Ceon URI Mapping v4.x

[DivaVocals]

Time is money and I have a business to develop…doesn’t everyone here? I assume everyone who is commenting in this thread has a business and so has costs associated with that business.

I looked at the fee charged by the current suppliers of the URI Mapping Manager and I read the comments about the efforts that various people may make to basically provide that functionality for free and I think “why are you bothering”? Don’t you have something more profitable to do with your time?
That fee doesn’t even equate to my phone bill or four fours of a quality coder.

It’s a paltry business cost…doesn’t everyone have more profitable things to do with their time than reinvent the wheel?
Add more products, improve the content, active marketing….etc. the list is endless as to what you can do to make more money, but trying to save the fee for some software and spending lots of hours in the process strikes me as absurd and unjustifiable.
Put it in your business plan and present it to your bank as an efficient use of your time, see if they agree.

I’m not trying to justify the change in the price, but that is the past and this is the present. Who cares where the money goes? It’s a product for sale like any other. The fact that Conor massively undervalued his efforts has been to the benefit of many people here in the past, but that’s the past.

I’m looking at a Zen Cart connector for the ERP I am using and that is over 400 euros, but I’ll probably buy it. It’s a business cost and if I offset it against me doing it myself over six months between 10pm-1am every night, it’s not up for discussion.

In conclusion, I'm saying if you have a business, be business-like and value your time realistically, look at the big picture.

ps I have no connection to the suppliers of this mod!!
[/RANT]

Speaking only for myself, I am not trying to re-invent anything.. I proposed to share a simple SQL file that would be of use for a FREQUENTLY asked question in all of the Ceon URI Mapping support threads.. and it's also something I've been asked about privately over the last few years as well.. The time for me to convert my old spreadsheet to a SQL file is nothing because of the way I've constructed my spreadsheet.. So when my time permits, I will create and share a SQL file that will create mapping table records for the default pages based on the instructions in the readme for doing this. Not because I'm trying to re-invent the wheel. I simply wanted to share a way to automate something already covered in the Ceon URI Mapping readme document (adding records to the Mapping table for all of the default Zen Cart pages). It should provide a means for novice owners to add the default pages to the mappings table without having to know how to use PHPmyAdmin.

So I don't disagree with you that the cost of the Mapping Manager is minor, and I am a BIG proponent that DIY shopowners need to be prepared to INVEST in their site dev costs from time to time.. However, I know first hand from watching this module for the last 4 years that some business owners are not (for their own reasons) going to spend the money to purchase the Mappings Manager no matter how awesome it is.. and given the increase in cost for it, I don't imagine that that this will change. These shopowners will instead go through all their products, categories and EZ Pages and re-save them one by one to auto-generate the URIs. Then they will come here and ask about how to create pretty links for the rest of the Zen Cart pages (contact us, sitemap, etc..), and they will be pointed to the instructions in the readme for doing this.. And as recent posts have demonstrated, while those these instructions are easy for those who understand how to use PHPmyAdmin, not all shopowners are comfortable/able to use PHPmyAdmin to execute those instructions. What I am planning to share bridges that gap by creating records in the Mappings table for the default Zen Cart pages.. It is really the conversion of something I used before I obtained my own copy of the Mappings Manager.. Not a waste of MY TIME, and not re-inventing the wheel..

And while I cannot speak for mc12345678 and his time or motives, I do know that what he is doing with EP appears to be something that has also been asked about. (How to use EP with Ceon URI Mappings) So if he has come up with a means to use EP to populate the mappings table it too closes a gap that has been identified.. this too is not reinventing the wheel.. to the contrary it would save time for those using EP and Ceon URI Mapping together..