numerous early problems I expected a lot of usability issues to have been dealt with by now and for my general experience to have improved enough to feel confident to donate yet again for each client site I create using the software - this has not been the case.

The whole custom fields system is still a joke, a dealbreaker for almost all users apart from those that have learned the 'trick' to using it. NO ecommerce system should be this badly thought out that a year after it launches the majority of complaints are for one, quite frankly, huge area of usability that users in general cannot work out. The terminology used is overcomplicated, the options are overcomplicated and too rigid, the actual functionality is poor at best - it does not work as it should.

The shame here is that most of the really annoying, but only annoying, bugs have now been ironed out. There are lingering ones like the lack of ordering on certain sections - payment systems don't seem to obey the ordering you set and of course it goes without saying that the custom fields section behaves like IT wants to. 90% of the typical functionality of top level ecommerce systems is there - nailed, the problem is the final 10%, where people want to offer more complex options than 1 product SKU, 1 option, 1 price.

I have two client sites, migrated from VM1.1 which was working great but done because Joomla 1.5 was coming up to EOL and they were due a bit of modernisation. One had a very simple multiple dropdown with options either plus or minus priced from the parent, others had to have a dropdown where the prices changed so often that plus and minus would not work so the equals function worked flawlessly to keep a track on prices - why on earth was this removed - totally and with no viable replacement? I can no longer have a parent product priced at zero and products individually priced - why not? That is a fundamental function.

A second site I have needs much more complex configuration, ideally instead of dropdowns of manually created items I would use sku codes to pick up already existing products in the shop, instead I am trying to use PRO's plugin to create dropdowns because a third party plugin that actually, as good as it is, still does not allow price input within the plugin config, is the best option available. It is almost as if the custom fields was disregarded for being too difficult and hashed together without thinking through how it is used. I cannot figure out how I am supposed to offer a customer the option of paint finish or powder coat finish with two completely different colour ranges - if powder coat is chosen, paint is disallowed and vice-versa. That should be a simple function.

The final nail in the coffin for me though im afraid is just how few threads get resolved with a genuine developer response rather than the mutterings of a handful of frustrated, amateur coders who are just trying to make their sites work. If documentation and usability are not working to help questions to problems the user will always jump on a forum as a port of call but it seems that the forum is less answered here than ever before, I am not really a poster for problems, but I read pages and pages of single 'please help me I cant do....' threads that go unanswered by people that would know (hopefully) and unfortunately the custom fields and product creation side of it suffers particularly badly for being ignored or avoided.

To those of you who use VM and have never donated anything but still feel like complaining, that is one of the issues with a large open source project like this. Developers on these projects can only afford to spend time if they can balance bills and home life which usually means having to work, every time you start a project or get a little help how about sending a little funding back to help them move the project along? I must confess to not donating anything since the launch of VM2 - purely because it has actually cost me more money and time to try and configure than I have made for a few clients, I did want to give something back to the project but for now I am left looking for a cost effective way to migrate clients and spend my own time learning an new ecommerce software, VM2 has not got easier to use in a year and I feel it is going to stay this way.

[Milbo]

The whole custom fields system is still a joke, a dealbreaker for almost all users apart from those that have learned the 'trick' to using it. NO ecommerce system should be this badly thought out that a year after it launches the majority of complaints are for one, quite frankly, huge area of usability that users in general cannot work out. The terminology used is overcomplicated, the options are overcomplicated and too rigid, the actual functionality is poor at best - it does not work as it should.

This the only valid point. The customfield system is already completly rewritten for the core itself, now we start to rewrite the handling and will make it a lot more intuitiv. For the other points I just can say that vm2 is not soo old like vm1. The 2.0.8c, 2.0.10, 2.0.14 are really fine versions. The 2.0.16 will be also really good. Check the release notes http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=110743.msg371394

Ahja manual, we finally managed to port the old docs.virtuemart.net

[bunglehaze]

Milbo, I have not said that VM1 is old at all? Far from it. Infact I praise the work you have done since the early release of VM2 in getting most of the issues fixed but for me, as with a lot of users, the custom fields is just unusable. You say the code is rewritten for the core which is great news but when is this 'likely' to be integrated into a relatively stable release and the handling sorted for me to test? If I can be convinced that the work of migrating all my customer sites to another system is not going to be needed I can make what I have work temporarily.

I have supported VM since I started building sites, it is only pure frustration and increased workload from trying to make it behave as it should that makes me want to look elsewhere, I am sure you already appreciate this or you would not have rewritten the custom fields code already.

[Milbo]

The customfields were the only thing not mainly directed or done by me. They are rewritten how they work (reduced queries for productdetails with 2 customfields from 200 to 140). Now they can handled a lot easier (from programming point). So now we will make them easier to use. And of course all with migrator. A normal user without hacked vm should just update.

[Milbo]

The tabs talked about in the WIKI and others don't even exist!!
VM 2.0.1f

I am sorry, but 2.0.1f is a beta version and 10 months old, come on.

[bluebeachdesign]

Thanks to VM2 I am also having issues setting up a simple size list. I am about to uninstall and go back to the VM1

[afterglow80]

How do you make parent unorderable when it has stockable children? Plllleeeeaaassseeee!!!!

[blans]

The customfields were the only thing not mainly directed or done by me.

Then please do everything yourself from now on. Bunglehaze is spot on with his remarks! Why haven't you mentioned before that you were rebuilding the customfields?

That is another point Bunglehaze makes, the communication should be better. I don't care if it takes you multiple years to come up with a solution as long as there is communication. He also asks for an estimated date that we can see the new custom fields in action.

So simple questions:

1. When will the new custom fields section be ready for review?

2. Can we then finally sort the children?