EasyPopulate 4.0 Support Thread

[mc12345678]

Bump!

Can somebody please take a look at my post above? If you pm me your paypal email, I'd love to buy you some coffee for helping me out!

So, my luck someone is already answering your question while I write this.

I'll say this, I have not used the price break feature of EP4, so the specifics of which piece of data should be where are foreign to me at the moment. Additionally, there is some conflicting information provided in the writeup of the problem. It looks like a single update was provided to your database, and you received two different results (again by what was reported): 1) ...appeared to go in because all of the products had the price break chart show up.
2) However, none of the price break data worked. The price break chart that shows up on the product page is blank.

Potentially I could understand that to mean that the table appeared but it didn't contain any data. Is it possible that the value attempted to be shown was a value of zero, but because of the presentation method doesn't force a 0 to be shown, but instead blank?

I would suggest that you try to investigate by looking at the data in your mySQLadmin to determine what the value should be for that attribute/somewhere else that would show the information that ends up showing or being combined to show what is desired.

I know you were concerned about your headings, based on previous posts, would want to look at/for any leading/trailing spaces that would cause the data not to be collected.

Was the price break data that was provided a change of an existing price break, or new data not previously present? A long shot thought is are you suure that the new data was applied to only the "one" product and didn't get applied to something else not expected/reviewed?

[mc12345678]

I will answer those questions later because I have since tried to upload a file of products only to receive the "No model field in Record. This line was not imported." when, in fact, I have model numbers in there. I researched it on here, but what someone suggested about copying to a new file only the columns that have info, did not work for me...and most other postings are in regards to a different version of EP. I have followed everything to a T.... and tried multiple times but no luck. HELP!

I'm sorry Lilley, I totally missed your response. I had too narrow of a view because I didn't see any of my text copied. So, if I am correct about how the program works, if the heading does not match the heading expected, then the program considers it not present regardless of the list of data below it. This could be because of an extra space before or after the text of the heading, a change of capitalization, or some modification made to the heading that I have not covered.

Regarding a "new" file, my thoughts on that is to download/export the type of file you are wanting to work with, then remove the "unnecessary" data and fill in the information you are trying to bring in. Don't "touch" the headings and try to do one line of the data you are working with as a test, if that works as expected, then import as much as you need, at least that way only the one item is potentially affected.

As for then only working with the columns of interest, from the downloaded good file, you can delete the other columns that are not needed.

The other thing to consider reviewing is that the newly saved csv file has the expected structure to support import. (Quotes where they should be, the appropriate divider between entries such as a comma, etc...) This would be by looking at the newly created CSV not necessarily by looking at OpenOffice (or the program of choice).

[waterbender]

Been using the Advanced Easy Populate on v1.3.9. Does anyone know if it will still work in v1.5.1?
Is Easy Populate 4.0 better? What is the difference?

[firstcapitalfirearms]

Ok, hopefully can help me out. I am trying to upload product pictures to my site and when I go to the consumer side I have no images. I believe I have the right info listed under v_products_images as =CONCATENATE("/images/zanders/part1";G2;".gif"). If you would like a sample of what I have please send me a private message with an email address and I will send you a test file.

Basically my model number and image name have the same number which is the G2.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Mark

[mc12345678]

Ok, hopefully can help me out. I am trying to upload product pictures to my site and when I go to the consumer side I have no images. I believe I have the right info listed under v_products_images as =CONCATENATE("/images/zanders/part1";G2;".gif"). If you would like a sample of what I have please send me a private message with an email address and I will send you a test file.

Basically my model number and image name have the same number which is the G2.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Mark

So it sounds like you have good info on the screen (file path looks correct), but that the end result of importing the info to the database is that the cart can't "find" what it has identified in the database.

Have you looked at the exported file (using a text editor not your spreadsheet program) to identify that the data to be imported reflects what is expected? (Ie, not the concatenate function)?

[Feznizzle]

So, my luck someone is already answering your question while I write this.

No, still unresolved! Still hoping to buy someone some coffee!

I'll say this, I have not used the price break feature of EP4, so the specifics of which piece of data should be where are foreign to me at the moment. Additionally, there is some conflicting information provided in the writeup of the problem. It looks like a single update was provided to your database, and you received two different results (again by what was reported): 1) ...appeared to go in because all of the products had the price break chart show up.
2) However, none of the price break data worked. The price break chart that shows up on the product page is blank.

Potentially I could understand that to mean that the table appeared but it didn't contain any data. Is it possible that the value attempted to be shown was a value of zero, but because of the presentation method doesn't force a 0 to be shown, but instead blank?

I would suggest that you try to investigate by looking at the data in your mySQLadmin to determine what the value should be for that attribute/somewhere else that would show the information that ends up showing or being combined to show what is desired.

I know you were concerned about your headings, based on previous posts, would want to look at/for any leading/trailing spaces that would cause the data not to be collected.

Was the price break data that was provided a change of an existing price break, or new data not previously present? A long shot thought is are you suure that the new data was applied to only the "one" product and didn't get applied to something else not expected/reviewed?

Yes, a table appeared but it contained no data. The data I was trying to insert was new, not a replacement for existing data.

I don't think a value of zero was inserted because, right after posting, I decided to go thru and manually insert price breaks the hard way (using ZC admin functionality). No price break tables existed yet, despite the fact that an empty price break chart was showing up.

I went back thru and searched for trailing/leading spaces, found none. In fact, I searched the entire file, found no spaces anywhere.

Your question about new data applying to only "one" product is intriguing. I will poke around and see, but I'm fairly certain that the model numbers are unique, thus it should not have applied to the wrong prod.

