Customizing form for product attributes and features? I'm trying to create a crowdfunding site using Ubercart. However, Ubercart has recently shown a certain lack of flexibility when it comes to how it interacts with my custom content types.

I feel that the content type "research project" should not have an SKU that should be set by the project creator, and there is currently no way to set the project goals if one is merely a user and not an admin, as the project goals and deadlines are features, not attributes.

The problem, for me, is that I cannot figure out how I am to change the way in which attributes and features can be changed by privileged users, and I am not sure how to automatically set an attribute (e.g. programmatically creating IDs to put in the SKU field).

Thanks in advance. :-)
I am not an expert as I am going through a learning curve with Drupal myself, however, I do have database experience and started using Ubercart myself.

As to your question on auto-created SKU, I think as a learner you are complicating things, unless you are looking into a huge and fast growing database for which you want to create auto SKU, which serves for Stock Keeping Unit.  There is a modul Commerce AutoSKU.

As a method to setting up your "research project" implementer 'Role', you can create a form (e.g. Project Form), allowing the enduser to Name (Title) the project, but ID to that project can be in incremental order assigned by the table (project_id, auto_increment).  You can allow access to that specific form to the persons implementing the research projects.

As to making use of Ubercart's default system and its capability to advanced features such as customizing methods, I find there is quite the flexibility as to adjusting your own custom forms and assigning fields with the 'Hook System'.  It is a steep learning curve, I found.

I have been following the following videos.  The presenter is quite fast, but I found his instructions helped me to understand my capability.  It is a youtube video series consisting of 10 videos (15-20 mins long each).

Creating an E-commerce Site Using Ubercart

Sorry that I cannot help you further, but I hope I am able to get you one step closer to your project.