Show out of stock product "variants" for configurable products

Question

do you know how to show the product "variants" (sorry if this terminology is incorrect) even if it is out of stock and possibly show "Out of stock" instead of the price?

So for example I have a T-shirt configurable product, so I have added a green single product and an orange single product as Associated products. The orange product is out of stock, I still want it to be displayed in the dropdown menu so customers know that there's an orange option but it should be out of stock so the customer can't order.

Does anybody know?

Answer 1

You can view out of stock variable in product by remove this code

if ($product->isSaleable() || $skipSaleableCheck) { from function getAllowProducts() at class Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_View_Type_Configurable.

So you need to rewrite class Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_View_Type_Configurable

Step1: You will need to create /app/code/local/Amit/MyProduct/Block/Catalog/Product/View/Type/ and file Configurable.php

and code:

<?php
class Amit_MyProduct_Block_Catalog_Product_View_Type_Configurable extends Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_View_Type_Configurable{

 public function getAllowProducts()
    {
        if (!$this->hasAllowProducts()) {
            $products = array();
            $skipSaleableCheck = Mage::helper('catalog/product')->getSkipSaleableCheck();
            $allProducts = $this->getProduct()->getTypeInstance(true)
                ->getUsedProducts(null, $this->getProduct());
            foreach ($allProducts as $product) {
                    $products[] = $product;
                }
            $this->setAllowProducts($products);
        }
        return $this->getData('allow_products');
    }

}

Step2: create config.xml /app/code/local/Amit/MyProduct/etc/ and code is

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config>
 <modules>
    <Amit_MyProduct>
        <version>1.0.0</version>
    </Amit_MyProduct>
 </modules>
 <global>
   <blocks>
    <catalog>
         <rewrite>
              <product_view_type_configurable>Amit_MyProduct_Block_Catalog_Product_View_Type_Configurable</product_view_type_configurable>
             </rewrite>
      </catalog>
  </blocks>
 </global>
</config>

Step3: Create Amit_MyProduct.xml at app/etc/modules

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config>
 <modules>
    <Amit_MyProduct>
        <codePool>local</codePool>
        <active>active</active>
    </Amit_MyProduct>
 </modules>
</config>

Answer 2

You can do this without any rewrites.
Just use the event catalog_controller_product_init.
So add this to the config.xml from one of your modules inside the <frontend><events> tag

<catalog_controller_product_init>
    <observers>
        <[module]>
            <class>[module]/observer</class>
            <method>showOutOfStock</method>
        </[module]>
    </observers>
</catalog_controller_product_init>

Then create the file Observer.php inside the Model folder with this content

<?php 
class [Namespace]_[Module]_Model_Observer
{
    public function showOutOfStock($observer)
    {
        $product = $observer->getEvent()->getProduct();
        if ($product->getTypeId() == Mage_Catalog_Model_Product_Type::TYPE_CONFIGURABLE) {
            Mage::helper('catalog/product')->setSkipSaleableCheck(true);
        }
    }
}