WooCommerce Additional Variation Images

I would like to make the suggestion that WooCommerce spend some time reviewing and improving the “Additional Variation Images” plugin extension as it has many bugs and usability issues. I see it as a core extension to WooCommerce, as without it a customer is not shown the correct images when they select the corresponding attribute drop downs on the front end. Therefore I’d like to see this plugin rolled into the WooCommerce core framework.

Also, developers of other plugins such as gallery plugins are not building their plugins to work with the Additional Variation Images plugin by default. This has caused me many issues with having to get developers to custom code workarounds. If the plugin was built into the WooCommerce framework then developers of plugins would have to make their plugins compatible to comply with WooCommerce versions.

Imagine you have a footwear product such as a Hiker Boot.

Take my product of the Torsion Pro as an example: (https://finite-supplies.co.uk/shop/workwear-ppe/torsion-pro-lightweight-s3-src-pu-safety-hiker-boots/).

Say it was set as a variable product and comes in sizes 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. It also comes in colours Black, Brown and Tan. The number of total SKU’s is 30 (10 SKU’s for each colour). When it makes you add the SKU header image and the SKU variation images you have to add them one SKU at a time. So you would have to go to size 3 first, then to size 4, then to size 5 and so on. This takes a long time.

Not only that, but when you are adding variation images, instead of it just letting you select say 5 variation images from the media list in one go, it makes you select them one at a time. So you have to press add, search for the image in media, select it, then add. Then you have to press add new image and repeat those steps 5 times for just the one SKU, i.e “Size 3 of the colour Black”.

If I have 30 SKU’s then I’m having to access the media screen to add images a total of 180 times, which is ridiculous (150 times for adding variation images one by one per SKU, 30 times for adding SKU header image per SKU).

If you look at how Magento 2.0 works then when you are creating a product it has a wizard screen that asks you if you want to add product images by attribute and variation. Then all you do is you select the appropriate attribute (for example “colour”), then select the colours by ticking checkboxes next to each colour variation in the list (so “Black”, “Brown”, “Tan”). Then you do the same for the sizes, you select the size attribute and it shows you a list of all the sizes. You then select each size by ticking checkboxes next to each size variation in the list (so “3”, “4”, “5”, “6”, “7”, “8”, “9”, “10”, “11”, “12”).

By doing it this way you can add all images through one screen only. Instead of having to access it 180 times like you have to do in WooCommerce. This is a big issue for me and something I believe will be a big issue for others too.

If you could please make it your priority to address this issue.

You have a solution in place for updating the fields of regular prices and sale prices in bulk where you press the drop down, select the bulk task you want to perform and press “Go”. You could introduce the wizard functionality by selecting a drop down that says “Add SKU / variation images in bulk”, then pressing “Go” and having a wizard similar to that of the one in Magento 2.0 appear for easy and quick adding of SKU / variation images?

In the mean time whilst you look into that functionality, if you just address being able to remember a search within the “Additional Images” media section when you click out of it + being able to select multiple variation images at once rather than adding them one at a time, then this would also go a long way to improving the speed in which users can operate the Additional Variation Images plugin.