Thread

Hey EE comunity!
I’m about to start a new project and there is a couple of features that I can’t decide the best approach.
Case scenario: Clothes online store where everything will be organized by categories (Eyewear, Accessories, etc.) that’s all fine.
Now, there is another field that will be required: the gender. I thought about 3 possibilities to approach the gender as:
  - A simple dropdown field (with Male and Female options)
  - A different channel and make a relationship field
  - Another Category Group??

The other feature I have doubts is the product sizes. Depending on the product category the size type changes, so a t-shirt would have S-L-XL sizes but shoes would be 8-9-10. I thought that javascript would be the best option to control this feature but I’m wondering if you guys have other suggestions.

Thanks a lot in advance for any help.

Albert

For male/female, I might suggest a category.  It doesn’t necessarily need to be a separate category group, just a parent category within your “products” category group. At least then, for something like accessories, there’s at least the possibility that an item could be in both male and female - a pair of sunglasses that’s unisex, for example. Who knows?

For the sizes - I might suggest a combination approach - you could create a radio group for sizes of each type.  So S, M, L, XL in one group, and 8, 10, 12, etc. in another.  So with that example, two fields for size.  But to make entry clear, you could use Rob Sanchez’s “entry type” field to allow one versus the other to be displayed or hidden based on the “type” of product entry it is (including one to which no size applies, for example).

With the info available, that’s probably how I would handle it.  Combine it with a search add-on such as Low Search or Solspace Supersearch, and you’d have a very powerful way to let the user sort through the combinations they are looking for.

Hi John!
Thanks heaps for your suggestions.
I reckon the site would gain in performance using the gender as a category.
Good to know about Robert Sanchez’s Entry Type field. It might hit on the spot for that feature. I’m just wondering if the field would work as a Safecracker file as well. Most of the entries will be uploaded from a custom Members Area using Safecracker.

Cheers,
Albert

I’m not sure if it’s Safecracker compatible or not. There’s really not much documentation on the field type, but considering Barrett Newton is behind Safecracker and Entry Type, it may be that it’s supported but not documented as such - or perhaps not difficult to do even if it isn’t actually already integrated.  If you drop Rob a line on Twitter (@_rsan) I find he’s really great about responding.

It does actually raid another issue though - you’d probably have to do some serious front end validation in concert with entry type even if it is supported in Safecracker.  The entry type field showing or hiding fields is convenient, but it also means those fields that are being shown or hidden can’t be set to be required (at least not presently - that’d be a great feature for Rob to add, actually).  And so in the CP with a client admin it’s probably enough to explain that away, but when it comes to user submissions, having the field be required by front-end validation would probably be necessary to avoid confusion on the part of the user.

I see what you mean.
I’m thinking a Javascript work around to be able to make the field required depending on the type of product that has been selected? That might do the trick.

Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts.
Albert.