What is a Property Definition?
For the latest version of Commerce Server 2007 Help, see the Microsoft Web site.
Property definitions describe specific properties in the Catalog System. Multiple category definitions, product definitions, and catalog, inventory, and property metadata can use one property definition. You can share the property definition across catalogs. For example, you can use the property definition "Description" in every product definition and category definition for adding descriptions to categories and products.
Commerce Server provides a variety of predefined properties, but frequently you will want to create new, custom properties for your schema.
Note the following:
A property definition name can be up to 100 characters long.
A property definition name cannot include periods or the following characters: [, ], :, or ".
A property definition name cannot start with a number.
Do not use "ProductID" or "VariantID" in the property definition name.
If you select the Assign to all product definitions option, any product definitions you create will automatically inherit this property.
Use the Is required box to specify that a value for the property is required.
Commerce Server does not support multiple selection properties. That is, you cannot add a multiple-choice property where a user can select more than one value.
To make it easier to create a multilingual Web site, Commerce Server provides the following multilingual property definitions:
Multilingual text
Multilingual file name
Multilingual multiple choice
Multilingual long text
Multilingual property definitions let you supply language-dependant values for a property. For example, a multilingual text property named "Description" might include an English description, a German description, and a Japanese description. Any products or categories using the property definition can require all four values. When customers visit the Web site, customers can then indicate their preferred language, and Commerce Server will display the correct value of the multilingual property. For information about how to create multiple values for a property, see How to Add a Property Definition.
See Also
Other Resources
Managing Catalog and Inventory Schema
What is a Catalog and Inventory Schema?