My recommendation listed earlier in this post was that we actually
take a different route.  Adding attributes is a messy business - it
would require a significant overhaul of the e-commerce framework,
which right now relies on a relatively clean concept of product ID vs
quantity.

My suggestion was to create pseudo product attributes by setting up
the CMS in such a way that you can add sub-categories of products that
actually become products themselves.  Basically, we strengthen and
deepen the relationship between product groups and product items.
This was explained in my original email.

The advantage of this is that you can keep the simple structure of
productID x quantity.  Furthermore, reports will be a lot easier
too.

The other idea of the concept I am advocating is that you have several
product levels.  However, in the CMS and for the visitor to the front-
end website they may appear on the screen like one product  with the
option to choose several attributes.

This means that we keep the database structure similar to the way it
is now and instead focus our attention to making data-entry in the CMS
easier and front-end presentation more meaningful to users.

This approach is better in my opinion as it:
- requires less back-end work
- creates a sleeker front-end for administrator and user
- allows the e-commerce solution to be used for a wider variety of
purposes.

I am keen to continue my work, but I think it would make sense to
consider this idea first.

Nicolaas