Tony is on a trip currently, so I will hack into this thread
Thank you guys for your feedback!
I agree with you and believe that "Please select..." option is "must have" for most shops selling product variations. We will definitely add it.
However, the whole options/variations thing is so complex that I think we may not hurry there and should implement it step by step.
The first step will be getting rid of the weird Product Options module which X-Cart Next got from its predecessor (LiteCommerce 2). While we are getting the new Product Options ready for you to test (it is almost ready for alpha testing), I want to share some early mock ups (i.e. this won't look exactly like this) with you:
1. We are going to mix product attributes ("extra fields") with product options (so that customers could filter products by the fields) and let the merchant have "global" fields and fields specific for some product types:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/28404688/mockups/options/attributes-and-options.png
2. Product variants are made from fields (attributes) which the merchant configures as options for the product. The merchant can either generate all possible variations with a single click, or add them one by one:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/28404688/mockups/options/variants.png
3. This is how options will appear on the product page:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/28404688/mockups/options/product.png
I will be happy to hear your thoughts on this and add improvements to our development plan for future versions.
Thank you in advance!