Product Types

A much requested feature in Zen Cart was the ability to have unique information layouts for different types of products. For example, a Music Video needs to have different information stored and displayed, in comparison with, lets say, a Garden Bench.

Each product type in Zen Cart collects certain kinds of information relevant to that product. Each product type has a different display of content in the store (i.e: music is displayed a bit differently than other products as, for example, it allows the attaching of MP3 clips in the media manager, etc - all of which are displayed at the page of the music product automatically, but it is not the same for the other products: when you sell T-Shirts, for example).

In the Catalog -> Product Types menu, there is a listing of product types. In Zen Cart for each product type, you can select the default settings for entry of new products of that type (such as default tax class, so you don't have always select this when entering new products of that type).

• Type ID is an auto_increment field and is used to cross reference the type with other Database Tables.
• Type Name is user defined, but you should try and stick with the naming conventions that the core team have chosen. For example, in Zen Cart 1.2 there are Products - General for the standard product, and Product - Music for a product type designed for Music CD's. Then we have Document - General for a basic layout for an information only Document, and Document-Product for a Document that can be sold.
• Handler Page again is user defined and is used to build the URL to the code that actually does the work for the product type - to access the unique code for a given product type. It is preferable to define this similarly to the Type Name. For example if the Type Name is Product-Music, the Type Handler would be product_music.
• Master Type is used to link product types together. This is mainly used if you want to build separate side-boxes to display a category tree of just certain product types. For example the Document types are linked so that we can provide a side-box that can be used just to navigate categories containing Document Types.
• Add to cart option enabled shows Product Types that are for information purpose only, and because of that you do not want to allow your customer to add them to the cart.
• Default Image is reserved for future usage.
• Date Added and Last Modified are for internal use only.

By using the top toolbar you are able to perform the following operations:

- add new record to the existing list.

Press the button in the top and fill the form which appears:

- edit product type button opens the similar form as for record creation where you can change or modify the data. Do not forget to press 'OK' to save the updates.

- delete product type clears the list from the selected position(s).

Product Type Info Page Layout section

It has always been possible in Zen Cart to decide which elements of a product's information are displayed. As different product types will have differing types of information, it is possible to use a separate table for product types to manage Info Page Layout.

Manage your product type layout.

Click 'OK' button to save this entry, or click on cancel button to discard this entry.

To clear layouts list from the old or unused positions use the option in the toolbar:

By eMagicOne Inc.