How scalable is Zen-Cart?

[tanya3]

Greetings!

I am evaluating shopping cart packages for the small company I work for. I installed ZenCart and started experimenting with it. Nice package!

However, I noticed the following point which may render ZenCart unsuitable for us - unless of course I am missing something and you could point out solutions for them:

There is no separation between Store Owner ("Admin") and Web Host Administrator: If, for reasons of compartmentalization, we want the store owner to be different from the person who maintains the web host/site, we can't because adding a product in ZenCart requires access to both Admin console and web host. ZenCart, for some reason, lets uploading the small image version only of a product, while the other ones (.e.g image_MED.jpg) must be uploaded manually (via FTP/cPanel). This is inconvenient, too, but the compartmentalization is the most important issue for us right now.

Is there a way to upload, via the Admin console, ALL product images? Or is ZenCart intended for small shop owners only who do both web hosting maintenance and store maintenance?

Thanks!
Tanya

[bunyip]

If you use the Image Handler contribution, you only need to upload one large image via admin and the other smaller images are created automatically from that.

[charmedbytina2]

And there is an admin profiles add on too!

Tina

[Merlinpa1969]

Im a little confused by this

adding a product in ZenCart requires access to both Admin console and web host

as a webhost we dont mess with anyones site unless they ask us to.

the image handler allows you to upload a large image only and then it dynamically creates the med and small images and stores them in a cache


If you are wanting different people to do different things in the zc admin then yes as Tina said admin profiles,
it allows you to limit access that each account has,
this will let you basically lock out what you dont want people touching

[tanya3]

Ah! I knew I was missing something -- the Add-Ons!

OK - I will be trying the Image Handler and the Admin Profiles and see if that addresses our concerns.

Merlinpa1969, sorry for the confusion: with "access to the web host" I meant to cPanel, FTP, SSH, etc. We just don't want the Store Manager have access to these.

Thanks everyone!

[tanya3]

If you use the Image Handler contribution, you only need to upload one large image via admin and the other smaller images are created automatically from that.

What a big disappointment. I was counting on this Image Handler when I "sold" zencart to my peers in my company but now I discover that it handles only a situation in which ALL 3 images (SML, MED, LRG) are the same image.

In our case the LRG image is a totally different image than the MED.

Do you have a suggestion? Is there another add-on that addresses this problem?

Tanya

[kuroi]

Do you have a suggestion? Is there another add-on that addresses this problem?

I wouldn't characterise it as a problem. More a new requirement.

It makes sense, but in three plus years of working professionally with Zen Cart I've never heard of it before and not seen any mods that would deliver it.

However, this is most likely because most stores can already achieve what you want to do simply by uploading the large images via FTP. So the impediment here is your reluctance to allow the store manager FTP access. Have you considered setting up an FTP account that only has access to the images directory?

[afo]

You can also have multiple images for an item which may solve the issue for you.

[tanya3]

You can also have multiple images for an item which may solve the issue for you.

How? Using the Image Handler add-on? or using a different add-on?

Notice (just as kuroi did) that the requirement is that all image uploads are to be done from the Admin console and not via FTP.

Thanks - Tanya.

[tony_sar]

in my opinion is not wise to give Write permission to image folder as this is needed if you are going to upload images via admin interface.

recent hacks seems to be initiated using image folder . FTP is the best option.