Product configurations

[Matt Drollette]

I am not sure on the terms we are using to refer to these things just yet. But It's my understanding that a "Product" is a description of possible specific products.

eg. Product

Name: Cool Shirt

Attributes: [Color: [red, blue ,green], Size: [small, medium, large]]

We need to be able set properties on the specific combinations of attributes, eg. XXL might have an upcharge, each combination might have it's own SKU, Large-Red = MYSHRT03RD. What is the strategy we are using for this? Does a "Product" just represent this meta-information? How do we represent/persist the SKU's/properties for the specific Products?

[IamPersistent]

I think any oddities in pricing needs to be handled by rules in the pricing object. 

As far as a different SKUs based on different attributes, I think internally, each should be saved as a separate product. So the attributes would be saved as a associative array

$attributes = array(

    'size' => 'large',

    'color' => 'red',

);

If you had the same SKU for different options, the array would look like

$attributes = array(

    'size' => array('small', 'medium', 'large'),

    'color' => array('red', 'blue', 'green'),

);

The actual attributes would most likely be objects, so you could have additional information about them, but you get the idea.

From an interface perspective, it would probably be convenient to let people build new products off of similar products.

[Tim Nagel]

Ultimately how I saw something like this going was having a master
product, the Tshirt, and having products inherit this master while
modifying any attributes that needed to be adjusted.

A Large Red tshirt is still the 'same' product (same logo or style),
just a different style, regardless of if it has a different SKU.

t

[Richard Shank]

Actually, that would make more sense. Maybe the specific attributes for the different SKUs should be stored with the SKUs.  I'll approach it that way and see how it goes