products attributes more possibilities

[Medworks]

I have engraving available for certain products under 'products attributes'. To see what I'm talking about, please visit this item:

 

http://medexamtools.com/oscommerce1/product_info.php?products_id=28

 

As you can see, I have it as a drop-down menu for the number of characters to be engraved with a price for each one, and as it is, a customer who wants engraving would have to enter what he wants in the comment page that appears on the shipping options page in checkout, and furthermore it is left as responsibility of the customer to count the number of characters to be engraved and select the right number.

 

Ideally there would be a text field where a user could simply enter the text desired, it would count the number of characters and set the attribute additional cost to the right amount. Or at the very least, for a text field to appear to the side which allows n characters to be typed into it and no more, n being the number selected in the drop-down menu. The best of all possibilities would be if I could even limit the number of characters including spaces to 20, but to charge for characters not including spaces or have the charge amount be an arbitrary function of 2 variables I specify, the 2 variables being characters including spaces and characters not including spaces, but that would probably be hoping for too much. Does anyone have suggestions?

 

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There is something else I would very much like to do if possible. I currently have many items that are available in various quantity discounts - but they are listed as separate items. So there are Lister bandage scissors quantity 1 for $1.99, and lister bandage scissors quantity 5 for $8.75. That's all fine and dandy, except I have oscommerce keep track of inventory. Which means if I have 100 in stock, I have to, perhaps, allocate 80 to 5-at-a-time and 20 to 1-at-a-time, so the item for 1 @ 1.99 is given a stock of 20, and the item for 5 @ 1.81 each is given a stock of 16. But then someone wants to order 20 sets of 5, and it tells them there is insufficient stock, because the other 20 are allocated to the 1-at-a-time listing. I would very much like to have something like the +/- fudge factor for each item as is available in the products attributes be applied to one single item as a function of quantity, so I can have one single listing of Lister bandage scissors with a quantity in stock of 100, and if someone orders 1 of them they're charged $1.99 and if someone orders 5 they're charged $8.75, but they can order all 100, and they can even order 5 or more in a quantity that is not a multiple of 5 and still get them for $1.81 each. Does anyone have any ideas for that as well?

Edited May 24, 2011 by Medworks