EasyPopulate 4.0 (EP4) Beta Support Thread. For Zencart 1.38/1.39/1.5
Download from at Github:
https://github.com/chaddro/EasyPopulate-4.0
https://github.com/mc12345678/EasyPopulate-4.0
Look for the "ZIP" button to download. To install, upload all files to your admin directory maintaining directory structure.
Also upload the additional files for your version of Zencart - be sure to put thes in their correct folder.
Next login to your Admin, and go to Tools -> EasyPopulate 4.
At the top of the screen will be a couple warnings for your upload folder, and configuration keys missing... click the "Please install your configuration by clicking here" to install the configuration keys.
Now navigate to Configuration -> EasyPopulate 4
Be sure to set your "Uploads Directory" to a folder that exists. I recommend changing from from the default "temp/" to something obscure to frustrate hackers.
You may also need to check folder permissions. Default for most servers is 755, but you may need to set permissions to 777.
I recommend that you first enter a couple Categories and Products through the normal Zencart Admin. This will help you understand the exported file formats.
Things of Import:
1) EP4 works only with CSV data files, and for best cross platform compatibility please use OpenOffice to Export your CSV file.
You should select the Comma as your field delimiter, and the Double Quote as your text delimiter. You may not get proper results using Excel.
2) You MUST use products_models to distinguish your products for import.
3) Categories are handled differently from other versions of EP. You can now import mult-lingual categories (Like Products Names, etc.).
To achieve this, each v_categories_names_1, v_categories_names_2 correspond to a language installed in your system, and individual category names are separated by the Carat "^" symbol. For Example: Bar Supplies^Glass Washers^Brushes
Bar Supplies will be your Top level Category, with Glass Washers as a sub-directory, and Brushes as a sub-directory of Glass Washers.
Be careful when creating your category names. "Bar Supplies" is not equal to "BAR Supplies" ... this will result in two category entries.
As of 4.0.17, your lowest defined language (by language id) is needed to when creating categories. In the future I'll change this to the defined default language, but that
will take some additional work.
4) Work flow is somewhat different than other version of EP. With EP4 you first either upload your file, then click on Import. Optionally you can also Split an import file if it is too large. You can set the number of records to split on in the configuration settings. Default is 2000. If you have a powerful server, you can up this significantly. Testing on a VPS with an import file of 900,000 records, I broke into 50,000 segments. Import of each 50,000 records took about 250 seconds.
Also NO streaming upload or download. Sorry if you liked this feature. A lot of effort has been put into improving the code's performance and streaming the data was a real memory hog. To download your exported file, you will need to "right-click, save-as". You may be able to set your browser to automatically download CSV files. I'll come up with a better solution in due time.
5) File names act as a switch inside the script for Importing. Namely: PriceBreaks-EP, CategoryMeta-EP, and Attrib-EP ... thes import files must have names that start with these names.
6) Basic Attribute Import. Please read the notes in the Readme.txt file carefully for how to use this. I am still working on completing this feature. Currently, you can at Import create your products_options_name (your attribute name, ie. color) , products_options_type (checkbox, downdown, etc) and , products_options_values_name (red, green, blue).
Be sure to backup you data before importing your files. Remember, this is still "beta". I have made every attempt to make this a solid bug free product, but it does require more testing. I have added a lot of error trapping, but I'm sure I've missed things.
Finally, EasyPopulate 4 is an amalgamation of code and ideas from earlier versions of EP. All due recognition is given to these earlier works and those author's efforts.
Langer for bringing us 1.2.5.4 from OsCommerce, Phazie for his efforts to move to CSV, jbcholdings for his ideas in Attributr, and all the forum participation over the years from users ... Scrat, Elkbow, Schooboy... too many to mention!
I also want to thank all my Beta testers to date for given my version a try!
-chadderuski
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