If you comment out attributes, does it kill your components?

[Kirk]

I have a Porsche parts catalog that I use Model and Year for product attributes. Additionally, I use components for upsells, color choices and core deposits.

We had an issue with the attributes showing on the product pages creating illogical (to my customers) Model/Year combinations.

To hide the Model and Year attributes we changed in Act_Productline (Saved as Act_Productlinecustom)
NETQUOTEVAR:ADDTOCARTBUTTON, to say
NETQUOTEVAR:VARIANTADDTOCART, and added
NETQUOTEVAR:VARIANTS (commented out).

Now, none of the components work.

If I put the original Act_Productline back everything works as intended with the only hiccup being the illogical Model/Year combinations.

I want to hide attributes yet still have the components. Is this possible? We tried using NETQUOTEVAR:VARIANTLABELx
NETQUOTEVAR:VARIANTSELECTORx
to hide the first two attributes, but this still knocks out the components.

If you want to see look here
the second product down, #09-309 functions correctly but has the annoying Year and Model drop down boxes. How do I keep Choose Color and remove Year and Model?

Sorry this is so long. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Kirk

[NormanRouxel]

You're using 6.1.4.

There was a bug in Actinic 6 (which I think they only fixed in 6.1.5 but it's best to check) where Actinic failed to generate the hidden field for the non-optional component (e.g. <INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="v_09-309_4" VALUE="on">) if you used the VARIANTLABELx method.

[Kirk]

Downloaded and installed latest patch, 6.1.5. The problem still persists - When the attributes are commented out, the component disappears and will not work. If the attributes are allowed to show on the product page, then everything functions, but my customers think our website is messed up. Perhaps there is more to editing the template than what is listed above?

I am not a developer, just an end user, but looking at the templates, it appears that components and attributes are both linked together as VARIANT. Is there a way to separate the two?

Am I missing something really simple like a "Hide Attribute on Product Page" tick box? There has to be an easy way to do this.

I want my Components to show and work while hiding the Attributes on the product page. This is extremely frustrating. I appreciate any and all input as I am getting to the point of desparation.

Thanks,

Kirk

[NormanRouxel]

I'm not sure why you need to do this. The idea of an Attribute and Choice is that the customer can make a selection and have this passed to the shopping cart.

However you seem to be saying that this isn't important. Why not do away with the Attribute completely? Perhaps I'm missing something.

[Kirk]

Hi Norman,

The two Attributes I want to hide are called Year, with the choices of the attribute being the 4 digit year (eg 1977) and Model, with the choices of the attribute being the car model (eg 911). They are used only for the dynamic search so my customer can, for instance Search for a brake rotor for his 1977 911.

Since the customer has already chosen the Year and Model and hit the Search button, there is no need to display the attributes again.

In fact, doing so leads to more problems.
To the to the customer, it appears as:
1) They need to select a year and model again (which is a hassle). A complaint of everyone who tested the site.
2) The list defaults to the top, creating either illogical Model/Year combinations or NOT what the customer initially selected. Another complaint of everyone who tested the site.

If the attributes were to simply remain as selected initially it would be fine...unless the customer did not use the Search to arrive at the product. It would be better if they were simply hidden altogether.

Thanks again,

Kirk

[cdicken]

The problem still persists - When the attributes are commented out, the component disappears and will not work.

That is correct.

The component label and hidden <input> field is inserted into the HTML via NETQUOTEVAR:VARIANTS. Test this yourself by including the words 'Start' and 'Finish' either side of NETQUOTEVAR:VARIANTS and then view the HTML of the generated page.

TO do what you want, try replacing NETQUOTEVAR:VARIANTS with

NETQUOTEVAR:VARIANTLABEL1
<!-- NETQUOTEVAR:VARIANTSELECTOR1
NETQUOTEVAR:VARIANTLABEL2
NETQUOTEVAR:VARIANTSELECTOR2
NETQUOTEVAR:VARIANTLABEL3
NETQUOTEVAR:VARIANTSELECTOR3 -->

The component label and HTML <input> field will be inserted as part of '
NETQUOTEVAR:VARIANTLABEL1' - but none of the other attributes will be included.

You will also need to leave the 'HTML for Name' field for the first attribute within the component as blank so it does not appear in the HTML.

