[ic] item-options tag parameters

[Dave Paton]

Hi interchange-users, this is Dave Paton, new poster to this list (though
frequent and grateful past beneficiary of much valuable info from the
archives - thanks for that help).

Working from the 4.8.5 Foundation demo to build my first catalog for a
client, I have been trying to figure out the best way to tackle a
requirement. This pharmaceutical company wants to display on the product
flypage a price field that is really not a price at all. It is sort of a
'dummy' field against which the actual retail price is compared to create
the appearance of a discount. I called this dummy value a 'Regular price,'
created a 'regprice' column in the (Postgre) products table for it, and
displayed it OK on the flypage, at least those of products with no options
required. It's in strikethrough type with the real price (dubbed the 'Web'
price) next to it. (I know, it's a strange deal.) For products that require
options for bottle size or tablets/capsules I have matrix options defined,
also a regprice column in the options table along with the actual and dealer
prices. But I have been unable to integrate both the 'regprice' and actual
price into the select widget for the option variants.

Can the item-options tag be modified to pick up this additional field from
the options table? I see from the tag reference and archive posts that the
tag has been patched over the past year to include Javascript capability and
inventory management for product variants, but I cannot tell from the docs
or examples whether it can actually change the widget output by adding a
'regprice=1' type of value. Are the default Foundation flypage parameters
[td, label, bold, price, code] the only ones possible? I looks from Fred
Pope's and other posts that it has been possible to modify it in the past.
But my attempts at direct edits haven't worked and where they included a
nested ITL tag have broken the options tag even with an interpolate=1 value
set. I have the regprice added in my catalog.cfg UseModifier directive. No
Perl expert, I would like to work through the tag if possible, but if
embedded Perl or other widget-building tool is the best way, would get
working along those lines. I studied the accesories tag, it seemed to be
sort of deprecated and not the way to go. So, how best in Interchange to get
both this 'regprice' and the real price values into the widgets, and is it
possible to incorporate a strike-through HTML there?  Some short
direction/advice and status report on the item-options parameter limits tag
would get it, I can work more from there. Hopefully this post has at least
some novelty in its weird non-price to go with its stupidity. Thanks and
best regards.