foodclub.org

For some vendors there are certain products that just always cause us trouble. They arrive damaged, spoiled, etc. Contacting the vendor doesn't really help. What we would really like to do is mark them as "disabled".

So maybe a new boolean field in the item database called disabled? If set to 1 then the item just wouldn't show up in that account even though it is in the db. Everytime the catalog is updated automatically the disabled flag should remain.

Would any other users make use of such a flag?

Essentially, disabling products is already supported, but the caveat is that you need to be maintaining your own database (via phpmyadmin) to do it. Here is a support topic which discusses it: (items can be disabled just from Order, Splits, or both)

http://foodclub.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=774&t=2018

So really what you need is to be able to modify the official database to suit your individual club's needs. This is now being supported informally by doing a back-end copy of a newly imported official database into your own private database. E-mail if you want this to happen, and say which databases/sources.

In the near future (especially if more clubs request this), there will be a formal feature for you to "subscribe" to an official database rather than use it directly. By "subscribing" it will either 1) clear out your private and import the new official whenever a new one becomes available, or 2) notify you that a new official is available, and allow you to copy it into your private when you are ready.

Either way, you would then need to go and set the valid_order_increment / valid_split_increment back to 0 to disable the item. Perhaps in a future revision, the subscribe copy could leave those fields (and other item metadata) without overwriting them.

Great answer as usual!

"Either way, you would then need to go and set the valid_order_increment / valid_split_increment back to 0 to disable the item. Perhaps in a future revision, the subscribe copy could leave those fields (and other item metadata) without overwriting them."
--Was this enhancement done too?

No, not yet. The "copy into private" feature currently simply clears the entire private table before copying.