# Dependant Attributes - which carts offer this?



## sickonsin (Oct 20, 2005)

I currently use ZenCart but have been debating about going with something else. I really want to have 'dependant attributes' for my products, which ZenCart doesn't offer yet. 

For example, when viewing one of my shirt designs, I want the customer to first pick 'style' (e.g. men/women/kid) and then have the 'size' attribute populate with options dependant on the style chosen. Then the 'colour' attribute populate with options dependent on the 'size' they chose. HAHA I hope that makes sense!

I had X-Cart recommended to me by a few people...and while it seems to have tons of great features, I am not sure if that is one of them. I just emailed them to see... So in the meantime, was wondering if anyone knows of / recommends any store package that does offer it.


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## JohnnyMo (Jun 14, 2007)

I use XCart and I know it offers "exclusionary" attributes... but not sure if it does dependent... 

So for example, you can set the colors to white, black, and gray, and your sizes Sm-XXL... and then exclude the XXL from being selected with gray... but the way it is implemented in XCart is via a Javascript pop up or AJAX message when folks try to select a 2X gray.... 

So the user doesn't get necessarily dependent attributes in which the sizes are not populated until color is selected... but rather gets all the options and XCart notifies you if said selection is unavailable in the current configuration... 

I am using XCart 4.0.16 which was released about a year ago so thing may have been tweaked or upgraded in the code since (they are on version 4.1.x.x now) but in my store that is how "Dependent Attributes" function...


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

sickonsin said:


> I currently use ZenCart but have been debating about going with something else. I really want to have 'dependant attributes' for my products, which ZenCart doesn't offer yet.
> 
> For example, when viewing one of my shirt designs, I want the customer to first pick 'style' (e.g. men/women/kid) and then have the 'size' attribute populate with options dependant on the style chosen. Then the 'colour' attribute populate with options dependent on the 'size' they chose. HAHA I hope that makes sense!
> 
> I had X-Cart recommended to me by a few people...and while it seems to have tons of great features, I am not sure if that is one of them. I just emailed them to see... So in the meantime, was wondering if anyone knows of / recommends any store package that does offer it.


Cubecart can sort of do it with a third party modification.

You can see it in action in the forum store. 

You can set which attributes go with which products and manage the inventory for each attribute. So if you have smalls in women's sizes but not in men's sizes, then if the customer select's a men's small, it will give them a "not carried in this size" message that you can define.

It's not exactly like the choiceshirts example here (or tshirthell) where you first select the shirt style, then the size, then the color.

I'm sure you could get that custom coded into most open source shopping carts for a reasonable fee.


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## sickonsin (Oct 20, 2005)

Thanks guys! X-Cart got back to me and said while the software doesn't allow that (they call it 'dynamic product options'), their dev team can add it for an extra cost. I was curious how much they would charge for it so asked for a quote. 

I **love** how the options are set up in this store. I assume that is a custom job? I carry various styles and colours for my designs so this sort of thing would be AWESOME.

I am going to check out CubeCart as well... Is the only real difference between X-Cart and Cube the price?


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

sickonsin said:


> Thanks guys! X-Cart got back to me and said while the software doesn't allow that (they call it 'dynamic product options'), their dev team can add it for an extra cost. I was curious how much they would charge for it so asked for a quote.
> 
> I **love** how the options are set up in this store. I assume that is a custom job? I carry various styles and colours for my designs so this sort of thing would be AWESOME.
> 
> I am going to check out CubeCart as well... Is the only real difference between X-Cart and Cube the price?


Looks like the babywit site is using MIVA to handle the shopping cart. The dependent attributes part looks like it's just some javascript that works to help define the product options before it is sent to the shopping cart.

I don't know if that's part of Miva, but it's probably something that can be custom coded for any shopping cart. 

You would just need a javascript developer to set it up.


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