Enhanced Product Variations

Overview

The Variations module does three things to WooCommerce's variable products: it replaces attribute dropdowns with swatches, it shows the selected variation's price, stock and description under the variations form, and it lets variation fields be edited in bulk instead of one variation at a time.

It is for stores whose products vary by colour, material or size, where a row of colour chips reads better than a <select>, and where a catalogue has enough variations that editing them individually is impractical.

Swatches are attached to attribute terms, not to products, so one swatch definition covers every product using that term.

Availability

Item	Value
Module key	variations-enhanced
Tier	Premium
Entitlement key	variations-enhanced
Admin tab	variations-enhanced, under Product Experience
Enabled option	aiowc_module_enabled_variations-enhanced (off until turned on)
REST namespace	aiowc/v1

Enabling the module creates the two tables below and seeds the defaults. Uninstalling drops the tables and deletes the settings row. registerHooks() returns immediately when the licence does not grant variations-enhanced.

Settings

Stored in the bundled option row aiowc_ve_settings.

Stored key	Default	Meaning
enable_swatches	true	Register the swatch renderer. Off leaves WooCommerce's dropdowns alone.
swatch_size	medium	Size class applied to the rendered swatches.
enable_tooltips	true	Show a swatch's tooltip text on hover.
show_variation_stock	true	Show the selected variation's availability under the form.
show_variation_price	true	Show the selected variation's price under the form.
enable_bulk_update	true	Register the bulk-update control on the product edit screen.

enable_swatches and enable_bulk_update are read once, when hooks are registered. When both show_variation_stock and show_variation_price are off, the details block is not printed at all.

Swatch types

Type	Rendered as	Field used
color	A colour chip.	color_value, validated as a 3- or 6-digit hex value.
image	A thumbnail.	image_url
button	A labelled button.	button_label
label	A text label.	button_label

Each swatch also carries an optional tooltip and a sort order, and is unique on the attribute slug plus term id.

Admin screen

The Enhanced Product Variations tab has two sub-tabs, and exists because the module's administrator routes had no caller.

Swatches creates, edits and deletes swatches for an attribute — POST, PATCH and DELETE on /variations/swatches.

Variation data edits variation metadata: PATCH /variations/{id}/meta for one variation and POST /variations/bulk-update for many.

Swatches can also be edited where the terms live: the module adds swatch fields to the add-term and edit-term forms of every WooCommerce product attribute taxonomy, so a colour swatch can be set while creating the colour term.

Bulk update

POST /variations/bulk-update takes a list of updates and applies only these fields; anything else in an update is ignored:

price, regular_price, sale_price, stock_quantity, stock_status, sku, description, weight, dimensions, custom_meta.

stock_status accepts instock, outofstock or onbackorder. Custom metadata is written to the module's own variation-meta table rather than to post meta.

REST API endpoints

All routes are on aiowc/v1 and answer with the { success, data, message } envelope.

Method	Path	Purpose	Permission	Required args
GET	/variations/{id}/meta	Read a variation's extra metadata.	Open read, 120 a minute	id
PATCH	/variations/{id}/meta	Write a variation's extra metadata.	edit_products	id, fields
POST	/variations/bulk-update	Apply the allowed fields across many variations.	edit_products	updates
GET	/variations/swatches/{attribute_slug}	List the swatches on an attribute.	Open read, 120 a minute	attribute_slug
POST	/variations/swatches	Create a swatch.	manage_woocommerce	attribute_slug, term_id, swatch_type
PATCH	/variations/swatches/{id}	Update a swatch.	manage_woocommerce	id
DELETE	/variations/swatches/{id}	Delete a swatch.	manage_woocommerce	id

The two write routes on variation data require edit_products rather than manage_woocommerce, so a shop manager or editor who may edit products can use them.

WooCommerce integration

Hook	What the module does
woocommerce_dropdown_variation_attribute_options_html	Replaces the attribute dropdown with swatches when that attribute has any.
woocommerce_after_variations_form	Prints the price, stock and description block, filled in by the found_variation event.
wp_enqueue_scripts	Enqueues the swatch stylesheet and script, on product pages only.
admin_init	Attaches swatch fields to every product attribute taxonomy's term forms.
created_pa_* / edited_pa_*	Saves the swatch fields with the term.
woocommerce_product_options_general_product_data	Draws the bulk-update control on the product edit screen.
admin_enqueue_scripts	Enqueues that control's assets.

An attribute with no swatches is left alone — the filter returns WooCommerce's own markup unchanged.

Database schema

Table	Holds
{prefix}aiowc_variation_swatches	One row per attribute term: type, colour, image URL, button label, tooltip, sort order. Unique on attribute slug plus term id.
{prefix}aiowc_variation_meta	Extra per-variation metadata as key and value, unique on variation id plus key.

Background jobs

None. The module has no scheduled work, and onDisable() only records the event.

Entitlement limits

variations-enhanced is an on/off grant with no numeric cap. There is no limit on the number of swatches, variations or bulk updates.

Health check

The module reports a warning when its tables are missing or WooCommerce is inactive. Otherwise it reports that it is functioning normally.

Known gaps

• The variation details block is filled by an inline script bound to WooCommerce's found_variation jQuery event, so it depends on the default variations form; a theme that replaces that form will not populate it.
• swatch_size is passed to the renderer as a class name; the module ships one stylesheet and does not otherwise validate the value.