SPP - how to do a duplicate product

[DforDog]

I am changing my cart to single product per page using the sub-section for each product method.

My question is how to do a duplicate product. Obviously I can still duplicate a product but presumably I have to make a new sub-section for it and I will have to give it a different name and web address, will I?

How is everyone else doing duplicate products please?

[leehack]

There are various ways of doing this dependent on what you know yourself about coding within actinic or whether you are prepared to pay for some custom work. I think the best 'free' solution you have available is to use fragments or cut down product duplicates and link these to the main SPP via the link tab. The middle ground is a custom product layout that manually links to the master SPP via a variable that you fill out (you'll need some actinic experience to do this, not sure if you have any?). The best solution is an automatic one that when you duplicate a product, it auto links back to the master SPP, but that would be paid for custom work.

[DforDog]

Thanks for the reply.

I am afraid I do not know what fragments are so this is a bit over my head. I just know the basics and I can't afford any custom solutions.

Can I just make a new section, slightly changing the name and html, and pop my duplicate in there?

[leehack]

Can I just make a new section, slightly changing the name and html, and pop my duplicate in there?

Yeah go for it.

[DforDog]

OK, will do. That is the easiest way I can think to do it.

[DforDog]

Out of interest, what would happen if I duplicated the sub-section and put my duplicate in that? Actinic seems to let me do that (so far) but would it notice later and get in a pickle?

[Buzby]

Could you also do the following which would be easier?

A product duplicate in a new section but with the same page name.

I know that one page would overwrite the other but if all the content was exactly the same then this would not be a problem. You would then have the both the master and duplicate going to the same section page.

I also presume that this would cause upload errors, but isn't this something that can be turned off?

Any thoughts if this is a good, or bad work around?

Many thanks

Jason

[leehack]

The error messages would drive you mad on uploads and snapshots, even if you could turn it off, you wouldn't want to as you'd suppress all error messages. It's possible to get duplicates to auto link back to the master page, but it's pretty advanced stuff to do as it involves interrogating the database. It's not cheap or possible to release as an addon as it involves mirroring a product layout to copy what the section link layout does too, so the work has to be done manually. I've got a few customers using it.

Create your own section link layout or use a cut down product layout or even use a fragment layout and use the link tab to do the linking is the general method people use, lot more work but free to do that way.

[Buzby]

Many thanks for your reply Lee.

It does amaze me how we all know that SPP is the way to go (most of the time) but how Actinic still doesn't work properly when you take that approach.

My V9 sites are set up with SPP using extended info pages, it works well but I do know that this is not seen to be the correct way to do things. My V10 site is set up using SPP and included features of the software then seem to be unavailable using this approach.

Actinic does really need to be able to use duplicates in a SPP environment with just a click of a button. It is not uncommon for websites to list their products by 2, or more different variables which is not currently available in V10.

Just my little moan Actinic.

[leehack]

I agree, what you can use at the moment is half-baked. It was planned to be addressed in v10 but got pulled for technical reasons i think. Having to contact a designer to do something quite fundamental nowadays is something that certainly needs addressing.

[Jan]

I have a little program that will produce an Actinic flat import file, you can use this to export your products and then manipulate the spreadsheet - either by hand or with cut / paste and column merging - to add the product name or reference to the section path. Then when you import it, the products should all move to their own section - the section should have the same sections. If they don't you may need to use a hierarchical import but it should be fairly trivial to convert the flat file format to the hierarchical (you just need to change the header line).

The program is part of my product mash, you can find details and a free trial here :

http://www.mole-end.biz/acatalog/Froogle_Mash.html

If you try this, take a snapshot first just in case.

Regards,

[PatchworkRabbit]

Out of interest, what would happen if I duplicated the sub-section and put my duplicate in that? Actinic seems to let me do that (so far) but would it notice later and get in a pickle?

This is what I do. It's the easiest, certainly, though having dupe products (duplicate content) sounds like it might be an issue with SEO.

Just remember that, when you copy and paste a section, it changes the page name to copy_xxx so you need to go in and strip that out, replacing it with something more meaningful.