Hello, I am having trouble using the Product Attributes feature. I finally figured out how to set up the group and options in the group but the only way I can assign the Attributes to an item is in the Product Listing, I cannot assign an Attribute when modifying a product, it shows "Please Select" in the drop down and that is it. This page https://www.ecommercetemplates.com/help/product-filter-bar.asp#attributes shows the Attributes being listed but they do not list on my store. I am running version 7.3.1. Is there something I need to enable to make this work?
Thanks for any help, Jon

Edit: After further testing, I have discovered that I cannot assign multiple Attributes to a single product either. The last assigned Attribute is the only one that can be used to find the product.

Alright, now it's getting even stranger. I just found that the Product Attributes are showing up as Manufacturer choices. I'm not even using any manufacturers, so what the heck is cross wired here? Is this something I can fix or a bug that needs fixing?

Hi there
The first product attribute is assumed to be the Manufacturer, just because 99% of the time it is. But it doesn't have to be a Manufacturer, it can be any type of attribute, but you should use this first one as the most heavily used attribute as it is optimized in a couple of ways. And yes, this first attribute group will appear in the Manufacturer menu rather than in the list of product attributes.
Hopefully this resolves your problem but if not, please let me know.

Vince

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If I may make a suggestion, please make better instructions for that segment. It took me quite a while to find the minimal instructions that you do have which don't explain it very well. I couldn't find an easy way to make a new group the manufacturer group (assigning it the first position doesn't do any good) so I had to spend a few hours directly hacking my database via phpmyadmin to clean up the mess left behind by my initial attempt at making this feature work. It is now working but it would have been a whole lot easier with better instructions.

Thanks, Jon

Hi Jon, there are link in the admin dashboard and through them, I'm able to find this page with a good bit of info on that feature..
https://www.ecommercetemplates.com/help/product-filter-bar.asp

Did you use these instructions?

Thanks,
David

Hi David,

Yes, I found that page but please note that other than this blurb -

"Please Note: The manufacturers have now been moved to the Product Attributes Admin page. If you are updating from a previous version you should notice that the Manufacturers Admin page is no longer available as a separate entity although the features remain the same."

it doesn't mention anything about manufacturers. It certainly does not mention that the first Attribute you create needs to be your manufacturer (even if you don't have any manufacturers?). I realize it shows "Manufacturer" in one of the screen shots, but to someone that isn't using them, that means nothing. In the 11+ years I have been using your cart program, I have never used manufacturers because it is all stuff that I make so there is no manufacturer. Using the manufacturer as an attribute will not work for me as I only have 1 group with many sizes in it, and some items can be multiple sizes. Since you can only assign 1 manufacturer to an item, I can't use it.

Thanks, Jon

I see Jon...

Just to be clear, It's not "my" cart..
I'm just an ect customer like you, that helps out of the forum here.
If it's one thing I know, it's ect does care about it's customers, and I'm sure the staff will see this and take it into consideration.

Thanks,
David

Hi David,

Sorry, since it shows you as a moderator, I assumed you worked with Vince and the gang.
I do appreciate the help and I hope they fix their instructions to be more clear. Cleaning up a database is no fun but at least I haven't put all the items in yet.

Thanks, Jon

Hi Jon
Sorry if the instructions are unclear and I'll sort that out now. But the first Product Attribute Group that you define (the one with ID zero) doesn't have to be a Manufacturer, it just is 99% of the time so that's why we call it that. But it is treated specially so results for the Manufacturer are extracted faster from the database, so you should use it for your main or most commonly used attribute.

Vince

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I've made some changes to the text in the instructions to hopefully make this clearer. But also I've made a change to v7.3 so that the label in the Admin Products page will be whatever Working Name is given to the Product Attribute Group with ID of zero instead of always displaying "Manufacturer".

Vince

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Hi Vince,
I don't think I'm getting the problem across completely.
I have only one Attribute Group that I want to use. It is a group of sizes of paper prints that I make for a particular customer. At present, it contains 28 different print sizes (6x12, 8x10, 8x16, 11x14, 8x8, 12x12, etc.). I want to use this Attribute feature to make it easier for my customer to find a particular sized print. Now, I have over 200 items that I make for this customer (her artwork) and most of these items can be made in multiple sizes. The problem I ran into when first setting up this Attribute Group is that apparently the first Attribute Group you create becomes the Manufacturer and stays the Manufacturer even if you assign it a different position in the list. The second part of the problem is that you can only assign 1 Manufacturer to each product and I need to assign multiple sizes to most products. I had to create a dummy group to be the Manufacturer but to get it recognized as the Manufacturer, I had to hack the database to assign it an ID of 0, that was the only way to get it recognized as the Manufacturer field and my other Group to be recognized for the Product Attribute field which now allows me to assign multiple sizes to the products when needed. If simply changing the order of Attribute Groups would have worked, it would have saved me a bunch of time and frustration.
Another note, I noticed that the Filter bar wasn't on the Search.php page so I added it. The Filter bar behaves rather strangely when used on the Search page. It shows a list of sizes but if you click on one of them, it brings up something like an advanced search page. Is that feature simply not made to work on the Search page or is there something I need to tweak to make it work as expected?
Thanks for your help, Jon