ThirtyBees module to add extra variables to a product
Once you install this module you will see a new tab in the product page (when editing a product).
In this tab you will be able to set different functionality on a product. Marking it as a service, forcing it to be marked as new, and a coming soon attribute.
Any variable set on there is designed to be used on your template to show different things and different views.
In your product.tpl file at the top add this:
{hook h='actionModifyProductForExtraFunctionality' product=$product}
This will modify $product to add the different variables (all are listed in the new tab on the product edit page).
You can then do things like
{if isset($product->coming_soon) && $product->coming_soon == 1}
<span class="product-label product-label-comingsoon">{l s='Coming Soon!'}</span>
{/if}in your theme to add a product label for coming soon.
It is always recommended to do an isset before accessing these variables as this will prevent errors if the module is disabled.
Getting this module to work on the products list was notably trickier than getting it to work on the product page. But, I've found a way.
At the top of your theme's product-list-item.tpl file (depending on your theme this might be different--but wherever for-loops through a list of products) add this:
{capture name="newProduct"}
{hook h='actionModifyProductForExtraFunctionality' product=$product capture=true}
{/capture}
{assign var="product" value=unserialize($smarty.capture.newProduct)}This is all needed because the $product in this part is not a class like in the product.tpl file, it's an associative array.
For some reason something won't let you modify those from inside the module (like how the module can directly modify $product in the product.tpl file).
So we have to re-assign the $product variable after deserializing it.
This module does not modify any table, it creates a new one that is used to store functionality by this module.
For future compatibility (and not having to add new rows to tables as this expands) the data for each product (which functionality is set for it) are stored as a serialized array. This means items can be added to that as this module grows without effecting the table structure or reinstalling the module.