by Jim » Mon Sep 13, 2010 1:31 pm
This is the way it is designed to work. The addition of not just the sku but also the inventory tracking and weight on a per option basis requires that each option combination be unique and is essentially a product in itself. Therefore, the pulldown list must contain all possible option combinations.
Here is a little more information on how the advanced options work.
For ShopSite generated pages the Advanced Order Options will only be displayed on a Product's More Information page, not on regular pages with products assigned. Special Javascript code is added to the moreinfo page to populate the options as mentioned above.
On the product More Information page you will still see a number of pulldown menus equal to those in the standard options . In your case the two pull downs will have the default name you give to the pull down, i.e. Interior Color and Exterior Color. When the shopper clicks on the Interior Color pull down the first menu will be populated by the options that are available in the first list i.e. Red, Blue, White. After a selection is made in the first option the second pull down will be populated with options that are available for the item selected in the first pull down. So if for the Blue option you only have the Red and Teak items in stock only Red and Teak will display in the second pull down. Or if for the first option they select White and you only have the Red option available for that combination they would only see Red in the pull down. When the item is added to the cart they would see The product name, price, sku etc with White Red.as the selected options and no pull down menu will appear.
If the product is being displayed by Order AnyWhere code, then the required javascript code to make the options populate with just the available options is not available so all option pulldowns will display as before. However in the shopping cart all possible option combinations will display as you have noted. This allows for the additional parameters needed to keep track of the sku, inventory, per option price, weight image etc.