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Posting this in the 1.5 and 2.5 forums. Need advice desperately.

I'm building a site for a friend, and 2.5 is becoming a big hassle. He wants an extension from Break Designs that only works with 1.5 and Virtuemart 1.1X. Even installing Joomla 2.5 with Virtuemart 1.2...old Virtuemart that works with New Joomla..may not work.

My question is this, If I scrap plans for 2.5, re-do his site with 1.5 and old Virtuemart I know I can build what he wants, but how long with this site be good for with old Joomla and old Virtuemart?

All he wants is a Virtuemart add to cart menu that will work like Break Designs Attribute Manager. Granted, if the site works when I'm done the way he wants it, and he can get 2-3 good years out of it, maybe by then I can upgrade him to what is available then...and there may be a new version of Attribute Manager that will work by then.

What should I do......talk him out of Attribute Manager type stuff and build the latest-greatest site now or Build him a 1.5 with Virtuemart 1.1X that he really wants and see how long it will hold up before it needs an upgrade?

Any advice will be appreciated. i need to do something asap.

Thanks in advance.

Rick

I know there were some drastic security improvements with 2.5 LTS release, my personal opinion is considering this is an e-commerce site, is to find a way to make it work with 2.5.

There are probably some developers with more experience with older versions who can probably speak on the topic in more detail.

Here is a thread with some good thoughts and advice both ways.

A quote from the thread you posted:
"Unfortunately the main component of a website I'm running is being discontinued and I consequently won't be able to migrate to 2.5, not now, not ever, I guess this website will always stay on 1.5.26 as security releases will be ceasing next September."

That means I will have 1 year of security updates until 9-2013. Buys me a year, maybe by then there will be a new version of Attributes Manager from Break...or from somewhere else. Worst case.

I've e-mailed Break Designs...I'm waiting to hear if their Attributes manager will work with 2.5 with Virtuemart 1.2. I already know it will not work with Virtuemart 2.

I have searched for another extension like Attributes manager that will work with
the latest versions. What my friend wants is an add to cart menu liek the one features on this site: www.hotrodputters.com

It's nice, personally I don't care for this. There are other ways to dress up your shopping cart that I found that work with current software. My friend really wants this and I can't talk him out of it.

If any of you know of an extension that will allow for an add to cart like the one shown on www.hotrodputters.com please let me know. Commercial or non commercial. If it's commercial he will pay.

Thanks

Rick

That's from the main http://docs.joomla.org page section. So you technically only have a couple more months at most of security updates. Big difference between one more year and a month of security updates so wanted to point that out!

As for the specifics of your needs, all you can do is provide your friend with all the information and let him make the call. In the past I've taken logic from open source software and repackaged in Joomla's 2.5 framework with success, but if you haven't any experience developing Joomla extensions that could turn into an even bigger head ache!

Thanks for pointing that out. Yep he needs to stay with 2.5, no doubt.

Aceshop has an add-to-cart option. It does cost 59 USD, which I think is a very small price to pay for what it offers.

Not sure what the Break Designs does, but within Aceshop you can add Attributes if required. There are a lot in-built already.

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$59.00 is reasonable, but I'm not sure they have what I'm looking for.

What I need is this, Break Designs Attribute Manager: http://demo2.breakdesigns.net/index.php ... egory_id=1

This would be perfect, if I knew 100% that it would work with Joomla 2.5 and Virtuemart 1.2. It's cheap, about 17.00 - 18.00 US, but if it doesn't work then I'm just giving away the money. I've e-mailed them and I'm waiting to hear back. I wish i could test it, and if it worked I would pay them. No option for that.

They have a more expensive extension named Product Builder, which does work with old and new Joomla, but it does not do what I need done by itself. It's about $45.00 us. There's 1 demo where it's used with Attribute Manager...but all I really need is Attribute Manager.

There's an extension builder that goes by VMLab I found at the Virtuemart forum. He has an Attribute Manager. I e-mailed him last night. He's working on something now for Virtuemart 1.2...no time frame. About the same price as the Break Designs version. No website, he e-mails you the extension and if it works you pay him. Sounds what I'm looking for, if the graphics part works.

If you look at the Break Designs Demo link, what my friend wants is an add to cart that will have a picture to the side of the golf club, and the picture changes as you make selections...The picture is a picture of a driver. if you select a white club head that part of the picture changes, or if you select an Aldila RIP Phenom the shaft in the picture changes, if you select a Lamkin 3Gen grip the grip on the club changes.
That's what the add to cart option at this website does, and it where my friend got the idea: http://hotrodputter.com/order_now.aspx

I made up my mind last night, I'm loading inventory on his site with 2.5 and virtuemart 1.2. If no one has an extension right now with this setup, I will convince him to use it without it for now. Personally I like Virtuemart, and it;'s add to cart system is fine. So you don't have the graphics he wants standard. Safety is better than flash. I'll build it standard for now, and add an extension when one is available. Maybe I haven't heard from Break because it's just not ready for Virtuemart 1.2. Maybe VM Lab will be the one to do it?

Any other suggestions please let me know. I really appreciate all the advice.

You can add any number of images to a product as you require.
Size and colour are standard in-built attributes and you can also add your own.

You can buy it and try it for 7 days and, if not happy, get a refund.
This includes 6 months free support.
It's very easy to install and has numerous options.

http://www.joomace.net/joomla-extension ... art#buynow

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So this would replace Virtuemart completely. It looks nice, but I'm still not sure this is it.

For example, look at this demo page: http://www.joomlashoppingcart.net/acesh ... cinema-30q

You have the large picture of the Apple monitor. You have several options below the price and product info to select before you add to cart. I can do this right now with Virtuemart. What I want an extension or shopping cart program to do, for example if I select Red with this demo I would like the apple monitor to turn red. Basically when i select an option I want the main picture to show the product with the option selected. Is that possible?

That could be accomplished so easily using just CSS and HTML code, the question is how easily it would be to integrate into your existing shopping cart program. Using layout overrides for the product view might work to load all the images and assign ID attributes to the <img> and <input> tabs to handle the styling and swapping of images.

The only issue is loading the images into the back end, maybe create a custom images table which extends the products table based on the check box options. Sorry if this is way over the top, but I like the idea and as a developer my wheels immediately start spinning!

Break designs did this with Attribute Manager, but it's made for JM 1.5 and VM 1.1X. Chances are, it would work fine with VM 1.2 ( basically 1.19 but set up for JM 2.5), but it may crash and burn with JM 2.5. If they already had this set up for JM 2.5 I would be set.

So unless Break can configure this for JM 2.5, or if anyone could figure out how to make it work with JM 2.5 I'll just build this site as is for now, using a gallery extension within the product description of assembled clubs. I have spent days researching this, and finally I have to say it is what it is.

Thanks for all the advice

Rick