Understanding Flex Families better (Newbie)
Hi all, I'm new to WCS and one of those people who wants to really understand every little piece. I've run into a bit of a road block understanding flex families. The semantics of 'attributes', 'assets' and 'definitions' gets a little confusing. I was hoping someone here could help me understand them better.
A good place to start is the Flex Family Maker:
Flex Attribute
Flex Parent Definition:
Flex Definition
Flex Parent
Flex Asset
Flex Filter:
I will run through a quick explanation of what I currently believe each attribute is responsible for (I'm going off the GE Lighting example), keep in mind I am new and some/all of this may be incorrect.
I believe the goal here is to create an entire catalog of lighting products, those lighting products need to be categorized and organized. This is where the flex family comes into play.
Flex Attribute: The attribute asset type. So an asset type essentially being a content form where users can fill out information about an asset...thereby creating an actual asset like "Halogen Bulb Z7488". This asset type content form that is filled out is an attribute of the flex asset? So what I'm assuming here is whatever is being created , in this case a lighting product, needs a content form and this is the name of it.
Flex Parent Definition: As far as I'm aware these are just names that will connect to the tree for the content providers to help with organization. I know each individual asset can have a parent. In the case of "Halogen Bulb Z7488" it could be under the parent "Halogen Bulbs" which is under "Home lighting" for example.
Flex Definition Creates a subtype of the product itself. For example..."Halogen bulbs" (So if you want to show just halogen bulbs on a page, WCS would know to just pick up flex assets of the type "Halogen"
Flex Parent Represents the categories of the products. I think for now this is just the name...and when the admin goes in later they decide what all the categories will be. For example, since we are here making a flex family based on products, they can have several categories like "home", "business", "outdoor" lighting. This is just the name of it for now.
Flex Asset This is the actual asset...created by content providers after filling out the content form (asset type form that is assigned via the flex attribute value).
Thanks for helping me out. The best way to answer this for me is by example...either with a new situation or the GE lighting. I just would like to know how to connect the dots if I wanted to create my own flex family and where everything goes.