This brings me to my one and only gripe about this mod. Why in the world does it tie everything to model number??? Makes zero sense to me, why not just use the system already in place, created naturally by ZC? If I abandon this mod, that will be the reason.

Even if we set aside the simple fact that two dif manufacturers might have the exact same model number, there are still plenty of logical reasons to *not* have unique model numbers. One of my websites sells parts for medical equipment. Some of those parts can fit on multiple machines. So one model number may have as many as 10 unique description pages, all with unique titles (Mod# 444 - 2" circular blade for cast saw; Mod# 444 - 2" circular blade for autopsy saw;) and unique –application specific– product information.

I would love to change the default controller from model to prod_id... is there a way to do that?

[mc12345678]

No, still unresolved! Still hoping to buy someone some coffee!



Yes, a table appeared but it contained no data. The data I was trying to insert was new, not a replacement for existing data.

I don't think a value of zero was inserted because, right after posting, I decided to go thru and manually insert price breaks the hard way (using ZC admin functionality). No price break tables existed yet, despite the fact that an empty price break chart was showing up.

I went back thru and searched for trailing/leading spaces, found none. In fact, I searched the entire file, found no spaces anywhere.

Your question about new data applying to only "one" product is intriguing. I will poke around and see, but I'm fairly certain that the model numbers are unique, thus it should not have applied to the wrong prod.

This brings me to my one and only gripe about this mod. Why in the world does it tie everything to model number??? Makes zero sense to me, why not just use the system already in place, created naturally by ZC? If I abandon this mod, that will be the reason.

Even if we set aside the simple fact that two dif manufacturers might have the exact same model number, there are still plenty of logical reasons to *not* have unique model numbers. One of my websites sells parts for medical equipment. Some of those parts can fit on multiple machines. So one model number may have as many as 10 unique description pages, all with unique titles (Mod# 444 - 2" circular blade for cast saw; Mod# 444 - 2" circular blade for autopsy saw;) and unique –application specific– product information.

I would love to change the default controller from model to prod_id... is there a way to do that?

Okay, so to address first the original issue. When you went back to produce/modify the price break for the items that you had imported, was there or was there not data that related to what you imported?

Again, because I am not specifically familiar with price breaking, the next question would be if the table name convention for the table in your database equal the name expected by the mod?

As for model number issues, my thought on it if I were to start from scratch is this: what piece of information do I have control over that is not affected by the routines of ZenCart, typically wouldn't change, would be more likely to be unique and such that I can reuse the file regardless of the cart to which the file is being applied without increasing the data fields in the cart.

Model Number could be one of those; however, in your case, have many products that are the same thing (same model, but different descriptions which of course necessitates that you keep your list up-to-date as to how that product can be applied.)

The other issue though is that, if the product_id is used or even another attribute, you would need to have a way to differentiate between data for existing items and data to indicate a new item. (Ie, either the number for the product_id or a designation such as NEW, a negative number, or a value of zero to indicate that the item is to be added.

As for this mod, one thing Chadderuski has done is make the program relatively modifiable to add additional methods of exporting and importing data. Perhaps the hard part is understanding that there is a sequence of events necessary to make that happen, like to add attributes to a product, first or in parallel have to have a product and an attribute to apply, and then to apply the attribute. (Or maybe it is already encoded to do both actions in one, I haven't gotten into the meat of that part yet myself as I have/had been working on a stock by attributes direction.) He has also asked in times past for additional input on things desired, so I would think that your input would still be of benefit, but I know (and like myself) that he has some other priorities currently above this mod as it stands. A new update is in the works with clearer documentation, and from the sounds of it there is a major code change, so it may be difficult at the moment to incorporate a change immediately.

Back to the problem though, was also thinking what information was/is in the datafile that was sent on to EP4 for processing as it relates to your price break? Was there an equation, a value, etc.? And what I was referring to about a value of zero being provided is something like price is 1, price break is 1, thinking that 1-1=0 and therefore a value may not be displayed.

[firstcapitalfirearms]

So it sounds like you have good info on the screen (file path looks correct), but that the end result of importing the info to the database is that the cart can't "find" what it has identified in the database.

Have you looked at the exported file (using a text editor not your spreadsheet program) to identify that the data to be imported reflects what is expected? (Ie, not the concatenate function)?

I guess I am somewhat confused and I am new to this whole process. When you ask if I looked at the exported file in a text editor (NotePad++) are you referring to the CSV file or what. Sorry again I am new and not sure what you are asking.

Thanks

Mark

[mc12345678]

I guess I am somewhat confused and I am new to this whole process. When you ask if I looked at the exported file in a text editor (NotePad++) are you referring to the CSV file or what. Sorry again I am new and not sure what you are asking.

Thanks

Mark

That's alright. Sorry, I tend to address things in the abstract until I have facts. Yes, the CSV file that is then uploaded to your cart to be imported. Did it contain the file path as you wanted it?

If so, the next thing would be to see if the file exists exactly where it is described exactly as written (capitalization, etc.)?

[mc12345678]

I guess I am somewhat confused and I am new to this whole process. When you ask if I looked at the exported file in a text editor (NotePad++) are you referring to the CSV file or what. Sorry again I am new and not sure what you are asking.

Thanks

Mark

Also, I just took a look at one of my downloads from this program, the path I have for an image in the images folder is simply the name of the image. If I have a photo YYY.jpg in the images/XXX folder then all I had in the v_products_image column was XXX/YYY.jpg

So, I think part of your problem is having /images/ at the beginning of your image name.

This may be more evident if as is suggested by the code author that you add a product and other settings into ZenCart first, then download that information to use as a sort of template. Is very useful.