The "custom fields" nightmare.

[Bruce Morgan]

This one is giving me headaches.  The custom fields are so complicated to use that it is difficult to even evaluate if they are working correctly or not.  It seems that user-friendly got thrown out for the opportunity to add capabilities tha many may never use.  What would be very helpful would be as follows:

1.  How can someone duplicate the look of the old-style attributes with the drop down selector??  Is there a way to comment out the "no additonal charge" text?  If there are multiple attributes to select how would they be added?
2.  Can someone describe what the custom field types are?
3.  Ditto for the title, desription and default?
4.  What if I would like to have the option be a list with a radio button instead of a dropdown list?  is this possible?
5.  The wiki description for grouping a set of custom fields is unclear.  I followed the instructions to create a field "design" as aparent with five child custom fields as a group.  When ths is selcted as acustome field for a product the result is a list of five deign each with a dropdown that says "No additonal Charge".  Having a pre-set group would be nice but how can it be done so it works like the old attributes?  Could it also be configures so it becomes a list with radio buttons?

I cannot even consider adoption VM 2.0 until I can duplicate my old shopping cart.  Al these new capabilities do nothing for me unless I can use what i already have as a jumping off point for movinf forward.  Can anyone help?

Bruce

[Milbo]

Hehe nice faq you are asking here, no question we must provide a manual with some hints.

1. How can someone duplicate the look of the old-style attributes with the drop down selector??  Is there a way to comment out the "no additonal charge" text?  If there are multiple attributes to select how would they be added?

Drop down selector, look in your other post http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=98613.msg325417#msg325417 . The text no additional charge is changeable in the language files or better said with the language overwrite option of joomla 1.7+

2.  Can someone describe what the custom field types are?

They are a possibility to add product related semantic information (product types), like the product specification, or to give the user a possibility to enter a text. Combined with media and the vm plugins you can sell downloadable mp3, pdfs and other things. Customfields are just customizable fields. It is a possibility todo a lot stuff which needed before hacking the core.

4.  What if I would like to have the option be a list with a radio button instead of a dropdown list?  is this possible?

Atm not nice solved, yes. Afaik you must choose "is list" for the custom to get radio buttons.

5.  The wiki description for grouping a set of custom fields is unclear.

Can be that we removed it because using a parent product as pattern is anyway much better.

[Bruce Morgan]

Thank you.  I would happily help write the manual if I really understood how this works.  A few further comments as follows:

1.  I do not undertand how to use overwrites although their intended purpose is clear.  One good example of how to do this would go a long way for myself and many others who are not programmers.

2.  Defining what each type is would help a lot.  I guess the challenge is describing breily and accuratyely in simple english what the syntax of that coomand is calling for.

3.  I understand title, description and efault are different but it is unclear why each is there.  I experimented with inputting etext for all three and foudn they all appeared on ther product detail page.  Seems redundant.

4.  I experimented with this today and changing "is this a list" from "no" to "yes" made no difference on fields already defined.  I tired on both the arent and the child variants without success.  Who designed this?  Can they comments on how this is supposed to work?

5.  Okay.

6.  Forgot the ask before what the layout position is for.  In other thread you suggested using "ontop".  What would the other choices be?

Bruce

[John2400]

Hi Bruce,

Sorry I'm on my way to work so I'm in a hurry so I can only do a few of these at the moment.

1/  I found the language file here : very easy to change the words or just delete them :        Public_html> administrator> pick your language I presume (en-GB) >>en-GB.com.ini
Open that file and you will see all the words from Virtuemart you wish to change to your own.   I just deleted the statement - additional charge "leave the ""  .  easy as
and it then looks like the old VM you remember.

2/ The custom fields - if you install the test products you can se in the back that they actually have a few examples - eg adding text is a plug in option and I found that quite easy to add ( just remember to type the size of the filed)
A few practices and You will get the idea.

3/ yes the grouping idea - ( i haven't really played with that) - That does need a text pop up box to describe how that actually works - might play with that tonight and see If I can develop a test one.

[Bruce Morgan]

I did not install the sample data because I wante to have atest version of my last site and I do not think it is posible to have both.  Seeing a working eexample would be very helpful. Maybe i need to add another test site with sample data installed.

Bruce

[Milbo]

Of course you can have both, read here about the migration process http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=96941.0

[JCarnley]

I was having the same problem I really needed the sample data to see how this was done.  Once you see you start to get the hang of it.  I used to have to hack VM to do all this now I think I can use it out of the box just a bit of a learning curve.

[vigier]

2/ The custom fields - if you install the test products you can se in the back that they actually have a few examples - eg adding text is a plug in option and I found that quite easy to add ( just remember to type the size of the filed)
A few practices and You will get the idea.

Can you tell me what I do wrong then? I used the plugin option customer_text_input. I set the size of the field to 4. Added it to the product and what happens? It shows on the site, it shows the value in the shopping cart, but when I place the order, the value isn't saved to the database. It writes the field_id as the value the user has typed.
By the way: the dropdownlists work fine on my site, it's just the text boxes...

Thnx in advance,
Vigier

[PRO]

simple dropdown instructions here
http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=90833.0

[John2400]

I am confirming that the text box ,

plug in that was working for me in previous versions now no longer works.

I too can generate the plug in , set a filed size of 40 and no price per letter,

The text box appears in the product , it appears in the cart , but does not appear on any invoices or emails. Or orders in the back. ( after I fill in a few text options)

There has been a slight modification since I tested this option but you are right vigier>

VM 2.0.2 Joomla 2.5.1

[vigier]

Glad to know that I'm not the only one, thnx John! BTW, also working with Joomla 2.5.1 and VM 2.0.2.