I will suggest a product code change to my client - however at this juncture their coding is based on a different rule set, more general and has to include a wide range of product types from multiple manufacturers as they are a health, hair and beauty products distributor. I'll put some thought into it, however I don't think they'll go for it in the short term.
Thanks Len, this input, however, is much appreciated. Also, I think that you summarised my dilemma very neatly: "Each occurrence of the color, size, or style of an item requires a separate item number, but the group of items are then transposed to show them as a grid with each style displayed in a row, and each occurrence of the color and size displayed as a column." Garth At 06:30 8/08/02 -0700, you wrote: >I have worked with apparel manufacturers in the past that refer to your item >style as a color-size-style grid. > >Each occurance of the color, size, or style of an item requires a separate >item number, but the group of items are then transposed to show them as a >grid with each style displayed in a row, and each occurance of the color and >size displayed as a column. > >To achieve this, you will need a segmented item number such as XXX-YYY-ZZZ > >Where XXX is the style, YYY is the size, ZZZ is the color. > >hope this helps > >Regards, > >Len Wright >Plus International Corp >www.plusinternational.com > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Garth Penglase" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >To: "Multiple recipients of list witango-talk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2002 7:39 AM >Subject: Witango-Talk: Selective Arrays > > > > Hi all, maybe you can help me with this... > > > > I have a large (reasonably complex) product database. Each product has a > > alpha-numeric code and a unique ID and other product related things like > > price, a flag for whether it is being discounted etc. A lot of the >products > > are simply one item, one price and displayed with one graphic. See example > > at http://netramp.com.au/hhb/indola.jpg > > > > While all of these products are singular items and each has a price, some > > of them (not all of them) are simply different shades of the same product, > > and therefore there is only one graphic for the "main product" and in the > > catalogue only one entry is displayed with a table for the colours. ie > > > > Wella Fresh Colour Liquid 3/0 Dark Brown > > Wella Fresh Colour Liquid 5/0 Light Brown > > Wella Fresh Colour Liquid 7/0 Medium Blonde > > Wella Fresh Colour Liquid 8/0 Light Blonde > > Wella Fresh Colour Liquid 5/66 Bordeaux > > Wella Fresh Colour Liquid 6/4 Mahogany > > > > etc. (some have as many as 150 different colour/shades/combinations) > > > > The problem is that I want to separate these types of products out and > > create an array for each which is then displayed as a table of colour > > options (click on link above to see example), listed directly below the > > main product image and header (thankfully, I have separate headings which > > appear for product ranges - though these have also been manually added to > > the database for each product range). > > > > In the past I had a manual process to create this for other sites, which > > created separate external html files which were <@INCLUDE>ed whenever the > > product range was called upon BUT now it is different, in that: > > - the Internet product database is updated quarterly (in conjunction with > > their magazine) and has constant changes to the product line > > - Their internal systems are archaic and therefore at this juncture I > > cannot get them to provide me with anything out of their product database > > but a single flat file with all products each quarter, and maybe a >'changed > > products' list (the maintenance issue of synchronising these two databases > > is a doozy let me say, and that's a another issue which I'll have to be > > creative with as well). > > > > My initial thought was to separate these product ranges out of the main > > product database, leave one product range header item in the database > > which, via a flag, when selected calls up a separate table of the range > > colours which I then display as an array in tabular format. However, due >to > > the number of instances of this in the database, I can't see how it would > > be feasible to do this each quarter. > > > > Does anyone have any idea of how I can, on a search where any of these > > items comes up, force it to separate these items out into a separate array > > for each instance of a product range like this being found/requested? > > > > thanks in advance for any ideas - I am hoping that I don't have to >searpate > > these product items out into a separate table, but I can't see a clean or > > simple way of avoiding it. > > Garth > > > > > > ________________________________________________________________________ > > TO UNSUBSCRIBE: send a plain text/US ASCII email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > with unsubscribe witango-talk in the message body > > > >________________________________________________________________________ >TO UNSUBSCRIBE: send a plain text/US ASCII email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with unsubscribe witango-talk in the message body ________________________________________________________________________ TO UNSUBSCRIBE: send a plain text/US ASCII email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe witango-talk in the message body
