Min/Max qty - over series of items?

[Julie Wilber]

Hi Mike and everyone else,

I removed Mike's personal information from the posts because anyone and their daughter can read this board. (They can't post until they join, but they can read it.)

If you can't get a hold of Mike, please send me a PM and I will give you his information.

I chose to remove his phone number from the posts because it's a safety issue. While we all hope that the world is full of good people, there are some bad apples around and a few of them can be found on the Internet.

Thanks!

[mikehaas]

Hi Mike and everyone else,

I removed Mike's personal information from the posts

No problem and thanks for watching out.

Mike

[mikehaas]

Mike,

Have you considered using attributes for these product types, rather than grouping individual products? If you use attributes, removing a 'product' from the cart would remove ALL parts that go with it, which means one less thing to worry about as people go through the checkout process and potentially make changes at that point. You can edit the number of 'products' on the basket page, but you can't change the attributes there.

Y'know, I remember thinking about attributes several weeks ago but not using them because there was no limit on the number of attributes that could be selected - back to square 1.

But on review, I remember them being otherwise ideal - each attribute (checkboxes) would actually represent a product and the actual "Merchant" product (the real one as far as Merchant is concerned) has a cost of 0, each "attribute" adding it's cost nicely to the total. The attribute unique code can surely be the real product code for the item the attribute represents. In fact, it virtually necessitates their use.

But I had not yet realized the difficulty with the cart I would encounter, and indeed, it looks like Mr. dotCOM_host has now identified a key behavior of attributes that looks like it solves THAT problem.

And with the earlier excellent suggestions of using javascript on the product page, here to limit the number of checkboxes checked... BY JOVE, I THINK A SOLUTION IS POSSIBLE! (gez, I sound like a guru already :-)

From the depths of despair (well, not really), you have raised a man high. if anyone sees the poison pill with this approach, feel free to knock me down again (and hard - I'm sure I deserve it for something :-)

But if you don't, I may shout the joys of Merchant (and this forum) forever!

Mike

[d_host]

Go ahead, shout! :-)

I think it's definitely doable, and if you take the attribute approach it will not only be a LOT easier to implement on the product selection page (javascript that keeps track of the total number of 'items' selected, while disabling the add-to-basket button if the number doesn't add up to multiples of 12), and this will also take care of the basket contents issue and someone wanting to change quantities of attributes there - which simply won't be possible. I think you got yourself a working solution here, and I think it's going to be easier than you originally anticipated ;-)

[mikehaas]

Well, as I start to actually build this (using 4.23) , I run into problems. Shame too, because attributes are really close to what I need.

1. Each product in the "12 pack" needs to be able to be selected multiple times (up to 12 of one item). But it seems Merchant will not include an attribute more than once (even if I modify the form to include the attribute again) - make sense for attributes, not for products-masquerading-as-attributes.

2. The total weight for the 12 items can vary based on the selections, so weight needs to be figured in like a real product for shipping cost calculation. While attributes can affect total cost, they cannot affect total weight.

Ok, looks like a bit of custom work is necessary. mr. Dot_com, will contact you in PM.

Mike