Questions about Configuration and Customization

Hi ,

We are using hikashop business version 1.4.5. I have some questions about configuration and some customization

1. In back end have facility to create Custom fields for table.
   
   a. Address - Used to add Custom fields in customer/shipping address pages/forms
   b. User - Used to add Custom fields in user info /registration pages/forms
   c. Product - Used to add Custom fields in back end for product and show as Specifications in front end on product page.
   d. Order - Used to add Custom fields in order pages to get more info for orders.
   e. Items – For what this table is used ???
   f. Entry - Used add Custom fields in Entry pages
2. What is used of Items table in Custom fields ?
3. How Entries will be working ?
4. Suppose I have create one Custom fields for Product table
   
   e.g Media Type ( Single Dropdown )
   - Printable
   - CD
   - SoftCopy
   - etc
   
   And set All Media Type values for all product .
   
   Now I want product list of specific Media Type like CD. i.e How we get product list of specific Custom fields filter ? how this possible ?

Can Anyone Help me for this …..

Thanks In advance

Hi,

1. 2. They are used to add custom fields on the product page so that you can ask information for each product added to the cart.

3. entry fields allow you to configure your entry page if you need one: www.demo.hikashop.com/index.php?option=c...rm&Itemid=65&lang=en
This is used for example to handle entries to the french joomladay of this year: www.afuj.fr/hikashop/entry.html

4. That's not possible. You should do it differently: create one category tree for your media type and add one of the media categories alongside your other categories in your products. That way, you will be able to create menus/modules using these categories as parent category and display a listing of all the products in that category.

Thanks nicolas for quick response.

All are fine only about last one i.e about Media Type filter, basically we want pages like "Browse Product By Category" , "Browse Product By Media Type" … etc

e.g One Product comes on "Book Category" Product List also in "Product for Printable Media Type" list also but product only one.

If I create Two Category one for "Book" And one for "Printable Media" then I need to copy one product in both Categories

How I handle such conditions ...without copy product into two Category.

In HikaShop, you can assign several categories to one product. So you don't have to duplicate your products for that.
When you edit a product, on your right, you have a categories panel where you can add all the categories of the product, so you can have one product which will be both in the book category and in the printable category.

Hi guys,
I've a question....
1) Is there a way to add custom field to a category?
Or better
2) is there a way a category can have more then one parent, as it is for products?!?

Cheers

Luciomonter

Neither are possible at the moment.

Could you explain a bit more what you want to do ? We might think of a way to do it differently...

Yep....
Hikashop at the moment allows products to have as many parents as you want, saying that a product can belong to many different categories...
On the other side Categories can have only one parent, giving a tree structure to the categories.
Isn't it?!
At the moment I'm using the last level of category as product box... an example would explain it better:

Imagine products to be fruits like: apples, pears, lemons, oranges, strawberries, watermelons
Imagine the last level of category to be box like: LOCAL FRUIT BOX, IMPORTED FRUIT BOX, LABORATORY FRUIT BOX
And finally an upper level of category to be like: COCKTAIL FRUITS, ICECREAM FRUITS

Notice those are pure meaningless examples...

Then I need a kind of this structure:
LOCAL FRUIT BOX {apples, pears, lemons}
IMPORTED FRUIT BOX {apples, lemons, oranges, strawberries}
LABORATORY FRUIT BOX {apples, watermelons}

---

> this is possible, apples can be in more then one BOX since product can have as many parents as we want


COCKTAIL FRUITS {LOCAL FRUIT BOX, IMPORTED FRUIT BOX}
ICECREAM FRUITS {LOCAL FRUIT BOX, LABORATORY FRUIT BOX}

---

> this is NOT possible because LOCAL FRUIT BOX is a category and can't have more then one parent...


Do you see an easy way out of this??!?

What you can do is create several LOCAL FRUIT BOX, IMPORTED FRUIT BOX, LABORATORY FRUIT BOX categories. One for each main category. So, for example, you would have two LABORATORY FRUIT BOX categories. one under the category COCKTAIL FRUITS and one under the category ICECREAM FRUITS.
Then, in the watermelons product, you can just add the two LABORATORY FRUIT BOX categories and you're done.

What do you think about that solution ?

Thanks Nicolas,
It's exactly what we are doing right now....
The fact is, if I'm showing all the available boxes I don'et want it two appear twice....
That's why I was asking if there is way to add a custom field to the category, like for example category code, then I can check if they have the same code I just need to show the box once....

What about if I would perform an ALTER TABLE to the jos_hikashop_category table and add a column for this purpose... Do you think it would compromise the integrity of component?!? Can't think any other way at the moment....

Thanks a lot

Luciomonter

You can add a column to the category table no problem on that. Then, you can customize the views/files of HikaShop but then you might loose your changes if you update hikashop later on.

Cool Nicolas,
At this time I'd rather trying using the NAME field and be very strict on the admin panel...

But thanks a lot, I see the value of the component stands a lot on this well kept forum!
Cheers

Luciomonter

Changing the categories system to allow multiple parents is really not something we would like to do. The system of categories is completely optimized for a tree structure and moving away from it will be really hard. One option I can think of would be to add new triggers to the categories so that plugins can be created and you might just be able to do such customization by personalizing the views and creating a plugin...

Thank you for your kind words.

I'm building an online retail store and just purchased your essential package in order to create custom fields. It does so quite easily but unfortunately it's a global field. How can I create custom fields for specific products or categories? I thought you'd have an option (like radio button) that allowed you to enable that field on a particular product or category once it's be created, am I missing something? Also how come when you select field type as single select dropdown for example, it doesn't appear as that on the front end just the back-end. It appears on the front-end as whatever you select in the back. I want my customers to be able to select shoe size for example, from a dropdown. Thanks in advance!

Custom fields apply to all the products. What you can do is hide them with CSS for some products and not others...

You're probably using custom product fields which allow you to set specific values for a product on the back end and display them on the front end.
What you want to use are custom item fields which are the opposite and are not linked to the product but to the product in the cart. They will display on the product page above the "add to cart" button so that the user can select them before adding the product to the cart. As custom product fields, they apply to all the products.
Maybe what you're looking for is not custom fields but characteristics and variants ? They enable you to handle characteristics of products (like color or size of tshirts for example) and can be different for different products. Custom item fields are used to ask information relative to all the products (for example, if you want the user to enter the name to be printed on the tshirt or upload a file for it) but for information that you can't define yourself.

Hi,

I have a question concerning assigning multiple products to one category:

Is there something like a "bulk edit"? As I understand by now, I have let's say 100 (already listed) products and I want to have them all in category e.g. "Warehouse B". There is currently no other way than opening all 100 products manually, then assign that category and save again. Right?

I feel that this problably is of interest for other shop owners, too. So maybe something for the 'wishlist'...

Thx, M. :S

Yes. That's already on the todo list but if you want to change lots of products from one category to another, you can easily do that with the import function. Just import a CSV like that:

product_code,categories
product_code_1,new_category
product_code_2,new_category
product_code_3,new_category
product_code_4,new_category
...etc...

and you're done.