How to disable a request for shipping information on a downloadable, virtual item

Question

In Versions 2.0.7 to 2.1.9 CE, when a customer is logged in, and One-page checkout is enabled, and a free, downloadable item is in the cart by itself, when I click either the "Go To Checkout" or the "Proceed To Checkout" button, The "Review & Payments" page is shown next, and has required fields for the customer's name, address, and phone number. The "Place Order" button is not functional until the required fields have data in them, of course.

Although it never says that these fileds are shipping information, that appears to be what they are for, because when I press the qeustion mark next to the "Phone Number" field, it shows "For delivery questions".

Since the person is already a customer with an account, and logged in, there simply isn't a need for shipping information for a downloadable item.

The free downloadable item was set up as a virtual item, then made downloadable, and "The item has no weight" is chosen.

I have tested many changes in the Admin to get around the request for extra customer information, but still no joy.

Perhaps there is a setting I don't know about.

Anyone know a way to turn this step off, or override it?

Thank you in advance.

I have included a screenshot below:

Answer 1

After much searching, the simplist method to do some of what I wanted is shown here: https://github.com/magento/magento2/pull/8519.

The post is titled "Make "is_required" and "is_visible" properties of telephone, company and fax attributes of addresses configurable #8519".

Before I read that post, I had already upgraded my 2.1.9 installation to 2.2.

After this feature was requested by others, the Magento team went ahead and made it possible to turn off some of the required checkout fields from the Admin section.

Here is how to get to them: Inside your Admin dashboard, choose Stores> Configuration> Customers> Customer Cofiguration> Name and Address Options, then starting with "Show Prefix", choose how or if you want each field to be displayed.

I hope this helps others with the same "problem".