Combinations in Prestashop are problematic. If a product has many attributes that can result in millions of combinations. The intensive way in which they are stored will results in hanging the computer whenever that product is addressed. A related problem is that Prestashop assumes that every attribute influences stock – what sometimes isn’t true.
The solution I propose is to add a few database fields to solve these problems. This should be done in combination with another proposal from me that would enable one to host more than one product on a page. Product options that one doesn’t want to be included in combinations should be set up as separate products. To do this:
– The product table should have a field “dependent_only” that indicates that this product should not be offered independently and not been shown in search results.
– A table ps_subproducts should be used to link such independent “option” products to the main product. It should have three fields: the base product, the subproduct and the number of subproducts that can be linked to the main product. In some cases this will be just “1”, for example when you use it to select a color. In other cases it might be zero or “1”, for example to indicate whether you want a blueray player inserted in your computer. And in yet other cases it could be any number. These numbers could be comma separated with the word ANY if any value is possible.
Prestashop has the awkward limitation that only one product can be submitted at a time. This makes it impossible to sell related products on the same page. See also my proposal for combinations.
One of the requests is multi-edit. That would require submitting more than one product at once too.
What seems the logical solution to me is the solution that I have applied in Prestools: adding a number to each product. As in Prestools such a routine could easily be made so that it an handle both fieldnames with and without a number so that backward compatibility could be maintained. The only fieldname that would need to be changed is “ean13” but there are few – if any – modules that change that field.
This feature software is crippled forum software with a few minor specialized extra’s. There are many advantages in integrating it into the forum:
– it strengthens the position of the forum as space where TB users meet each other
– the feature list is not in the menu – so many people will miss it.
– the feature software is buggy. Submissions often are refused and disappear into the void. Comments don’t work at the moment (you cannot see existing comments).
– older entries are hardly noticed as nobody wants to press “load more” 10 times.
– it looks like the moderators have deleted a lot of entries to make the list shorter. That is very discouraging for all the people who made effort to suggest something.
In Prestashop products with attributes always have a default combination.
However, in some cases you don’t want to have a pre-selected option. Instead you want one of more attributes that have as default value “select an …” – forcing the customer to make a choice and refusing to put the product into the cart until that choice is made.
The latest TB with install directory measures 118 MB. Prestashop 1.6.1.11 only 74. I wonder what makes the difference. Even more puzzling perhaps is that Prestashop 1.6.1.10 measures only 61 MB on my system.
Similar effects play with updates. Updating a Prestashop to TB increased its size with nearly 120 MB.And that does not include the backup.
A large file size means longer up- and download times of the shop. It also makes that it takes longer to search a certain code fragment.
In Prestashop it is very easy to see the differences between the versions as far as it concerns the database: under install\upgrade\sql you will find a file for each new version that has a different database structure than the previous one. It is not the whole story – the install\upgrade directory has also php and class subdirectories – but it is a good start and it has helped me tremendously in keeping Prestools up-to-date with new Prestashop versions.
So I was a bit shocked when I had a look at the psonesixmigrator module that migrates your shop from Prestashop to Thirty Bees. Maybe I miss something and it is a matter of getting used to. But I see only meaningless file names and it looks like I will have to dive deeply into the code to find the information that under Prestashop I almost took for granted.
Please make this information clearer. I am sure that any module developer who wants to support TB will look for this information.
Today I wanted to find back some old discussion in which I participated. Unfortunately there is nothing similar to “user activity” in the old Prestashop forum.
I tried searching on my user name but I couldn’t find it. Of course it might be that the topic had been deleted, but I have the feeling that it is just incomplete. So I would like to see a “user activity” option added.
In the form where I added this feature request I left “Submit feature for:” to “architecture” as there is no option for “forum”. Maybe that can be added.
The layered navigation module is now only about features.But it should be rather easy to extend to to attributes and tags.
With attributes you could solve the classic fashion store question: “I want to see all clothes for which size XXL is available”.
Tags are suitable for have/have-not questions. Typically only the “have” part is interesting. On a clothing store you might use to enable the visitor to select only leather clothes. But you don’t want a separate option not-leather as you don’t expect anyone interested in that.
