[ic] How to create [same name] subcategories

[Jim Balcom]

On Tue, 3 Apr 2001, Gina K. Anderson wrote:

Gina, I commiserate with you completely.

GKA>>shopping cart handle categories this way through admin. Some stores don't allow
GKA>>subcategories, but in the ones that do, I've found only one ecom solution in my
GKA>>*exhaustive* search that didn't allow same name subcats. My reasons for an
GKA>>exhaustive search is because of a weird shipping table my client uses-which

I have landed here because of 'zone-based-shipping'. No one seems to
think that charging different prices for different weights to different
zones is important. I've been through many, including paying $500 for
Shopsite - all of them unusable.

GKA>>I hope IC improves this in the future. The problem is that many stores that
GKA>>programmers/designers build, is that the clients want to manage their stores
GKA>>themselves--at least that's been my experience, and the IC admin is confusing to
GKA>>me, let alone a layperon.
GKA>>
GKA>>I think the admin could use an overhaul, but I don't have the knowledge to do it
GKA>>myself, so now I think I will shut up. Because of my problems in finding an
GKA>>existing solution for this particular client, I have decided it's time for me to
GKA>>pursue a programming language, though this doesn't help me *right now* ;)

I'm just starting in here - like you. It appears that I have quite a
lot more programming experience and 'Linux-savvy' under my belt than
you do, but I think that we are both at the same level of frustration.

As I understand the lineage from what I have been reading, the
developers created a whole bunch of tools - shall we say, hammers,
nails, saws, drills, etc. Along with the instructions that if you place
a nail on a board and hit it with a hammer, the nail will go in the
board, and if you have two boards in contact with each other that the
nail will fasten them together. There are a myriad of tools in this
tool kit, and the idea is that with all of these tools that you can
build a house.

As I understand it, Akopia took over the project, and someone there
went to a LOT of work to take all of these tools and to actually build
a house. They included that house with the kit of tools to show us what
a completed house might actually look like. Much like the 'serving
suggestion' that we see on various boxes in the grocery store. "Here is
what is possible"

The person(s) that put this together for us, also went to a LOT of
trouble to build up an admin interface for us. But, there are no
instructions for that admin interface.

We are told that this demo house is quite configurable - and, indeed it
is. But, we come into the kitchen and there is only a single-bowl sink
and it is on the east wall. We want a double bowl sink and we want it
on the south wall so the sun doesn't blind us in the morning. We know
from the flexibility of the tools that making this a double-bowl sink
and moving it is supposed to be quite easy. But, we can't quite get
a handle on how to go about doing it.

Now, the neat thing is that we can hit our magic wand and we can make
as many of these demo houses as we want - we can populate a whole city
with these demo houses - all just alike. We've got customers to buy
these houses, but each wants their house a bit different than the model
house. We need to figure out how to make these modifications to the
demo house.

Akopia has not seemed to have figured on this. They figured: "Here's
the tools, here's what a finished one looks like. Go build your own."
They didn't figure that we would take their demo and customize it to
suit our own needs. So, information about how to modify the demo house
seems to be scarce. Apparently, there are very few people like you and
I that only want to take the demo house, make a few changes and move
in. And, then once we are in for a bit to start digging into the
various tools and learn how to use the saw and hammer and drill and
with them put up some new walls, take out some old ones, etc, and have
a house that better suits our needs.

InterChange is a very powerful software package. It is very flexible,
it is very customizable. There has been a LOT of work and effort put
into developing it. Imagine a fully equipped kitchen, and someone
shoves you in it with a picture of a cake and says, "Make one!"
Everything is here to do it - except the recipe!

I think that an alternate focus needs to be on ways to customize
'Construct Something' to suit our needs.

I downloaded 4.7.1 today. The install procedure is slicker than snot on
a brass doorknob! It's great! 'Construct Something' is gone and
replaced by 'Foundation'. At first blush, it appears that 'Foundation'
may well get rid of the problems that we have been experiencing with
'Construct SOmething' - only because it is now simply an outline. But,
I've not yet tried to install 'Foundation' so I may be way off base/

I can only suggest that you keep doing as I am: Poke and prod and
experiment. When you find something that works, document it.

-= Jim =-

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Tagline for Tuesday, April 03, 2001 at 21:35 PM:
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