Add default Product Attributes to all WooCommerce products

functions.php

/*
 * Example adds certain named Product Attribute fields to the product Edit screen ready for completion.
 * (Pre-requisite )
 * This saves the Shop Admin having to add them manually.
 *
 * Why might you want to do this instead of adding Custom fields?  There's plenty of nice documentation on adding custom fields
 * for example: http://www.remicorson.com/mastering-woocommerce-products-custom-fields/
 *
 * Well a Product Attributes are a built in WooCommerce feature, using Terms which are a built in Wordpress feature.
 * - no add-ons required
 * - pre-existing functionality including 
 *   - ability to link from Product to archive page of products sharing the same term
 *   - Term selection, hide or show Attribute, use for Product Variations 
 *   - built-in configuration screens, display and selection mechanisms
 * - highly compatible with plugin components for example to 
 *   - enhance Product Attributes display, 
 *   - show Variation swatches, 
 *   - translate Attributes and terms
 * - offers a level of separation between built-in fields and extension fields 
 * (though custom fields can be added to their own tab, and some fields make sense to add to other tabs)
 *
 */


/*
 * Create a default Product Attribute object for the supplied name
 * 
 * @param  string   name        Product Attribute taxonomy name
 * 
 * @return WC_Product_Attribute/bool  new Attribute or false if named Attribute is not found
 * 
 */
function acme_make_product_attribute($name)
{
    global $wc_product_attributes;
    if ( isset($wc_product_attributes[$name]) ){
        $newattr = new WC_Product_Attribute();
        $newattr->set_id(1);  //any positive value is interpreted as is_taxonomy=true
        $newattr->set_name($name);
        $newattr->set_visible(true);
        $newattr->set_variation(false);
        //example of setting default value for item
        if ($name=='pa_brand'){
            $term = get_term_by('slug', 'acme', $name);
            $newattr->set_options(array($term->term_id));
        }
        return $newattr;
    } else {
        return false;
    }
}
/*
 * Add default attributes to a product
 */
function acme_default_product_attributes()
{
    global $product;
    if (! $product) {
        $product = $GLOBALS['product_object'];
    }
    if (! $product) {
        return;
    }
    $attributes = $product->get_attributes();
    
    $defaultAttributes = array(
        'pa_brand',
        'pa_maker',
        'pa_materials',
        'pa_asin',
        'pa_upc',
        'pa_packaging',
        'pa_recommend-to',
        'pa_suitable-for',
        'pa_product-size',
        'pa_net-weight',
    );
    
    $changed=false;
    foreach ($defaultAttributes as $key){
        if (! isset($attributes[$key])){
            $newattr = acme_make_product_attribute($key);
            if ($newattr){
                $attributes[$key] = $newattr;
            }
            $changed = true;
        }
    }
    if ($changed){
        $product->set_attributes($attributes);
    }
}
/*
 * added to last hook before rendering of Product Edit screen
 */
add_action('woocommerce_product_write_panel_tabs', 'acme_default_product_attributes');

Yes that’s what I use it for.
Create the attribute Country first, check the slug comes out as country, and refer to it as pa_country in the code as this example

Ok, thank you.
So, I found out that the code stops working after activation of PayPal for WooCommerce by AngleEye. This plugin adds a tab to the product edit page so there's probably a conflict. I tried to change the priority of the hook with no luck.

oh really?
I had used that plugin at some point too but turned it off after realising it was interacting and adding payload to every page..

Yeah, I also disable the plugin where it's possible, same as with all of them :) So I disabled it on the add product page and works fine 👍

Hello.
Would it be possible to add the default state of "Visible on the product page" checkbox for specific attributes? I would like to untick this checkbox default for some attributes. Thank you

this is not work on WC 4.3

It works for me.

It works great for me too. With WC 4.9
Thanks a lot

Hi, this works great - thanks! It does however show the attributes in random order for each product. Is it because some of them are empty and is there anything to be done so they are in a pre-determined order?

Doesn't work with YOAST 15.8.

@fkoomek I have this type of code in use with Yoast 15.8. Yoast free version doesn't interact with WooCommerce or custom attributes so not sure what you are expecting.

@v-marinkov attribute sorting is beyond the scope of this old gist,
the attributes themselves generally appear in the order added and can be moved in the product edit screen
if you refer to the values they can be sorted on the term in Product Attributes, set to custom sorting and rearrange terms.

@Jon007 Thank you for your reply. Yes, I use the free version of YOAST. I've just checked this on a fresh new install with only Woocommerce and YOAST installed and for me, it just stopped working with the 15.8 version. The attributes aren't created for a new product. When I roll back to 15.7. or disable the plugin it works correctly. Does it really work for you as it supposed to work with 15.8. YOAST free version?

