Virtuemart - Is this possible?

[Datatonic]

First of all I would like to compliment you on producing a top notch component. Having struggled with Gallery bridges in the past and all the hassle that comes with them, Phoca Gallery is a breath of fresh air.

That said, here's my question.

I have 3 photographers as clients.

All of them want to be able to sell their images online.

All of them have only a few prices for their images i.e.

Bronze $5.00
Silver $10.00
Gold $15.00
Platinum $20.00

And then they have options for their products i.e.

Low Resolution download image - standard price
High Resolution download image - +$2.50
Original Resolution download image - +$5.50
4 x 6 Print - +$10.00
8 x 10 Print - +$15.00
8 x 12 Print - +$20.00
T Shirt - +$25.00
Mug - +$20.00

etc.

I understand that you can link to Virtuemart using Phoca, which is great.

Having to create a virtuemart product for each and every photo, is a daunting task for photographers especially if they do large events with hundreds of photos per event.

Instead of this, I am wondering is if it is possible or could be possible to do the following:-

Virtuemart products are created using their price breaks - such as the Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum examples above.
This would give 4 Virtuemart products. Each product would then have attributes added as shown in the example above.
The photos in the gallery are linked to these products with the photo id being passed to Virtuemart from Phoca, possibly as a custom attribute.

This way customers can browse photos in the gallery and add them to their cart, selecting their options and the photographer can tell which photos they have ordered from the photo id's that have been passed to Virtuemart.

The customer is happy and the process is straightforward.

The major benefit is to the photographer, who's administration is dramatically reduced, leaving them more time to be creative.

Is this possible?

Many thanks

Ro.

[belindab]

I have a similar requirement. I think the same solution would work for both of us.

I have a lot of products that can be customised with a wide choice of designs and fonts, which are stored in various categories in Phoca Gallery. When a customer picks an item in VirtueMart I would like them to be able to go to Phoca Gallery, select a design or font and then have that information passed back to VirtueMart so that the selection can be added as the value of an attribute.

It seems that this would be a useful capability - perhaps it already exists and we don't know it?

If not, I am a bit of a novice at all of this but I'm willing to give it a go if someone could give me some pointers as to what needs to be done.

Phoca IS a neat gallery - I tried a few before settling on this one!

Thanks for your help.

Belinda

[Jan]

Hi, I am thinking about some plugin for VM but is is a question of future ... Now I have any idea how to do it,... the idea of VM link, is e.g. to have e.g. 50 images stored in one ZIP file. This ZIP is a product in VM and all images from this ZIP can be displayed in Phoca Gallery and every image link to this ZIP product (so it is separate by e.g. categories)

Jan

[Datatonic]

Hi Jan,

Thanks for the reply.

What you are talking about seems to be a very differant solution to the one I am proposing.

What I am proposing is the addition of a variable (the photo id) being passed to Virtuemart as a custom attribute when the link is clicked.

Is there a straightforward way of doing this?

I think you'd have a lot of very very happy people out there if there was.

Regards

Ro.

[Jan]

What I am proposing is the addition of a variable (the photo id) being passed to Virtuemart as a custom attribute when the link is clicked.

then this need to be done in VirtueMart so this should be maybe question on VM developers

Jan