Promise of Pack of Products: Basic Core Design Flaw, Existent, or Prestashop Bait-and-Switch?

[DontScamOnMe]

Promise of Pack of Products: Basic Core Design Flaw, Existent, or Prestashop Bait-and-Switch?

 

What does this mean? This mean that quote Prestashop PROMISES by design and as advertised (people's investment time and attention to the CMS = AT LEAST IF NOT MORE the time and energy of developers whose products SHOULD BE optional. Period) to provide them core means to list, sell and provide means of deliverance of standard, virtual and pack of products with access to virtual, including in 'packs.'

 

As a developer of 15 YEARS who has use just about everything, can code php, css, html, js, etc etc recently I installed Prestashop 1.7 and Prestashop for the first-time.

 

Beyond the totally excess and annoying-as-hell branding - overboard, tedious and purposefully designed to be a major P.I.T.A and headache and extreme time-waster AND beyond noticing immediately that Prestashop is certainly designed to grab people's money for non-optional modules, certain core functionality is missing. Let me expose this:

 

There are plenty of modules and functionality that simply should have been included that imo were not. Beyond that scouting around the forum, I expected and was not wrong when the first thing I see is "hire a professional" aka buy one of our wolfpack modules (no doubt from the typical handful of longterm 'dev' users and Prestashop insiders themselves)!

 

TRUTH. Inarguable. [if this message gets removed I will post it EVERYWHERE online] Instead of attacking me and my bracketed threat, I invite you out of challenge to ADDRESS the following example as a SIGN THAT I AM WRONG and EFFORT TO DISPEL this accusation.

 

PS. I wrote the following above so skimmers can be directed and read the gist of my harsh statements.

 

Also, I am a dev, I have invested in good faith a lot of time already exploring and dissecting Prestashop from the file structure, some of function and general code, and tpls etc. I am at the end of demoing and launching a test shop for testing and evaluation purposes.

 

THE CHALLENGE / LACK OF BASIC FUNCTIONALITY AS ADVERTISING?

 

Disclaimer: If I prove to be wrong, great, fantastic, I would be thrilled but my accusation is (a) either missing common sense, basic or advertised functionality, or ( major bugs (non intentional "bugs" or © things designed to sell a module or retain elements of Prestashop defaults).

 

Why I am making a strong statement about this? Because if it is true (and even if this post is removed or attacked beyond attempting to 'SOLVE THE PROBLEM', then the CMS is a scam, functionality is missing as advertised (no excuse if the base CMS is free). It is then an inarguable bait-and-switch ploy to sell paid modules ----- it is wrong and immoral to waste people's time, deceiving them or even running, participating or posing as a community when there are strings attached, passively asking or demanding money for a supposedly free CMS. It is wrong.

 

 

<!-- {THE PROBLEM} -->

It explicitly says when create a "Pack of Products" that

 

STATEMENT 1.1 > When selecting the listings as a pack: "Is the product a pack (a combination of at least two existing products), a virtual product (downloadable file, service, etc.), or simply a standard, physical product?"

 

This implies you can make a pack of multiple items INCLUDING virtual products and after a sale have them accessible to the customer. Well, they are NOT.

 

<!-- SCENARIO -->

 

1) Registered user purchases a 'Pack of Products' consisting of two enabled, available and finally successfully purchased individual virtual products.

 

2) By default if a registered user and 'customer' purchases a SINGLE virtual product, they have the order, pdf invoice and and LINK available to them under the invoice/order details. YES, there is at present as I have tested and verified a link under the 'details' under their order manifest. VERIFIED, TEST, WORKING. DOWNLOADED.

 

3) Yet for packs of products? NOPE. No individual pack items listed, including any linked virtual products. Obviously by design these should and could be there. So obviously, there is no debate or argument about it, if you have a 'Pack of Products' it's children products in its pack SHOULD naturally be displayed under "DETAILS" [hello???!] and especially if one of those products in the pack is a virtual product that the customer NEEDS to download and have ACCESS to what they paid for.

 

No excuse, you don't mess with my time or other people's money by PURPOSEFULLY EXCLUDING THIS, WHICH HAS BEEN DONE BY PRESTASHOP.

 

It is ADVERTISED + NECESSARY FUNCTIONALITY - period. Inarguable.

