Product comparisons, compare products againsts each other?

[pachell]

Hello Everyone,

 

I'm going to write a product comparison hack, just like cdw.com uses to compare items. I'd really appreciate some feedback before I begin, here's my idea:

 

Create tables for each type of product, for example:

 

laptop_computers

lcd_projectors

 

And in each table, have rows that contain appropreate specifications for each product, such as: cpu_speed, memory, disk_space, etc.

 

In admin/categories.php, create a drop-down selection menu when adding new products. This will present text input fields relavant to what you're adding.

 

I'd like to tie everything together with the products_id number, calling the specifications, description, etc., from product_info.php and everywhere else needed.

 

It seems really easy to write a simple comparison tool that will display information side by side.

 

This seems like a fairly simple hack, but maybe I'm missing something. Any feedback would be appreciated, thanks! :D

[tswalling]

I would say that you should write it so that it doesn't require creation of any special tables that will vary from store to store. I think it could be a fairly straight foward mod where you pull two products and compare like attributes. The only things you might need to add would be some additional fields in the product or category tables (not familiar with all the tables in the db).

 

This would be a great mod though and I'd like to help work on it. Surprised there isn't already a mod for this.