Glossary Item Box

Squirrelcart v6.1.0

Adding a Select Option

Overview

Select options make use of 2 tables in your database. The Options table defines the option itself, for example, "size". The Choices table defines the choices, such as "small, medium, large". In the walk through below, we will use these same examples.

Please keep in mind that the walk through below starts from a store that has no options or choices in the database. If you have the built in example items, or your own option/choice records, some of the screen shots will differ from what you will see in your control panel.
Step 1 - Create Choices
  1. Click the Option Choices menu link
  2. Click . You will see a form like this:


    Click to EnlargeClick to Enlarge
  3. Enter a name for the choice in the Choice field. For example, enter small
  4. If you want to add a cost for this choice, enter it in the Default Price field. If not, leave this blank. In this example, we are going to add the prices 3.50, 4.50, and 5.50 for each of the 3 choices respectively (small, medium, large).
  5. If you want to add a weight for this choice, enter it in the Default Weight field. If not, leave this blank. This will be added to the product weight to assist in determining shipping rates.

    The price and weight set here becomes the default whenever you assign this option to a product. It can be overridden on a per product (or category) basis. See the Overriding Option/Choice Defaults topic for details.
  6. The Description field is not used by default. It can be added to the option_detail_page_choice template file.
  7. The images you add to the Image and Large_Image fields will be used on the detail page for this option, should you enable it.
  8. The Options section will show which options this choice is assigned to. Do not click Create New Product Option at this time.
  9. Click Save Changes
  10. Repeat the above steps for the other choices. For our example, the other choices are "medium" and "large".

 

When complete, you should see the following in your Choices table:

Step 2 - Create Option
  1. Click the Options menu link
  2. Click . You will see a form like this:

  3. Click to EnlargeClick to Enlarge
  4. Enter a name for the option in the Name field. For this example, enter size.
  5. Set the Type field to Select. You should notice some additional fields will appear that are specific to the Select option type. The Add Blank Choice field will appear below the Type field. In addition, a Choices section will appear below the Details section.
  6. If you would like a blank choice to appear at the top of the list, check the Add Blank Choice field. This prevents the item from defaulting to the first choice in the list.
  7. If you want to require the customer make a choice for this option before being allowed to purchase, check the Required field.
  8. By default, the name of the option is shown before the select field as an instruction to the customer. If you would like to use something other than the name of the option as the instruction, enter it in the Instruction field.
  9. If you want the detail page links to appear, check the Detail Page field. This feature is explained in the Detail Page topic.
  10. Locate the Choices section. It should look similar to below.
  11. Click the large choice in the Available Choices box, and then click the  arrow to move it to the Select Choices box. Repeat this for each choice.
    You can move multiple choices at the same time by holding the CTRL key as you click on each choice.
    You can also move a choice to the opposite box by double clicking it.
  12. The choices will appear in your storefront in the same order as they are in the Selected Choices box. You can rearrange them by clicking the blue arrows to the right of the Selected Choices box.
  13. Click Save Changes
Step 3 - Assign Option to Product

The last step is to assign the option to a product. Because this step is the same for all product option types, we've explained it separately in the Assigning to a Product topic. The resulting option in your storefront should look something like this:

Allowing Multiple Selections

If you want your customer to be able to choose more than one choice, check the Allow Multiple Selections field on the product option record in the control panel. The option will then look something like this:

 

Allowing Multiple Selections with Quantity Fields

Squirrelcart has a feature to allow a customer to choose more than one of each choice via quantity fields:

 

 

To enable this, check the Allow Multiple Selections field and the Show Quantity Field on the product option's record in the control panel.

 

If you would prefer that the customer choose a quantity from a drop down instead of entering it in a text field, change the Field Format field to select in the Quantiy Field Settings fieldset, and enter the choices you want to give the customer in the Quantity Choices field as shown below:

 

 

The option will then look like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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