[ic] area and cat tables

[Marty Tennison]

On Mon, 2004-12-20 at 12:17 -0500, Wojtek wrote:
> Hi list:
> 
> Can someone explain to me what the design idea is behind having two 
> different tables for maintaining product categories in the foundation demo?

It is a one-to-many relationship, one area to many categories.

area-1
  cat-a
  cat-b
  cat-c
  etc....
area-2
  cat-d
  cat-e
  cat-f
  etc... 

By splitting the area and categories apart, you create a structure that
is easily grouped, searched and displayed.  

If a store is small, one area and many categories might be sufficient.
However, for large stores, area and categories (and sections,
departments or locations) are useful to organize the store into
meaningful and navigable pages.

For example, suppose a store sells bikes and clothes.  Mountain bikes,
Street bikes and Unicycles and an assortment of very kewl and trendy
clothes to go along with those bikes.  If they did not split the store
up into area and categories, all the items would display at once.  Very
tacky, not to mention hard to navigate.  So, by splitting the store into
area and categories, we make life easier for our customers, and us. 

Area-1 = Bikes
  cat-1 = Mountain
  cat-2 = Street
  cat-3 = Unicycles
Area-2 = Clothes
  cat-4 = Shirts
  cat-5 = Shorts
  cat-6 = Hats

Now, if the customer is interested in any of those items, they can
narrow their search, find the item they want, and checkout. (we hope). 

Without the area and cat tables, you could still come up with ways to
sort your searches and organize your store, but if you are going to
write searches that sort the results for customers, why not just do it
in advance by organizing your store into logical units that will help
your customers find what they want. 

The area and cat tables that are included in the Foundation demo are
sufficient for most needs however, there is no reason why one cannot
extend that structure to any level needed.

area-1
  cat-1
    section-1
      department-1
  cat-2
    section-2
    section-3
      department-2
        location-1
  cat-3
  etc....

Of course, if you were to design a store like that, most of the
administration tools in the foundation demo would stop working.  :)  But
it's definitely doable. 

One more example of the just how flexible Interchange is.
-- 
Marty Tennison <marty at sediva.com>