EasyPopulate 4.0 Support Thread

[mc12345678]

Thank you mc12345678... My Bad.... it was the language and utf8.. changed these and everything flowed like it did before. took 54 seconds to update 3,978 items... I truly love this addon ... saves so much work
and the version is:
Easy Populate 4.0.30 - Beta 06-27-2015

Thanks again.......

As was suggested to jkenwell, the version should be updated to 4.0.36.ZC or newer. Upgrade should be as easy as uploading the new files, then when on the tools->easy Populate 4 screen, select the upgrade link in the upper right hand corner and tada...

[hivtop]

hahaha.. why did I know someone would tell me to "update"... will do it... BUT... after 40 years of working on computers, my motto is: "If it ain't Broke, why fix it".. LMAO The only problems I've had with this fine addon is "My own fault"... hahaha

[gdtw]

uploading a product broke my site?

i was able to download a product that i entered from the admin page. i have only 1 product in 1 category which is named in both english and chinese. i was able to see category_name_1 in chinese in the csv file.

i then created a simple csv file, removing only a few columns such as item available date, item expiration date, etc. enter both chinese and english item names and descriptions. upload and import.

after that, my new home page is totally broken. "best sellers", "new products", etc are gone. no new product shows up. i then proceeded to upload the same product with v_status=9, and that deleted even the existing product...

i tried empty tables "products" and "product_description" in phpmyadmin, but that didnt do anything.

how do i fix this?

[mc12345678]

Should have been able to also see category_name_2 (or some other number depending on the language installation/removal history).

Perhaps some basic questions in addition to some other information to gather:
Are you using product_model (default) as the primary key (configuration->Easy Populate 4) and was there a model provided in the new upload?
Is/was the products_model (or other primary key if chosen) the same as the original product?

In the setup of your site (including language files) is utf8 or another character set used?

If the original file is imported (not edited but as stored on the server) does the product return to the site?

If the edited file is again uploaded but this time to include the date fields that had been removed and verified to have a different primary key, does the product appear as desired?

Before attempting this for this first time, were there other product in other categories and have they been affected? (ask because that is not fully clear based on the above report of having 1 product in 1 category but then no items appear in the other sub-groups.)

[mc12345678]

Also, what was the source of the download of the program?

[gdtw]

sorry, i was not clear enough.

i downloaded both ep3 and the language pack from here. both and zen cart are the newest versions.

i just realized that i did not have primary key set. (so the default is products_model.) i did not specify product model (the 1st column). i did have category_name_2 in english (category_name_1 in chinese).

i never specified any character set or utf8. i just set default as chinese on the admin page. the ep4 admin page does show
Internal Character Encoding: UTF-8
DB Collation: utf8

now i set the primary key as "blank_new", added back the columns i deleted but left blank. after importing, i get the product with english title and description, regardless of my browser language... and the home page layout still is messed up, including e.g., 'Categories' shoing up as 'HEADER_TITLE_CATEGORIES', 'privacy policy' shows up as 'FOOTER_PRIVACY'.

[mc12345678]

sorry, i was not clear enough.

i downloaded both ep3 and the language pack from here. both and zen cart are the newest versions.

i just realized that i did not have primary key set. (so the default is products_model.) i did not specify product model (the 1st column). i did have category_name_2 in english (category_name_1 in chinese).

i never specified any character set or utf8. i just set default as chinese on the admin page. the ep4 admin page does show
Internal Character Encoding: UTF-8
DB Collation: utf8

now i set the primary key as "blank_new", added back the columns i deleted but left blank. after importing, i get the product with english title and description, regardless of my browser language... and the home page layout still is messed up, including e.g., 'Categories' shoing up as 'HEADER_TITLE_CATEGORIES', 'privacy policy' shows up as 'FOOTER_PRIVACY'.

Those last identified issues are related to definitions existing for the defined language(s) and/or the assignment of a language to its associated language folder. EP4 does not modify the database language assignments, therefore it would appear that the define for the associate language and page has been modified, moved or removed which is unrelated to the import/export of data using EP4.

[djdavedawson]

Is there a way to add custom product fields into a NEW table (ie:) zen_products_custom that will work with EP4 import/export?

Thanks

~D

[mc12345678]

Is there a way to add custom product fields into a NEW table (ie:) zen_products_custom that will work with EP4 import/export?

Thanks

~D

Of course there is, though it would require some coding to do. There is/was a plan to add the capability directly into the user defined field of the admin configuration; however, there have been some other things to address before fuly delving into that.

There are notifiers throughout the import and export code that support I think all related operations that are going on. Using/having some sort of relational key one can add observer operations, collect/use/manipulate the data and affect the desired table(s).

My suggestion is to begin working on the export before the import (though thinking about what will be needed to support the import while generating the export).

Also suggest taking a look at what/how mesnitu has incorporated the bookx product type into EP4 by way of the above mentioned notifier/observer interaction. While there are still some improvements in coding that can be applied, he's come a long way with the effort. I also have something at my website that uses the notifiers/observers to integrate Ceon URI Mapping with EP4, but that's a slightly different story. It does, however, apply changes to a different table than the products table.

Now, all of that was said because the question related to a different table other than the products table. If the field(s) in question are in the products table then simply need to add the field (new_field instead of v_new_field) into the user defined field(s) list.

[djdavedawson]

Thank you for the quick response.

I will start digging into the export for some ideas and to get a feel for how it's written.

As a related followup question, is there a simple way to change the "User Defined Products Fields" to use v_products_description instead of v_products ?

Thanks Again MC

~D