Bulk upload of images - Need help and searcehed for 5 hours already

[John Zwikstra]

Hi
Have a Zen cart sore started with image handler 2, ezpopulate, and ceon as add ons. I want to set up a drop shipper on the site who has all the products set up as a data files as dat or excel files and pictures as a tar.qz file as either named to match the product's code or named to match the product's image name in the products.xls and products.dat files. I am able to upload products using ezpopulate with some manipulation but pictures are a problem. I have the following questions.

When I downloaded a sample of the ezpopulate product already set up, many of the fields were blank. Can I eliminate these when I set the products up to upload.

I need to know exactly where to FTP the images to - the full path. I have been unable to find this information. Have to FTP as there are about 6000 images and to each product 1 at a time would be overwhelming. I would split them into subfolders of about 500 each so as not to have a huge file. I have extracted the tar.qz so all images are now on my computer.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Site I am working on is www.zwiggysgiftshop.com which is presently under maintenance.

[schoolboy]

Read my TUTORIAL on Easy Populate, for some useful guidelines.

Secondly... the images... where to?

You have a LOT of images, and in ordinary circumstances, I would advise splitting them up into "Sections" and loading them into these sections, or sub-folders...

Generally, (when using IH2), ALL the images just go into the images folder.

This is the images folder in the ROOT of your ZC installation - where you see the admin, bzm_cache, downloads, email, extras, images, includes, media, pub, temp.

BUT if you split them up into SUB-FOLDERS (sections) inside this main image folder, then you are going to have to indicate on your easy populate spreadsheet, the directory path to each image.

So... it is probably more practical to keep all your images in one place.

Just FTP them to the images folder. Do it in BATCHES - or if you can UNZIP on your C-Panel server manager, then just send the whole zip file to the images folder and unzip it there.

(My tutorial on EP discusses images as well).

NOTE:
splitting up the images into "sections" (sub-folders) makes the site a little faster, and easier to manage the image files on the server.

However, as you have IH2, the images are "re-drawn" and cached anyway in a separate folder (bzm_cache).

[John Zwikstra]

Thanks very much for the help. Problem was I have main domain and sub domain set up so have multiple image files. By your comments and some searching in the tree, I have found the correct images file to FTP images to. Did a test with 1 image and 1 product and it works. First step done. Now to see if a whole bunch will upload and set up properly in categories and with correct pictures. Once again, thank you very much for the help. Hopefully I am on the right road now.

[John Zwikstra]

Hi
I am still learning and now I have a further question. The drop shipper I am trying to set up on my site has the images as http://www.productimageswebsite.com/...jpgs/20302.jpg
as an example. When I upload all the pictures which would be say 20302.jpg, they do not show up on the site. It is as if zen cart can't find them. Any idea how I would be able to work around this other than changing every pictures name location. Hope question is clear.

[schoolboy]

Your dropshipper's link to the images cannot be used as the "path" to the images. While some people have re-engineered zencart's code to allow "remote" image location, this technique is not recommended or advised.

The best and safest solution for images is to have them sitting in the images folder on YOUR server, being made available to the many areas of your webshop where they are needed.

The reasons for this are many, but there are risks to linking to images remotely. What if your dropshippers server goes down? No images on your site... What if that dropshipper is serving images to hundreds of other sites like yours? Your site will take ages to load the images... etc, etc...

So... now the problem of getting thousands of images OFF your dropshipper site, and loading them onto YOUR site.

You need to SCRAPE the dropshipper's server for the images, and I describe the technique HERE.

[John Zwikstra]

Hi and thank you for your reply. It is not getting all the pictures that is the problem. I have all of those on my hard drive and am able to FTP them to the images folder on the server. The problem is the CSV file has all the remote location when EZpopulate is run and then it can't find the images on the server.
I am trying to find out if there is an easy way to rename the remote server images on the CSV file to the actual jpg name without having to do them 1 at a time or is that the only tedious way to do it. If I rename the remote server name to just the image .jpg, it of course finds the picture with no problem.
Thank you

[schoolboy]

Use the Find/Replace feature in your spreadsheet program (even if you are managing the csv in a text editor)...

If the reference is:

http://www.productimageswebsite.com/images/stock_jpgs/20302.jpg

Tell the Find/Replace to FIND:

http://www.productimageswebsite.com/images/stock_jpgs/

and REPLACE it with nothing... (just leave the REPLACE field empty)

This will REMOVE all instances of: http://www.productimageswebsite.com/images/stock_jpgs/

Leaving just

20302.jpg in your spreadsheet

[John Zwikstra]

Absolutely awesome. I knew that there had to be an easy way to do it. Thank you very much for your assistance. Greatly appreciated.

[John Zwikstra]

Hi Again
I found out my server limits items in a folder to 8000 which includes the image folder. If I set up a 2nd folder and call it image2, will that work for additional images or will zen cart not be able to find them in a 2nd folder. Thanks very much

[schoolboy]

You need to set up sub-folders in the main images folder, then ensure you set the PATH to the images correctly.

You could have the following:

images/shirts
images/trousers
images/shoes

... etc.

The PATH must be "logical" in the database (which contains the REFERENCE to the image location for any given product).

This is largely a manual task, but can be performed more quickly using Easy Populate.

In the Easy Populate "spreadsheet", you would specify this PATH as follows:

In the column titled v_products_image, you would specify this path as follows:

shirts/12345.jpg
shirts/34567.jpg
shirts/78978.jpg
trousers/36473.jpg

... etc.