@fkoomek ok yew I see the fields are not showing up on a new draft item when Yoast 15.8 is activated

@Jon007 Hello Jon.
I found out that it's caused by this piece of code in the file wordpress-seo\src\builders\indexable-link-builder.php from line 96:

YOAST 15.8.

/**
 * Builds the links for a post.
 *
 * @param Indexable $indexable The indexable.
 * @param string    $content   The content. Expected to be unfiltered.
 *
 * @return SEO_Links[] The created SEO links.
 */	

public function build( $indexable, $content ) {
if ( $indexable->object_type === 'post' ) {
$post = $this->post_helper->get_post( $indexable->object_id );
// phpcs:ignore WordPress.WP.GlobalVariablesOverride.Prohibited -- To setup the post we need to do this explicitly.
$GLOBALS['post'] = $post;
\setup_postdata( $post );
$content = \apply_filters( 'the_content', $content );
\wp_reset_postdata();
}

YOAST 15.7.

/**
 * Builds the links for a post.
 *
 * @param Indexable $indexable The indexable.
 * @param string    $content   The content. Expected to be unfiltered.
 *
 * @return SEO_Links[] The created SEO links.
 */	

public function build( $indexable, $content ) {
if ( $indexable->object_type === 'post' ) {
$content = \apply_filters( 'the_content', $content );
}

Do you have any idea what's going on here?

I don't have time to look into it right now but it looks like the problem is:
\wp_reset_postdata()
which presumably removes the attributes the code has added and reloads the post without them (on a new draft the attributes are not saved yet they are just being added as part of the render).

commenting out \wp_reset_postdata() is likely to work,

I think a different WooCommerce hook could also be used instead of woocommerce_product_write_panel_tabs,
for example save_post_product though would need to test whether that is called on a new draft.

Alternatively, every property get on a WooCommerce Product object is filterable using a filter name dynamically created in get_prop() function in abstract-wc-data.php

			if ( 'view' === $context ) {
				$value = apply_filters( $this->get_hook_prefix() . $prop, $value, $this );
			}

the filter for getting attributes should be:
woocommerce_product_get_attributes
however this also needs testing that it is called in this context. If it does then switch the code from woocommerce_product_write_panel_tabs action to woocommerce_product_get_attributes filter.

@v-marinkov attribute sorting is beyond the scope of this old gist,
the attributes themselves generally appear in the order added and can be moved in the product edit screen
if you refer to the values they can be sorted on the term in Product Attributes, set to custom sorting and rearrange terms.

@Jon007 even if I re-order the attributes on a single product manually and update it, they still remain a random order per product. Is there a way to define a global sort order for the attributes?

@fkoomek I've reported the Yoast compatibility issue on Yoast/wordpress-seo#16716

@v-marinkov, attributes have a position which is set to zero by default, so if a custom order is needed use
$newattr->set_position($value);
to set a numeric position value for new attribures

@Jon007 Thank you very much for looking into it 🙂.

Where would I add this code in order for it to execute on editing a product?

@Divepit So you want to execute this code when you start editing product or it's just a general question where to insert the code? Code goes to functions.php file which you find in your theme directory. But it's strongly recommended to use child theme for all customizations!

Um, well actually as this is admin code not front-end code it should be in a plugin rather than a theme.
For plugin development refer to: https://developer.wordpress.org/plugins/
Though actually the simplest plugin would be eg create a directory under plugins and a php file with the same name and put the code in that.

Thanks for the clarification!

@fkoomek the Yoast compatibility issue appears resolved on Yoast update 15.9.1

I had to sign up just to say thank you for this, with all of my products having 15+ attributes this has saved me so much time. Thank you!

not working with Woocommerce Version 5.7.1

not working with Woocommerce Version 5.7.1

Is it throwing an error or simply not ordering the attributes? Did you find a solution?

How do I trigger the execution of this snippet? Is it executed automatically if I post it in the functions.php page and whenever a new product is added?

Do you probably have an idea, how to automaticall apply a combination of attribute terms to all products in a given category? Like this: if a new product is published in a category 1, the product gets attribute "color", value "green" and attribute "size", value "big".

For those getting the error "Attempt to read property 'term_id' on bool" with PHP 8, here's the fix:
this part
if ($name=='pa_brand'){ $term = get_term_by('slug', 'acme', $name); $newattr->set_options(array($term->term_id)); }
should become
if ($name == 'pa_brand') { $term = get_term_by('slug', 'acme', $name); if ($term) { $newattr->set_options(array($term->term_id)); } }