osCommerce Product Editor

This chapter describes how to manage products and product attributes. The following topicks are covered:

1. osCommerce Product management

• Basic Opetations (Add, Edit, Delete Product)
• Copy, Paste and Clone Product(s)
• Edit Product Form

2. Attributes Management:

• Basic Opetations (Add, Edit, Delete Attribute)
• Copy, Paste Attribute(s)
• Extended Attribute Editor
• Attributes of Downloadable Products

1. osCommerce Product Management

Basic Operations

From products toolbar and context menu, you can perform the following basic operations:

1. Refresh data forces product list update. It is useful when you're changing connection or have any doubts like is the latest data displayed.

2. Add new product  calls blank Edit Product form, which is used to create a new product. "Edit Product" dialog pages description see below.

3. To edit product you can double click on it or use "Edit product"  button. It calls Edit Product form for product you've selected. Please see below for options.

4. You can Remove Product from Current Category  or Delete Selected Product from your store . Pay attention that you won't be able to undo delete from store option. 

5. You can Clear selected product(s) attributes from one or several products simultaneously. You have to confirm this operation.

7. To Expand / Collapse all products and their options use  icons.

8. To Adjust columns width use  icon.

Copy, Paste and Clone

To perform copy/paste or clone products you can use toolbar, context menu or drag and drop technology. Also these operations can be performed with more than one product at once.

Here are a few ways Store Manager users can perform copy/paste or clone operation:

1. You can use copy/paste   icons. First you have to copy selected product and go to the category you need. When you're pasting the product, you're creating the new one with the new ID number and the postfix "-clone" at the product's name.

Also when you're pasting the following form appears:

You have to choose whether to:

• Assign existing product(s) to current category - when you're pasting a product in current category, you're making some changes to the product you copied, not creating a new one),
• Create a copy of products in current category - in this case the only difference between original and copied products is the category they are assigned to,
• Move products to current category option - this method will remove products from the first category (where they were copied from), and will assign to current category.

• Date available - date to start publishing current product at your store. Default setting is same as Date added. 
• Date added - date the product was created. Date added feels in automatically when you’re adding new product to a store.  
• In stock - check if product is available at your store.  
• Name, Model - write them the way you want them to appear on the store page. 
• Categories - One product may be assigned to multiple categories. To assign product to some category click "+" button and select a category from the drop-down. To remove selected category from list click "-". 
• Manufacturer, Tax class, Quantity, Price (Net), Gross, Currency and Weight are standard product properties. Drop-downs allow selecting or calculating values. 
• Image - Select an Image by clicking:

 to browse contents of your local folders and select an image. When you press OK button on edit form it will be uploaded to "Images directory" on FTP. When local image selected, this field will display local image path like C:\My Images\some_image.jpg. But local image path will be replaced with image name some_image.jpg right after upload. 
 to select some image stored remotely. It's done by browsing contents of FTP folder specified as "Images directory". 

 to open Image Resize Rules window. You can add  or delete  rules if you need one.

 

  

Click Ok to upload file.

• URL (without http://) - This option is for you to place a link to product manufacturer's site. For example if you're selling Dutch tulips the link should take to Some Garden in Holland.
• Raw HTML Edit mode - allows you to see the description in HTML code when checked. All modifications to HTML will be saved "as is", without any corrections. If this option is unchecked, Store manager will use WYSIWYG HTML Editor. Please note that this ActiveX control may implicitly modify HTML code and insert unexpected formatting.
• Description - Specify product descriptions exactly the way it's going to appear on product's page.
  
  Edit HTML button - shows new HTML editor window of product description. It has 2 tabs: HTML and Code, and Properties Toolbar.  
  Source preview is useful if you are working directly with "raw" HTML text, which gives you precise control over the tags used in the page. However, by default, you can still work with objects visually.
• View Product Page - Specify Product Page URL here. To make sure the link is generated correctly, go to Tools -> Preferences -> Advanced and find this line at the bottom: 

You can uncheck "Same as database host" and type your store URL if it is not the same as your Database host. 

Click Ok to save this entry and to close Edit Product form, click Apply to save changes and to proceed or click cancel to discard this entry. Also you can save changes automatically and go to the next product using "<" or ">" button. 

2. Language Tab

Language page(s) appear if you're using some language(s) other than your store's Language. That's way you are able to input all text that is going to appear on the page using Edit product window. This page's options are actually an extract from general page's options, such as Product name, URL to product page, Product Description and Edit HTML option. 

3. Attributes Tab

You can find exactly the same options to edit Attributes in two places. First is Attributes tab in the Edit product window. The other is in the Product Attributes Section on the Main Categories & Products Page. 

4. Featured products Tab

Please note that this page will be available if you have Featured Products contribution Installed. This osCommerce contribution can be found here  

On this page you can configure appearance of current product in the list of featured items.

• Last modified - the date you made last changes in this product status.
• Date status changed - automatically shows time when Featured status was changed (you can see it current meaning in the box right under Date Status Change option).Please note that even if you manually set this date, it doesn't change product status.
• Date expired - After this date Featured status will not be valid. You can set date when you'd  like to stop displaying this product as featured. If the Featured Status box is unchecked, expiration date doesn't matter - the product is already not listed.   

Product will be displayed at your store as Featured only when Featured Status checkbox is checked.

5. special products Tab

On this page you can configure appearance of current product in the list of special items. It's a lot like Featured Page, except that it has several additional New Price lines.