That ought to do it.

[NormanRouxel]

As I understand it, you want to use these choices as a means of passing values into the Search without them showing up on the page.

Why not just hide the search terms in the product description using a trick I thought up for hiding mispelled words (someone wanted to allow customers to search using mispelling but didn't want the silly words to appear on the page).

Just put

!!<<noscript>>!!Model1 model2 model3 year1 year2 year3 etc!<</noscript>>!!

Into your product description and it will be indexed for the search but not show on the page.

It wouldn't be too hard to concatenate the years and models to make a list of the valid combinations. E.g. 911_1977 911_1978 911_1980 924_1990 etc and customise the search page to have a drop down list of all valid models, and years, merge these together (with the "_" between the words to make one big word) and pass them as part of the normal search text.

This should take care of the cases where you have more than one model and several years but not all years are valid for all models.

[NormanRouxel]

And here's another way that will work with what you've already using.

If you can manage to use only radio buttons for your real visible choices, then you can comment out everything in Act_VariantListHeader.html, Act_VariantListChoice.html and Act_VariantListFooter.html. Thus nothing will be displayed on the product pages for Attributes selected via drop-downs.

Also, as Chris says, put an empty entry in the HTML for Name field of these Attributes.

[NormanRouxel]

And here's a totally automatic way of hiding the drop down boxes if their name is Model or Year. Just replace the 4 Variant Templates with the appropriate bits from below.

<!-- VariantAttributeName HTML begin -->
<!-- This template is used for attribute name. -->

<script language=JavaScript>
<!--
var showme = false;
if ( ('NETQUOTEVAR:ATTRIBUTENAME' != 'Model') && ('NETQUOTEVAR:ATTRIBUTENAME' != 'Year') )
  {
  document.write('<span class="actxsmall">NETQUOTEVAR:ATTRIBUTENAME</span><br>');
  showme = true;
  }
//-->
</script>
<noscript><span class="actxsmall">NETQUOTEVAR:ATTRIBUTENAME</span><br></noscript>

<!-- This template is used for attribute name. -->
<!-- VariantAttributeName HTML end -->






<!-- VariantListHeader HTML begin -->
<!-- This template is used for a product variant list box header. -->

<script language=JavaScript>
<!--
if ( showme ) selcode = '<SELECT NAME="NETQUOTEVAR:ATTRIBUTEREF">';
//-->
</script>
<noscript><SELECT NAME="NETQUOTEVAR:ATTRIBUTEREF"></noscript>

<!-- This template is used for a product variant list box header. -->
<!-- VariantListHeader HTML end -->





<!-- VariantListChoice HTML begin -->
<!-- This template is used for a product variant list box choice. -->

<script language=JavaScript>
<!--
if ( showme ) selcode += '<OPTION VALUE=NETQUOTEVAR:CHOICESELVALUE NETQUOTEVAR:ITEMSELECTED>NETQUOTEVAR:CHOICENAME';
//-->
</script>
<noscript><OPTION VALUE=NETQUOTEVAR:CHOICESELVALUE NETQUOTEVAR:ITEMSELECTED>NETQUOTEVAR:CHOICENAME</noscript>

<!-- This template is used for a product variant list box choice. -->
<!-- VariantListChoice HTML end -->






<!-- VariantListFooter HTML begin -->
<!-- This template is used for a product variant list box footer. -->

<script language=JavaScript>
<!--
if ( showme ) document.write(selcode + '</SELECT>');
//-->
</script>
<noscript></SELECT></noscript>

<!-- This template is used for a product variant list box footer. -->
<!-- VariantListFooter HTML end -->

Don't use the single quote ( ' ) character in your Attribute name, or choice names as this will break the JavaScript.

The <noscript>...</noscript> lines make this fail-safe on non-JavaScript browsers and search engine robots.

[Kirk]

Thanks for all the suggestions!
I'll give it a go and see which one I like best.

Best wishes to all,

Kirk

[cbowmn]

I am using this method for a make/model/year search option for my customers. I can put the !!<<noscript>>!! text in the description, the drop down boxes in the search.html file, but how can I combine the search text into 1 long text string? ie: customer chooses Arctic Cat (make), Jag 440 (model), 1994 (year) search string needs to be ArcticCatJag4401994.