Product Extra Fields

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I have a few questions about the Product Extra Fields Contrib and I couldn't find an "official" support forum. Forgive me if I missed it and feel free to use this topic as a new main support spot or move it to the right topic.

 

I just installed and I have to say, I kind of like it. I wonder why we need a new table to store the data, but it works. I can't understand why we don't store it in the products table. Seems like it would be easier to add the new fields to queries that already exist for the products table in other pages and then display fields by calling those existing strings. (like in new products, specials, etc) Now it seems we have to write a whole new query and set a whole new string to hold that data. (like if i want to add this data to the invoice or account history pages or forward the dropship zip code for each product to the shipping carrier.)

 

Anyone know the reason behind that to help me tweak it better? I'm not really new to programming, but I am rusty and never an expert on PHP and some of the OSC code is confusing me! Maybe I should spend some time reading the developers docs and brushing up on my little white php book? NAH! LOL

 

I'm also thinking that if the extra fields query were moved to the top, before the TITLE is written, you could then use it to display META tag info. We query the products info at the top, why not the extra info? Seems like it would be easy, but it's just not making sence to me!

 

I'm also confused on the products_info.php. How can I move the query and field display to other parts of the page? Seems like it would be easy, but after many attempts I still get parse errors and I'm lost now.

 

Ultimately I think I'd rather move all the extra fields code to the includes folder and then just have a "more product info" box I can display. But that's something I will work on.

 

So, anyone know what I need to take out of the code to make the products_info.php part of Products Extra Fields moveable to the lower part of the page? In the middle of what does it get inserted?

 

The most frustrating and dissapointing thing I've found about OSC in general is the lack of support for product details and extra fields. If I use the only description field to store all the details in an HTML string so it looks nice, I don't want to have all the details +HTML showing up in ALL the description field places!

 

Hopefully something in OSC soon! Seems to me to be a basic needed thing for any shopping cart to be able to add other product fields and have them displayable. Every industy is so radically different, only one field will never be enough.

 

Any simple ideas, links to info or tips on using this contrib would be appreciated! I'll be posting more questions later, so if you are using this contrib please help out if you can.

 

Thanks!

Edited August 9, 2004 by regmanabq