Cart, projects, and machines

A parts order is rarely one part. It is a set of parts for one job, and Benchline keeps that structure visible in the cart instead of flattening it into a single list.

How a line gets its project or machine

Three doors stamp a cart line with context:

1. The finder. When a shopper submits the finder with a project name, or a machine name in the Driveline style, the names travel with the results. Products opened from those results remember them, and adding a product stamps the line with Project and Machine line item properties.
2. Guide pages. The Guide parts list section has a Project label setting. Parts added from that list carry the label as their project, so a "Bathroom refit" guide produces a "Bathroom refit" cart group.
3. The cart itself. The cart page has a Project name field, saved as a cart attribute. It labels the whole order and travels to checkout and into the order in the admin.

Lines with no project and no machine are never hidden or blocked. They collect under an Other items heading.

Grouping

One theme setting, Group cart lines by (Theme settings, then Cart), decides the cart layout:

• Project: lines group under project headings (Project: name), with ungrouped lines under Other items. This is the Benchline, Flowline, and Voltline behavior.
• Machine, then project: lines group under machine headings (Machine: name) first; inside a machine, lines with projects form project subgroups; lines with a machine but no project sit directly under the machine. Lines with no machine go to Other items. The Driveline style selects this.

Each group is a labeled region with its own heading, so the structure reads correctly with a screen reader and a keyboard, not just by eye.

What else the cart holds faithfully

• Selling plans: a line bought on a replenishment plan shows the plan, at the plan price.
• Discounts: allocated discounts show on the lines they apply to.
• Gift card recipient details: a gift card line carries its recipient properties with it.
• The cart note, when Show cart note is on.
• Quantities and removal, per line, inside whichever group the line belongs to.

Cart type

The theme's cart is a cart page, not a drawer. The grouping described above needs the room a page gives it, and the project name field lives on that page.

Practical notes

• The same product added under two different projects is two cart lines, one in each group. That is correct: the properties differ, so Shopify treats them as different lines, and your picking list stays per job.
• A shopper who lands on a product directly (from an email, an ad, or a bookmark) and buys it creates an ungrouped line. Grouping rewards the finder journey; it never punishes the direct one.
• Renaming a project mid-shop starts a new group. The project name is stamped at add time and is not rewritten afterwards.