Add to SPECIALS option doesn't automatically make product Special at the store, but makes it available in Specials List. It gives you opportunity to edit product's Special status in Specials section, along with other special products. There you can set time, when the product has active Specials status (is Special), which equals to checking Specials status checkbox in this window. You can specify:

• Date added - when the product was added to specials list.
• Last modified - the date you made last changes in this product status. 
• Date status changed - automatically shows time when Specials status was changed (you can see it current meaning in the box right under Date Status Change option). Please note that even if you manually set this date, it doesn't change product status.
• New price (net or gross) and you'll be able to see the discount (how many percent off the current price you're providing). You can also use up/down arrows to change price (1% step). But if you wish to set some specific discount (let's say 25%), than new price will be automatically calculated. Please note, that if you're setting %, it has to be "-25" for discount and "25" to make new price 25% higher.
• Date expired - After this date Specials status will not be valid. You can set date when you'd like to stop displaying this product as special. 

Product will be displayed at your store as Special only when Specials Status check-box is checked.

6. Additional Fields

This page depends on additional contributions installed on your store. If there's a contribution that has any connection to product-related database fields, it will be shown on this page.

7. Other 

You can find product ID and the product viewed number on this page. Product ID is a unique product identification that cannot be edited. 

8. Products X-Sell

You can add or delete X-Sell (Cross-sell) products for current product as well as substitute one X-Sell product with another (double click on it). You can find the same options to edit X-Sell products on the Edit product window and on the Main Cross-sell (X-Sell) Products Page. For more options look here.

 

2. osCommerce Attributes Management

Basic Operations (Add, Edit, Delete)

In product attributes section you can find some options similar to Basic product operations (add, edit, delete) which you can perform with the help of Product attributes toolbar:

1. Add new product attribute  calls blank Edit attribute form, which is used to create a new attribute. Edit attribute dialog pages description see below.

2. To edit attribute you can double click on it or use edit attribute  button. It calls edit attribute form.

First of all you can "Enable drop list editing"

If you want to add any Attribute parameter value to the dropdown list click on a dropdown, press [Insert] button and type in new option or value. Please note inserted Option/Value name in a dropdown can not only be deleted, but also edited. Just double-click on it or press [Enter] button.

An attribute is basically a specific value of some option. So Option is the first attribute parameter to be set. 

• Every option has its own values. You cannot set a value unless you chose an option. Store Manager has some default Options and their Values that you may use.
• "Prefix" option sets price modification if any. It can be "+" : if this product attribute selected, some extra charge (specified in "Price" field) will be added to basic product price;
• "-" prefix will subtract the amount specified in "Price" field from the basic product price. If you don't need to make any price changes, simply leave the prefix field blank.
• "Price" option has a calculator in a dropdown for your convenience. If prefix value is left blank, the amount you specify here will be subtracted from regular price for selected product.
• Also you can set "Max days" and "Max count" parameters to limit this attribute.

3. You can delete selected attribute your store . Pay attention that you won't be able to undo delete from store option unless you've made d-base backup. 

4. To adjust columns width use  icon or enable column auto width option.

Copy And Paste Attributes Using Clipboard

You can copy selected attribute (s) to the Clipboard  and Paste  it (them) to any other product or to multiple products at once. In case you have multiple stores you can Paste this attribute to any product at the other store (after you change the connection in Tools -> Quick connection switch). Please note that you need to use special icons on Attributes toolbar.

Extended Attribute Editor

Extended attribute editor allows you to make changes to all product attributes at once:

Check specific attributes, which you want to be applied to this product. Attribute and value names cannot be edited in this window, since all possible combinations are listed. To edit other features double click on its cell.

At the bottom of Product Attributes page you can find standard Up and Down buttons. Such Attribute order feature is not available in standard osCommerce store, so you need to install a contribution in order to have this option. You can find Attribute order update here. If you've installed it already, click on Attributes Editor button. You can move selected attributes using [Up] and [Down] buttons in Extended Attributes window that will appear.

Attributes of Downloadable Products

This option is useful if you have any products you'd like your customers to download (some software, games etc.) By default this option is disabled. To enable it you have to open Advanced -> Store Configuration and find "Enable Download" field. Make sure it's value is set on "true", click on accept changes and then refresh. Go back to your Categories and Products page and click Refresh data button. After you open Edit Attribute window, it should look like this:

• "File" option allows downloading resource file. There are two buttons to edit file. This one  used to browse contents of your local folders. When you press OK button on product edit form it will be uploaded to "Downloads directory" on FTP. When local file selected, this field will display local image path like C:\My Products\some_download.rar.  Local file path will be replaced with file name some_download.rar right after upload. 
• This button  used to select some remotely-stored file. It's performed by browsing contents of FTP folder specified as "Downloads directory".  
• "Max days": sets maximum number of days when product is available for download. Let's say customer can download a product up to 31 days  after purchase (see a screenshot).   
• "Max count": sets maximum number of times product can be downloaded. Customer can download a product up to 5 times after purchase according to sample settings (see a screenshot).
• Zero value in Max Days and Max Count Parameters means unlimited. Let's take a look at the example shown above. If a customer downloads the file only 3 times before the 31-day period runs out, he won't be able to download it again. And if  a customer downloads the file 5 times in 10 days, he won't be able to download it again as well.

With osCommerce Product Editor you can do all basic operation like Add, Edit, Delete, Copy and Paste, Clone and Product Attribute.