Error: Drop-down permutation list

[mpwildeman]

Hi,

I've search the KB and threads here and I know there are several theads talking about this but I can't find one that gives a deffinative answer. I may have missed it. Here whats happening

on V 903
I have a product with one component and two attributes, SIZE and COLOUR.
I fill the permuations list, so I can VALID/ NOT VALID out of stock combinations.

Attributes are set as "Standard Drop Down Atrribute". Permutations set to "Permutation Drop Down List".

It works fine if you have the choices as two seperate drop down lists, but then of course it still shows choices that are out of stock e.g. Medium Black may be NOT VALID but it of course allow a customer to still chose this. They then will get the "Out of Stock" meassage but I'm finding that customers are getting fed up of this and leaving the site (and I don't blame them if they try 2-3 times but select out iof stock combinations). So I want to stop the out of stock lines showing at all.

So if I can the Component Layout to "Component Layout with Selectable Permuations" and leave the permutations as "Drop down List" I get what I want (if I tick "Hide out of Stock Options"). Great.

If I preview the page (on my local PC) it appears to work. Is show for example all the combinations that someone can order

Medium Black
Medium Red
Large Red

In one Drop Down list. All seems to be working but it is still giving the error

Error: Drop-down permutation lists only work with a single attribute within a component.

But in the preview pane it is working.

So is this error wrong?
Or can't it really do it?

I'd appreciate any help / guidance

Matt

[rmorrow]

Hi Matthew

If you want to show all your options under 1 dropdown list (which is what the layout "Component Layout with Selectable Permuations" is designed for) so that only the available ones are shown then you should just use 1 attribute. Under this, you should list all possible choices i.e. Small Black, Small Grey, Med Black, Med Grey, Large Black, Large Grey, etc. If the "Hide out of Stock Options" is ticked and your related hidden products go out of stock, then the list will not contain those options.

You might want to consider including the grid and modifying the layout for it to include stock levels (or at least "Out of Stock" / "In Stock") - this should give your customers the info they need.

[grantglendinnin]

For this to work as you want, you will need to create hidden products, set up for permutations.

Search for 'hidden products', there's numerous threads covering how to do this.

http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?p=279322 - Here's a recent thread on the subject.

[rmorrow]

It's not quite as simple as that, Grant. If you want to use the "Component Layout with Selectable Permuations" layout to only show available products (based on stock or validity) then you can only have 1 attribute - otherwise you get the error message as Matthew described.

[grantglendinnin]

It's not quite as simple as that, Grant. If you want to use the "Component Layout with Selectable Permuations" layout to only show available products (based on stock or validity) then you can only have 1 attribute - otherwise you get the error message as Matthew described.

I spent more than 3 months fixing this exact error message - it's a load of bollocks IMHO, it can be cured by resetting the permutation choices. Let me see if I can find the VB script to fix 'em...

[rmorrow]

But the error message makes sense to me, Grant. If you have more than 1 dropdown box, how can you hide options that are unavailable? If your customer chooses, say, 'Black' from the Colour dropdown, wouldn't you need some javascript to hide the Out of Stock options form the Size dropdown and vice-versa? Or can Actinic handle it another way?

[grantglendinnin]

This is achieved by following the advice in post #3.

You can then simply edit the layout code for Drop Down Permutation Entry, change the code to:

<actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22PermutationIsValid%22%20%2f%3e" >
<actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22IsPermutationHidden%22%20%2f%3e%20%3d%3d%20FALSE%0dOR%0d%28%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22IsPermutationHidden%22%20%2f%3e%20%3d%3d%20TRUE%20AND%20%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22IsAssociatedProductInStock%22%20%2f%3e%20%3d%3d%20TRUE%29" >
<option value="<actinic:variable name="PermutationChoiceList" value="Permutation Choice ID List" />">
<actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22StockLevel%22%20%2f%3e%20%20%20%3e%3d%20%271%27" >
	   <actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22PermutationAssociatedNameIsUsed%22%20%2f%3e%20%3d%3d%20FALSE">
	   <actinic:variable name="PermutationChoiceList" value="Permutation Choice Name List" />
   </actinic:block>
   <actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22PermutationAssociatedNameIsUsed%22%20%2f%3e">
      <actinic:variable name="AssociatedProduct::ProductName" />
   </actinic:block>
   <actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22IsPriceShownForComponents%22%20%2f%3e">
	   <actinic:variable name="PermutationPrice" />
   </actinic:block>

</actinic:block></option>
</actinic:block>
</actinic:block>

This effectively asks the software if stock level is greater or equal to 1, show the option in the option list - thus, if the stock level is 0, the permutation is not shown in the drop-down list.