 

4) So, I tested a 'Pack of 2 virtual products' - all available, enabled, working fine. After payment and invoice delivered...... ZERO products in the pack listed with their links.

 

Yet there are 'modules.'

 

I know as a developer this is wrong, not as advertised to users, baits less technical users into being coerced into buying some crappy module that probably won't won't be updated in the next (ex Prestashop v1.7! - take a look [spam-filter] around). This is extremely shady and dishonest.

 

I also know as a non-greedy friendly and cooperative true user of CMS that it is really not to the benefit of any notion of an actual real community or for a fully disclosed, honest platform.

 

I also know that I have searched for the solution on the forums, only to see 'pay a professional' (for such basic and promised, mandatory functionality) or 'buy a module,' when really all it takes a chunk of code in the right spot.

 

So on this last point, beyond a next update by Prestashop correcting this error, if IN FACT THIS FUNCTIONALITY IS MISSING VIA THE CORE PLATFORM OR BACK OFFICE ADMIN GUI,

 

A quick block of code to replace, freeing and restoring such functionality as intended by design and explicit statement [see again STATEMENT 1.1 above] could certainly be offered in reply here for people, regular community users, whom have already noted and foolhardly accepted the fault. You can't just its OK or acceptable for the scenario and functionality to be missing when by any stretch of logic and rationality, it is not there.

 

I spent an hour of my life writing this. For some very familiar (longtime user/dev + "community member") with Prestashop, either a dev or Prestashop team member, they know and I know it would literally take such a person about 15 minutes to post

 

*** the necessary chunk of code and tell you what small chunk of code to replace/where to put it

OR

*** a similar quick solution, if one does indeed exist that i missed (which I severely doubt as I spent 2 solid days with the system).

 

HUH?

 

I sincerely hope I can get some good responses and a quick solution MINUS any attack or attempt to deflect my statements. Let's see. It's reality - for any negative, things could end on a positive note... OR NOT (if typical cms jackals come out to try to shoot me down... let's see).

 

This is not a function for a plug-in or module, but advertised and common sense core.

 

It is not to hard to have a 'Pack of Products' children items be displayed (as standard and individual products) and like an individual virtual product be shown w/ link like standard/single virtual. Really no excuse here, you know this is wrong and purposefully omitted.

 

Why else would there 'Pack of Products' that could possibly include virtual products, when the customer could not access them? This obviously makes no sense at all and goes polar opposite to design and purpose. And the fix is EASY and QUICK.  Someone in Prestashop or community dev with a conscious - post it. And next version, patch it.

 

Otherwise, I have zero choice but to publish and screenshot my findings via one our group's cms/dev and ecommerce blogs, essentially burying and discreting Prestashop. I cannot emphasize and hope enough that this can be resolved quickly HERE with the simple 1,2,3,4 step solution it would painlessly take. If not, then everything above I said it true.

Edited July 1, 2017 by DontScamOnMe (see edit history)

[razaro]

Hi

 

First welcome to the forum and sorry to hear your frustration. But to say also I do not like your tone

at the end of your post, you want to "burying and discreting Prestashop" if someone does not provide you quick solution.

How would you feel that someone tell you that as developer ? 

 

That being said to your original question: packs of virtual products ? Well PrestaShop have put that aside for long time virtual

products in general, and something they try to improve in each versions. I did not check 1.7 but think it had not much changes from 1.6.

But I can not call that basic feature, or that they doing that on purpuse, I mean that is just missing feature. Also I do not think they advertise

pack of virtual products as feature anywhere. You can even see in documentation

http://doc.prestashop.com/display/PS16/Managing+Products#ManagingProducts-CreatingaPackofProducts

 

You cannot currently add combinations or virtual products to a pack.

If you need to have packs with combinations, you will have to create single products for each combination. This is a known limitation that will be fixed in a coming version of PrestaShop.

 

It is feature you need for a project and it is something that should be included, but honestly I did not see much PrestShop stores that need that feature.

Another feature that is missing and it is connected with virtual product is making combination with virtual products. But for that there are few modules, for example

we use this at out store and it works fine https://addons.prestashop.com/en/virtual-products/7475-virtual-products-with-combinations.html .

 

You could also check maybe this guide, not for pack but maybe you will get some idea 

http://nemops.com/prestashop-virtual-products-combinations/#.U9igb_na6r0 

 

I wish you luck in finding solution.

