WooCommerce

Currently, product attributes can only be defined as string picklists. This works for many different types of product metadata, but is impractical and unwieldy for others.

For instance, my store lists books as products, with metadata like ISBN, number of pages, and publication date. In terms of how products are defined in WooCommerce, it would make sense to define these types of metadata as attributes. They are attributes, after all, and should ideally be listed with the other attributes (under Additional Information in my store/theme) and shipping dimensions.

But defining all possible/necessary values as picklist items in the atttribute definition is unworkable for these metadata types.

Therefore, I propose to extend the attribute function in WooCommerce with additional datatypes, next to the current string picklist datatype. If supporting multiple datatypes is difficult or impossible within the WordPress framework, a free-text option for attributes would be a great start.

How it would work: I define an attribute, but instead of defining its values, I mark it as free text. In product definitions, I assign the attribute, but instead of picking one of the predefined values, I enter the value applicable for that product (number of pages, ISBN, pub date).

The idea is to both be able to enter free-text metadata for a product, and to have that metadata listed with the other attribues.