I'm currently setting up an online shop whose main products are lamps.
Lamps are available in different colors/materials. So basically I have a configurable product with several simple products associated for each color/material.
Also, if you buy a lamp, you'll get 2 illuminants for free. There are 4 (or even more) light color types available. These illuminants don't affect the price and are always in stock.
Now, if I would create simple products for each color/illuminant combination, this would be an administrative disaster. I would end up with about 100 simple products for a single configurable product.
My question is, how is it possible to setup the light color attribute dropdown in the product view without actually being associated to a simple product?