[DontScamOnMe]

I think I quite clearly explained that

 

#1 - The whole explicit (meaning it is said directly and common sense) when you select the product as a "Pack of Products" from the drop-down, it says

 

QUOTE:

"Is the product a pack (a combination of at least two existing products), a virtual product (downloadable file, service, etc.), or simply a standard, physical product?"

 

I also clearly understand the logic of a Pack of Products meanings 2 INDIVIDUAL PRODUCTS [seperate, individual products] can be put into a pack.

 

#2 - I said that. I was not making a combination at all. I simply made a 'Pack of Products' in which I assigned two completely different unique virtual products -- exactly  as the instruction said. Obviously this is clear and why you would even have a SIMPLE pack

 

1 pack > 2 unique, seperate individual products.

 

#3 - Again to reiterate: it is clearly stated right there when you select a pack, "the product a pack (a combination of at least two existing products), a virtual product (downloadable file, service, etc.)..." [so you are wrong, you can of course make a pack with virtual items in it! I did and it makes sense, and it is stated explicitly via a hover message while actually selecting pack!"

 

The problem is that after a customer buys A PACK with simple products, on their order history, the actual individual products are NOT LISTED (simple solution here) AND THUS any virtual files in pack are of course not shown for access to the customer. Easy fix, nothing that already is not done as for one non-pack product purchase! All you have to do is to display the pack items!!

 

When you have a pack - ZERO pack items are displayed, thus no link to any virtual products in the pack a customer bought.

 

You can have unique, individual items in a pack. I did it, I purchased it.

 

It is a pathetically simple fix for someone who knows the simple PHP function, where it is supposed to or should be design and common sense display the pack items (just like on the pack item catalog page!!!) in the order history details. And "IF" [conditional statement] any item = virtual product, then link it to file.

 

This is already done it is PHP novice-level coding. There is no reason why it is missing. The functionality is already there and working for a single virtual item. Extending that to a pack is actually already there. How? you can already assign to unique products to a pack, they are displayed on their product page.

 

All anyone has to do is on the order history that the customer sees, LINK IT UP.

 

There are paid modules that do this, because any simple novice php developer who is familiar can just go to the .tpl and place the conditional statement to display the individual pack items!!

 

This is why it upsets me. I am sure every single dev at Prestashop knows what I mean as well as any other common developer. It is not rocket science nor unfeasible.

 

I will do it, but I am not going to bother support, develop or share with a "community" that hides such a crucial, core functionality. A customer's access to simple individual files in this manner in unacceptable.

 

I will have to spend much of my time wasted unecessarily implementing this simple thing after I scout and find what I have to do and where to do (got the filename(s) and line #?), when in reality people already know how and where and could simply help.

 

Want to see what I am talking about. Do it.

1) Create two unique seperate simple virtual products. Attach a file to each.

2) Create a 'Pack of Products' product. Assign the two unique, seperate products (this is exactly how packs work!! as instructed and simple common sense).

3) Test buy it as customer.

4) Logged in as customer, go to 'My Account' > 'Order History and Details' > Details link.

5A) With a single virtual product, you will see it with link to product.

-or-

5B) With a Pack - no children or individual pack items are listed or displayed.

 

The solution - make the ridiculously simple coding statement to simply display the pack items.

 

Then, guess what, problem solved?! That is all it takes. Problem solved. The question is - why is this not implemented. Is it on those 'virtual product modules' - why cause it's easy and they are charging for native functionality that already exists. The native functionality to simply have the sub-items display is there. But their display is hidden.

 

It's a simple fix, let us not make it complicated. PS. My threats are kind of serious, because some dev or better Prestashop dev should step up to the plate and fix this blunder. I know it's an easy fix for a fatale problem that only serves to exploit.

 

end of story. this is my attitude as a reaction to a poor philosophy and ethic to begin with. and the problem like i said too many times already is easy to solve. if i get a positive response, which i am fishing for in a blunt, apparently needed manner, then i may just become a positive asset to the "community" here, but if what i am seeing is poor attitude by dev behavior and hiding simple things like this [technically already existent but hidden end-user functionality] then yea, after all my experience with various cms over the years I would warn anyone but the intermediate-to-advanced php coder to not use Prestashop. What is the whole point of a public CMS of this type?