Initially Actinic threw up this error, but using the VB code (provided by Fergus of Teclan fame - which I subsequently can't find on the forum) - some magic happens and all of a sudden, the permutations all worked as expected, showing/hiding stock/out of stock choices.

Tested online and it does work, but ain't using it at the moment as we don't bother with online stock control

[rmorrow]

I still don't get how this will work when there is more than 1 dropdown box though.......the actual permutation that is linked to a hidden product for stock control cannot be selected until all the dropdowns have been selected. So how is it possible to hide an option in a dropdown list in this situation??
Or am I missing something obvious??

[mpwildeman]

Interesting

Hi,

seems I've started a bit of a discussion!

Grant - I know about hidden products thingy - in fact I'm playing with Richards ActiveStock addon. And I'd use that to get the actual stock level.

Richard - your suggestion of effectively "manually" merging the two attributes would work of course. But as I've mentioned before I have items with so many combinations it would be a real pain e.g. I have a tshirt with 10 colours and 9 sizes, so would have to add 90 lines in one attribute! I also have items with 3 attributes and that is even worse.

So with this many combinations if I do it with 2 attributes and then have a grid of options available (the way suggested by most people) the list of combinations is so long it is a joke. No one would bother to scroll through it (I wouldnt!).

This is the problem I have. I need to find a way to give customers an easy way to see excatly what I have in stock. Stop them from ordering lines I dont have in stock. I would then combine that with Richard ActiveStock to ensure they don't order more of a line than I have in stock. All the current options are "messy". The other option I've looked at a a "proper" grid layout i.e. a table layout, sizes down one axis and colours on the other axis. But I cant seem to figure out how to do this. And how on earth would it work with 3 attributes? Just thinking out loud - could you force the customer to make at least one selection e.g. they select the size, it then displays all the colours available in that size (or the other way round)? I've seen this method on a few website. Just a thought.

The "Component layout with selectable permutations" would be ideal if only it worked with more than one attribute. I don't understand why it doesn't. As I said if you preview it, it appears to work, but gives this silly error.

Grant are you saying that the scripted you posted will allow it to work without the error message?

All this is becuase I'm getting very frustrated with Actinic not been able to do LIVE stock & things like VOUCHERS etc. I came into this looking to move away from Actinic, but then saw ActiveStock and thought ahhh maybe I don't have too change systems. The more I look into it the more I think I may have to after all. So frustrating because in many otherways Actinic is excellent, it just hasn't updated to the 20th century (let alone the 21st).

Any thoughs comment welcome

Matt

[rmorrow]

Matthew

The neatest way undoubtedly would be to add some javascript functions that run when the dropdown box values are changed. These would look up the stock values of the associated hidden products and then hide any invalid options in the other dropdown box(es). I think this would work best if, as you say, you force the customer to choose one attribute first by hiding the other dropdown(s) and then displaying them with the valid options as the customer selects their choice. This does involve some pretty complex logic, though, so it needs a bit of thought!

I know where you're coming from about Actinic, but the desktop application still has its place for many users and it still represents good value IMHO. While some users get frustrated that you need plug-ins to achieve what they might think should be standard features, it actually demonstrates that there is a large enough user community out there to support them all. Actinic has, after all, been around for quite a long time now....

[mpwildeman]

Richard,

I'm not knocking Actinic, it has has been great for the last 3 years. But my business needs to move to the next stage. That means I need to have some things Actinic cant do.

I need a live stock - there maybe something with ActiveStock and some development that will fix this

I need to be able to do Gift Vouchers

I need fully automated customer accounts, customer specific discounts etc

I need it to be more search Engine friendly

yes I think with a lot of work, and some money some of these maybe available, but will all of them? Hmmm not sure. I'm still happy to see what I can do about the stock / permution problem. But I'm also actively looking around to see what is available.

Matt