Is it possible to dynamically enter a product? on the fly?

[eduard_]

Say I have a furniture website. A customer chooses parts for say a chair and a web application displays him how his chair would look like. Now when he clicks on Proceed to Checkout is it possible [in principle] to take that assembled chair and insert it into the catalog? So the customer will see this assembled chair within oscommerce and checkout.

[Jack_mcs]

Yes. it's poosible but you would have to have an image of the finished product or, if it is simple parts you can use one of the graphic libraires to build an image from separate ones.

[eduard_]

@@Jack_mcs thank you! Is there a way you could briefly tell me how I can do that? I know OO PHP, but haven't really worked with any e-commerce or CMS.

[Jack_mcs]

There are too many variables to say what is needed. If you have a wooden chair that has a back and a seat, where the back could be different shapes and seat different colors, then you would have different images for each one. On the final page, you would just display the two chosen ones together. Or, if all of the chairs looked alike except for the color, you would just have however many images of the chair as there are colors. Or if the chair is to be shown on carpet or wood, you would use the graphics library to overlay one image on the other. The examples can go on and on. It would, most likely, not be a simple coding job.

 

I coded a job like this for a t-shirt site. There are dropdowns for style, color and image on the t-shirt. The customer picks a style and an appropriate image appears (long sleeve, short sleeve, etc). Then a color is picked and the displayed style changes to that color. Then an image is chosen and that image appears on the t-shirt in the chosen style and color. So, for this to work, images for the different styles and different overlay images are needed. Describing how that is done is not something I could spend the time doing.

[eduard_]

Jack, thank you for your answer! Sorry I wasn't clear, I meant how to insert this newly created product into the catalog? I have already coded the 'assembly' application, which is a stand alone PHP/AJAX application and I think I could do insertion without a real final image I can use an image that says 'chair' that will be inserted into the catalog and then client can use that to check out because he has already seen the assembled chair its not that important. The important thing is how do you do insertion?

[Jack_mcs]

Oh, then you just need to use the in-built attributes system. You create an attribute, admin->Catalog->Product Attributes, and it displays on the product page. Whichever attribute is selected is added to the order automatically.

[MrPhil]

Please clarify what you mean by "put it in the catalog". Do you mean that the complete product is then available for purchase by others, or is this just something for this one customer, to let them see what the end product looks like, and there's no "permanent record" of it? Are you looking for this customer to then order not the parts, but the complete product as a single entity? That might use some sort of virtual product (a base) with lots of attributes (the parts), and you want to add something to show what it looks like all together (as well as warn if anything's missing).

[eduard_]

Please clarify what you mean by "put it in the catalog". Do you mean that the complete product is then available for purchase by others, or is this just something for this one customer, to let them see what the end product looks like, and there's no "permanent record" of it? Are you looking for this customer to then order not the parts, but the complete product as a single entity? That might use some sort of virtual product (a base) with lots of attributes (the parts), and you want to add something to show what it looks like all together (as well as warn if anything's missing).

 

Jack, thank you, I appreciate that!

 

Phil, yes! That's what I mean i.e. something that would be available for that one customer only, and it is not stored permanently, and yes then this product will be purchased as a single unit, not parts. Im now wondering how I can incorporate my application into oscommerce virtual product and attributes... In my original application where I display an assembled product I use divs and negative margins to combine parts. Well, thank you guys for your help, at least now I have some idea where to look.