Version Notes

This is the rails 3.1-compatible version. It is bleeding edge, but there are no known issues at this point.

I'm excited to announce that I'm working feverishly on a complete rewrite (currently in the v2 branch (and highly pre-alpha), if you are curious).

After using this extension in a few projects, I discovered some areas for improvement.

The goal with the next version is to:

Allow the extension to play nicely with all other extensions.

The current version does major surgery on (and changes the parameters of) Order#add_variant. This interferes with some other extensions. Version 2 will be far less intrusive on the existing spree models

Keep the notion of a variant.

The current version does not allow you to later look up the variant and be able to reconstruct its state. This is all at the LineItem level now.

Allow more advanced pricing (dependent options, etc.)
Allow skus to be computed based on the selected options
Less cumbersome traversing of the object graph.
Better image customization support
Fewer new models!

SpreeFlexiVariants

This is a spree extension that solves two use cases related to variants. I call them Ad Hoc Options and Product Customizations.

Ad Hoc Options

Use these when have numerous (possibly price-altering) product options and you don't want to create variants for each combination.

You can also restrict certain combinations of options from coexisting. These are called Ad Hoc Exclusions and are described in more detail in the wiki.

Product Customizations

Use these when you want the ability to provide a highly customized product e.g. "Cut to length 5.82cm", "Engrave 'thanks for the memories'", "Upload my image". Full control over pricing is provided by the Spree calculator mechanism.

Installation

rails new myapp
cd myapp

Add to Gemfile (NOTE: spree master is currently unsupported! The namespace changes are not yet reflected in this extension).

gem 'spree', :git => 'git://github.com/spree/spree.git', :branch => '0-70-stable'
gem 'rmagick'
gem 'carrierwave'
gem 'spree_flexi_variants', :git=>'git@github.com:jsqu99/spree_flexi_variants.git'

bundle install

bundle exec rails g spree:site                                 # this installs flexi's migrations as well!, via railties:install:migrations
bundle exec rails g spree_flexi_variants:install               # copies the assets
bundle exec rake db:bootstrap

Examples

Build a 'Cake' product using Ad Hoc Options and Product Customizations

Build a 'Necklace' product using Ad Hoc Options and Product Customizations

Build a 'Pizza' product using Ad Hoc Options. Note that the 'multi' option checkboxes come from a partial named after the option name (see app/views/products/ad_hoc_options/_toppings.html.erb)

See the wiki for more detail.