User Manual/Administration Interface/Associating items

One of the most important concepts of the Arcavias administration interface is associating items to other items, e.g. you can associate a text to a product or several products. This enables you to enter a text only once while it will be displayed in more than one product. This is especially handy when you need to change the text because you also have to do it only once for all products which are using the text. But not only texts can be associated to products.

What can be associated
Panels that support associating items:
 * product
 * catalog
 * service
 * text
 * media
 * attribute

Items that can be associated:
 * texts
 * media
 * prices
 * attributes
 * products

Useful combinations
In theory, you can add each of the following items in the panels listed above but not all combinations may be useful, so the possibilities vary from panel to panel.


 * In product panel:
 * texts (name, short description, long description)
 * media (pictures, documents, downloads)
 * prices (price for different number of quantities)
 * attributes (product properties like size or color)
 * products (suggested products)


 * In catalog panel:
 * products (product lists of categories)
 * texts (category name and description)
 * media (category icon)


 * In service panel:
 * texts (delivery/payment name and description)
 * media (delivery/payment icon)
 * prices (price of delivery option)

How to associate items


Adding items to another one is a simple task of drag&drop. Go to the panel of your choice (e.g. the product panel) and double-click on the product item you wish to associate something to. In the product detail view which is now visible, choose the tab that contains the items you want to add to that product.

The tabs for associating items are always divided into two sections. The right section contains the list of items that are available. You can either add a new one or filter the list of existing items. The left section shows the items that have already been added to the product.

For associating a new item, click with the left mouse button on the item in the right section and hold the button pressed. Move your mouse to the left section while keeping the button pressed and release the mouse button when you are in the left panel. During drag&drop, the number of selected rows will appear nearby your cursor and the little icon will change from red to green when you've reached the left section.

You can associate more than one item at once, but you can't associate an item twice. If you try to, the existing association will be highlighted for a short period of time. Newly added items are placed at the bottom of the list and are marked by a little red triangle at the top-left of the item.



Shown details of associated items


By default, the columns displayed on the left side contain the list type, a few hidden ones and the most important columns of the referenced items. You can change the shown columns via the header menu which is located on the right side of each column header and is visible by hovering over the column header.

Contrary to columns in regular list panels, the columns in the left section are not sortable because in this panel the order of the item matters. By moving items via drag&drop within the list of the left section, you can determine the position of the item e.g. of the product within the product list of a categoy.



Changing list type and time frame


The standard list type is "default" but depending on the kind of the panel, more options may be available. An example for another option would be a product suggestion in the product panel. You can edit the list type as well as the other available fields by double clicking on the item in the left section.

The detail view of a list item contains not only the list type but also fields for a start and end date of the association. This allows you to make the associated item only available for a limited time frame and this works for all kind of associations.



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