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vince.rowe's picture
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Hi there,

I've seen a few posts (and searched in-between the gaps) but I can't seem to get my head around using non-required attributes for products.

I understand that when you set them to required it adds "Please select" as the top option to a select box and flags it as required to the system which works great. But I have attributes in a select box that are not required, yet I need to add an option of "blank" or similar otherwise the user is forced to choose one (as natural select boxes work that way).

So I guess my question is; how, or what do I need to do to enable a "please select" option in my select boxes that allows the user to keep that option selected and does not add itself to the cart.

I have manually added "Please select" / "None" etc as options and of course they get added to the basket. As most sales would be made with out options I really don't want to fill my reports and peoples baskets with:

- Product 1
-- Option 1: None
-- Option 2: None

Hope this is making sense Smiling

I'm hoping I've missed something obvious (would have to on my first post) but the select boxes do seem to force a select by their very nature (and radios for that matter).

I am just about to finish my first Ubercart based store using UC v.1 and this should get it ready to go so any help would be greatly received.

Thanks all

leenwebb's picture
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Re: Recommendations for displaying non-required attributes

This might be a completely useless comment (depending on your products and setup), but I worked around this by phrasing my "no choice" option as a choice.

For example: let's say the product is "Design Letterhead". And the attribute is "Logo". What I was looking for was a checkbox (check it if you want us to make you a logo). But that's not a choice, so instead I set the two options to be:
1) I will provide my own logo
2) Please create me a logo (+$)

That way when the item is added to the cart it says, "Logo: I will provide my own logo."

Certainly there are only a narrow number of products that this approach will work for, but it works pretty well for me. The unexpected upside is that it makes my product pages pretty friendly -- I think it's nicer (and clearer) to choose the non-option of "I'll provide my own logo" than to leave the "Please select" option to indicate a non-choice.

Eileen

vince.rowe's picture
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Hi, Thanks for the reply;

Hi,

Thanks for the reply; your idea does indeed seem more user friendly.

My product options are a bit more generic so ideally I'm still looking for a way to not have to choose an option.

Here are some real examples so you can see what I mean. This is one product with four attributes all shown in the basket even though as a customer I don't want to buy any of the accessories.

Product 1 (Cash machine)
- Ink: none
- Till rolls: none
- Note detector pen: none
- Wet covers: none

As I was reading through your reply I twigged that a better option for me might be to use a product kit (or similar) to list these accessories as their own items.

Hmmm would really like to go the attribute way though if possible.

Vince

leenwebb's picture
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Re: Hi, Thanks for the reply;

One option would be to change "none" to "Not included" or something like that. It's almost an upsell -- seeing it listed in the cart might push some people to get some of the extras.

Ooh! Here's something I did on my site:

1) Install the totally cool AJAX price updater thing (so that the price updates as they choose attributes) :
http://www.ubercart.org/contrib/2010

2) Set the default of the product to include each attribute, so that the price starts out as $200 (instead of $100) and includes 1 ink cartridge, 12 rolls of paper, 1 pen, and so on.

3) Rearrange the attributes so that the "Not Included" option *decreases* the price by $20 (or whatever).

That way you're starting out by selling the customer a whole package, and they can remove options if they don't want them. It will also make a little more sense -- the cart says "Pen: Not Included", and that fits the paradigm because a pen was included with the original product and they specifically removed it from their configuration.

Ryan's picture
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Joined: 08/07/2007
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Re: Re: Hi, Thanks for the reply;

(fyi, somehow the site marked your previous post as spam... Puzzled I unmarked it and deleted the duplicate comment.)

vince.rowe's picture
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Joined: 06/23/2008
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Hey nice idea I'll make

Hey nice idea Smiling

I'll make sure I keep that as an option for other sites moving forward.

For this one I it makes most sense to have "not required" or similar, just due to the nature of the shop really.

Hopefully publishing will be finished shortly so it'll be live in a few days, I'll be sure to post up here when it launches Smiling

Thanks for your help on this one.

Vince