 

I made my point loud and clear. Nothing to argue about, it can be done easily and should be. My evaluation.

 

I am asking only for concise and concrete help for myself to save me 2 hours but also for the thousands of "community" members here and now and the future who bother with Prestashop - that is what these forums are supposed to be about --- not seasoned PS dev not helping people implement very simple things if for some reason like in this example when the items are simply not display via a ECHO statement.

 

PS. If someone would call me out on something like this, I would hope so as a dev. It's kinda obvious and pretty bad here. Easy to test (see steps 1-5 above) and easy to fix. Take your project seriously, emotions aside, and take your users seriously and with some respect and you'll get it back. I can tell you that. I love supporting and championing open source and cms, have done it for years, have seen them either fall apart due to laziness and excuses or worse evolve or swiftly change into a exploitive cash machine? My serious question was, which is Prestashop?

 

No discussion but concise and concrete help, filename(s) + line #, would be appreciated. Thank you!

Edited July 1, 2017 by DontScamOnMe (see edit history)

[DontScamOnMe]

razaro, you are a global moderator here, so i assume you know basic coding and have to do know what i am talking about.

 

if you do not for some reason, then this logical request that could only be highly beneficial for both Prestashop and its common userbase, serves a great purpose and I would hope a standard dev with experience of PS helps out! This doubles for my own evaluation purposes, if i should bother with this forum or not. If you cannot get "SIMPLE" help and reference for a CMS on its forum, then what point does it serve?

 

i would hope that some dev or team member chime in with again, the appropriate filenames and tpls where I and others could have a reference point on the forum to make that easy change to show pack items.

 

proof is in the pudding and consider this the ultimate pudding test. no doubt this crucial question and my evaluatory thoughts previously stated will help others decide whether to invest in Prestashop in future.. it is a good litmus test, i think at a good time when 1.7 has been out for awhile and is indeed the future of this cms, as stated by the prestashop internal dev team.

Edited July 1, 2017 by DontScamOnMe (see edit history)

[PrestaHeroes USA]

have you researched for 3rd party modules that will create a pack of virtual products.  I assume that is what rant is  about,  you would not be first.  

 

here is search maybe you will find what you need

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=prestashop+modules+virtual+packs&oq=prestashop+modules+virtual+packs&aqs=chrome..69i57.11317j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[DontScamOnMe]

“have you researched for 3rd party modules that will create a pack of virtual products. “

 

[look who responds a paid module developer! only chiming in to push paid modules - point made! ridiculous & off-point]

 

#1 Prestashop DOES perfectly fine create a Pack of virtual products! There is nothing wrong except the fact that after purchase under order details, the pack items (including standard, non-virtual) ARE NOT SHOWN. Otherwise there would not be an issue. The fact this occurs in Prestashop base front-end template is a problem.

#2 – This is a native and default (Prestashop) base theme and core cms issue. Packs in v1.7 already exist and work for Packs (bundling virtual or standard, no difference they built the same, basically, only virtual offering you to create a simple hyperlink to an uploaded item!) minus displaying the pack items on customer’s paid order! This could be a simple fix. Pushing paid third-party (there are no free) is horrible for multiple reasons – no I am not buying your crappy v1.6 or any versions third-party module. Plus it is a huge error to push core native functionality to a third-party on this when it is unneccesary. Read my original statements – no third-party plugins aka modules. WTF.

 

Prestashop is knowingly and purposefully excluding and disabling core featuring and allowing this to be exploited for monetary gain to cooerce and push a type of paid module. This can even be seen and obvious from the v1.7 “Back Office”/admin layout where the tabbed modules management section is designed firstly to load the marketplace! You would think the most important, frequent and needed area for administrators would be the ‘installed’ modules in order to configure and use them. But no. Further definitive evidence of this existing exclusion are the numerous ‘virtual product’ modules that are available and stalled on v1.6, offering basically much of the same native functioning yet ‘enabling’ and offering the gui options as Prestashop could and should have done in lieu of hiding to facilitate baiting people to use and install their ‘free ecommerce’ cms and then “switching” them with pressure and undelivered expectation and promise of a truly fully functional CMS. The missing or rather hidden functionality is crucial – and given all evidence could and should for multiple reasons be available. No question about it.

