ok .. so bulk editing tools is out as it does not support insert to has_many relations and i think what i'm trying to do goes beyond that anyway may not even be able to be done.
currently i have been playing with doing it via a form but alas my php skills are not that great as yet.
i have managed to build a form that creates a list of records from two tables and also gets some information into hidden fields all looks good ... Right or wrong this is just an html form, now i'm not to sure on the submission of the form result to the db.
like i said this may be the completely wrong approach but i couldn't see how to get the information from the two tables into a single form within the framework. anyways the form needs to insert each tables list result to their respective new tables. these table are different to the tables the forms information comes from ( the reason for a form here is that the user is required to add a value before submitting the form)
the form produces a list of products from one table and a second list of product from another table the user then adds a weight value to the required products and submits the form this then inserts each list into two new tables.
doing this through the has_many relation in the cms each product has to be added one at a time (lots of clicks and things that can go bump from dfu mistakes) by presenting a form with all products listed (there will only ever be 30 products at most) the end user only has to go down the list and add the weight values and click submit (2-3 clicks at the most).
if any one has any ideas or is there something i have missed would like to hear from you.