Yea, big fail and I can see from the two responses the attempt to deflect and avoid my point, to steer people off. I’m done. I’ll check back to to see if there are any intelligent acknowledgment and the simple request for help regard the couple functions and base theme files that need to simply be altered. Otherwise, bye, no point in using these forums and time for an expose on Prestashop’s “exploitive ecommerce design,” it is not right. I am pressuring and pushing for an answer for a reason to test athe response and avoid. Or is the ‘community’ all insiders and “partner agencies” looking only to defend their ability to exploit and offer expensive paid modules that re-package such basic native core functionality.

As a former plug-in developer myself, I understand and support paid module development when it comes to creative, often optional solutions that are not exploiting an intentional hole in a system, in order to pathetically promote a marketplace. That shows the the CMS care about and are really making their whole system as an ecommerce shop for module developers (who are also obviously themselves included!!) instead of an as-advertised complete ecommerce cms system, which Prestashop is really not – not complete! This should be a major red flag and warning to though who might want to use Prestashop, or a green flag to wolves who want to prey and exploit on people. Sorry not my moral or professional standard of ethics.

Edited July 1, 2017 by DontScamOnMe (see edit history)

[DontScamOnMe]

Yep, tested and looked through. AFTER EASILY ADDING A FUNCTION THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE TO DISPLAY ACTUAL PACK ITEMS IN ORDER DETAILS/INVOICE. The fact that this is missing is irresponsible and ridiculous. Having the CMS not provide individual items in a pack listed and available to a customer by default makes Prestashop a pass for any non-developer user (unless they are will to spend $100+ to modules or pay a developer) - this makes Prestashop "not free" and simple a port off of Symphony CMS + Smarty Templating, designed to distribute a broken, incomplete CMS to grab money from people.

 

#1: Packs are completely broken feature.

 

I created a pack with the latest Prestashop v1.7 late June 2017 in a few different configuration to exemplify the problem - fact not theory - broken and missing functionality with NO DATABASE TABLES CORRELATIVE TO PRODUCTS TO CUSTOMER INVENTORY. The only thing that exists are order #s, in which a pack is assigned.

- There is zip, zero, nothing to relate pack item products to the customer in regard to making available a download link for virtual products.

- In the case of a pack for example with standard, non-virtual items, or mixed (virtual + standard, as it explicitly denotes you can do this on creating a pack) - zero, zip, no actual individual items are displayed on order details, just the parent pack product.

 

#2: Single Individual virtual product downloads for paid customers are broken.

 

Simple test: As a customer, I bought a virtual product. I processed the payment, navigated to order history and details. Invoice available, product displaying including hyperlink with get-file and security keys in url to authorize and parse the download link for customer. CLICKED LINK = javascript pop-up "This order has not been paid."

 

Point made. Latest version, out-of-the-box. Simple virtual product with file attached created. All tested, all OK apparently all the way to payment to order history listing EXCEPT for the ability to download their purchases.

 

No excuse. I can only assume with the latest racket that v1.7 has purposedly been altered and made broken as I suspected.

 

#3: Stock Managment does not even decrement Pack items correctly, broken.

 

Test purchased a pack with two products. Items in pack are not decremented after purchase, yet with the setting that tells them individually along with the pack product to do so. Inexcusable again, where the whole functionality does not work correctly at all and if used would actually in this circumstance to much more harm and incorrect invoice to ruin a business!

 

End of Story.

 

I do have a solution though, someone should take this "free, open source" cms already built and appropriated from previous open-source, write a few function and database table entries and release as open source of course under a different platform, one that is fully functional with no baloney. I wasted a lot of time. My only solution is fix it myself. I will remove every grain and nuisance branding of Prestashop and just keep greedily for myself like all the others out there - Prestashop v1.7 is dishonest and borked. This not the type of technology or ethics I have ever subscribed to or condoned. Sad days. And from my experience with other CMS, it is the deathknell and turning towards a paid platform (requiring and catering to a illuminati of the real slim shady Back-"Back Office" (pun) developers involved in the project, forums and modules) disguised as free. ;----\

 

For the record this was prestashop_1.7.1.2 install final testing 06 July 2017

Edited July 6, 2017 by DontScamOnMe (see edit history)