EasyPopulate 4.0 Support Thread

[k9dug]

Hi,

I'd be grateful for some feedback on what EP4 can do. I have listed below what I want to do with it and if anyone could tell me which items in this list it already does, and the easiest ways to do these, that would be great.

Chad, maybe specifically for you: if there are things listed here that it doesn't yet do, I am happy to wade in and make some mods. It would be easier if you could give me a heads-up on any major blockers to what I want to do, and faster for me if you can point me in any particular directions..

So,

1. My products are all priced by attribute. The price in the product admin page is always set to zero (so attribute prices are added to that and remain as they are).
2. I want to be able to upload multiple new products, with their attribute details (attribute name, attribute price, option name).
3. I then want to be able to:
....3.1. update attribute prices for existing products.
....3.2. add new attributes for existing products.

There are other changes I'd like to make for existing products, but the attributes seem to be the most challenging.

Any advice/suggestions?

Cheers,

Gav

[mc12345678]

Hi,

I'd be grateful for some feedback on what EP4 can do. I have listed below what I want to do with it and if anyone could tell me which items in this list it already does, and the easiest ways to do these, that would be great.

Chad, maybe specifically for you: if there are things listed here that it doesn't yet do, I am happy to wade in and make some mods. It would be easier if you could give me a heads-up on any major blockers to what I want to do, and faster for me if you can point me in any particular directions..

So,

1. My products are all priced by attribute. The price in the product admin page is always set to zero (so attribute prices are added to that and remain as they are).
2. I want to be able to upload multiple new products, with their attribute details (attribute name, attribute price, option name).
3. I then want to be able to:
....3.1. update attribute prices for existing products.
....3.2. add new attributes for existing products.

There are other changes I'd like to make for existing products, but the attributes seem to be the most challenging.

Any advice/suggestions?

Cheers,

Gav

If those are the things that you see as a minimum to be needed to load this plug-in, start the installation.

1. Does as is (may need to sequence upload of various datafiles to get from nothing to your final setup.)
2. This is typically at least a two step process currently if I am correct. First upload your product with all the details associated, and then upload the attribute(s) associated with the product. A third interim upload may be necessary to add a new attribute to the database.
3. A. Can do, but realize that the change of proce for one attribute I think is applied across the board for where that attriibute is used.
3. B. Yup, see above.

While chadder is working on an update that would provide more documentation on how to do all this, the basics are this:
A basic report will get new things of the report type into the database. A detailed report will provide more thorough information about the type of thing being worked on.

At the moment, that's the breadth of my recollection of it's functionality. It is very handy for the things you are describing you would like to do. Also, some of the places I said may need multiple steps, may actually only need one, but I haven't played with it enough recently to state that. I am anxiously awaiting one of the support members of my site to populate a file for us to push live. I look forward to using this and its abilities.

Somewhat surprising, the concept of this add-in is actually relatively simple, as it strips away a lot of the user interface, but it also gives the admin a lot of control and does have the potential of incorrectly updating the database. So backup, backup, backup, and test your upload at least one line before you go and try to upload everything. Once you get a sort of stable file, then updates will be easy. :) good luck!

[k9dug]

Thanks mc1-8,

OK, I am sort of getting my head round this..

I can create new products by downloading, editing and then importing a Full_ csv.

I can create new attributes for existing products by downloading, editing and then import an Attrib-Basic csv. I've checked in the database and even if I create the same name of attribute for different products, it gets created just once and the id re-used. Good.

To add price to a attributes, for each product, I have to download, edit and then import an Attrib-Detailed csv. Here I add the price, sort order, and any other values specific to an attribute for a particular product. All seems to work. (It does seem strange that the product option name is listed twice for each attribute, in both Attrib-Basic (v_products_options_name_1) and Attrib-Detailed (v_products_options_name)).

OK so it works, albeit with a sequence of 3 file downloads and 3 file imports.

What I need to be able to do is condense this down into a single file import. The reason is, I have to be able to export a full list and send that to my client. He has to be able to easily read the spreadsheet and carry out the following changes:

1. add products
2. add attributes
3. alter attribute prices

Much of my data will be default / handled by me, or I can write code to generate it (eg product model), but I cannot hand over three spreadsheets for monthly updates.

Does this seem feasible, at least for my limited set of procedures?

I can see various ways to do this, such as taking the order of v_products_options_values_name_1 to generate the sort order, using multiple rows per product etc...

[mc12345678]

Thanks mc1-8,

OK, I am sort of getting my head round this..

I can create new products by downloading, editing and then importing a Full_ csv.

I can create new attributes for existing products by downloading, editing and then import an Attrib-Basic csv. I've checked in the database and even if I create the same name of attribute for different products, it gets created just once and the id re-used. Good.

To add price to a attributes, for each product, I have to download, edit and then import an Attrib-Detailed csv. Here I add the price, sort order, and any other values specific to an attribute for a particular product. All seems to work. (It does seem strange that the product option name is listed twice for each attribute, in both Attrib-Basic (v_products_options_name_1) and Attrib-Detailed (v_products_options_name)).

OK so it works, albeit with a sequence of 3 file downloads and 3 file imports.

What I need to be able to do is condense this down into a single file import. The reason is, I have to be able to export a full list and send that to my client. He has to be able to easily read the spreadsheet and carry out the following changes:

1. add products
2. add attributes
3. alter attribute prices

Much of my data will be default / handled by me, or I can write code to generate it (eg product model), but I cannot hand over three spreadsheets for monthly updates.

Does this seem feasible, at least for my limited set of procedures?

I can see various ways to do this, such as taking the order of v_products_options_values_name_1 to generate the sort order, using multiple rows per product etc...

So, overall, I would say it looks like you have grasped the default usage. To get your client looking at the data, you could create a new export that would have all the data in one spreadsheet, the complexity though increases as the number of category types for a product does. Though you could make it relatively easy depending on how you want to present your data to your client and of course, what you want to deal with when it comes back.

All of the functions are present in the code to accomplish what you describe, but would need to sort of reorder/group/resequence them to suit the file designation of your choosing. That is further why I stated that it is a powerful plug-in, because almost anything desired to be done with a default database is there.

As for duplicate titles, it is my understanding that there is a move afoot to make the plug-in more multi-language functional and that was what the appended number was primarily about. (Ie language 1, language 2, etc with each language designation meaning something that I can't remember at the moment).

Basically your export code file would contain the formatting and SQL statements to create your client file, and then your import code file would parse the CSV based on the filename.

As an FYI, most likely your client will not have the program(s) necessary to properly save a CSV that would work with this plug-in, so something would need to be done to facilitate that, either you properly save it, or your client obtains a method to properly save it.

[k9dug]

OK that's good news, if all the main components are present and just need to be rearranged. Sounds like the way forward will be to create an additional export file type and then an additional import file type in the existing code files. I imagine I might have to create a few different versions of some functions, but the basis will be there.

I'll give it a try. Thanks for the insight.

(As an aside, regarding duplicate column titles for multi-language function: I wonder if it might not be better to end the column headings with standard two-character language codes, instead of "_1", "_2" etc? For example, "v_products_options_values_name_en" and "v_products_options_values_name_es" would be more intuitive than numbered columns, potentially hook into the language system more easily, and also not be order-dependent. Just a thought.. :-)

[mc12345678]

OK that's good news, if all the main components are present and just need to be rearranged. Sounds like the way forward will be to create an additional export file type and then an additional import file type in the existing code files. I imagine I might have to create a few different versions of some functions, but the basis will be there.

I'll give it a try. Thanks for the insight.

(As an aside, regarding duplicate column titles for multi-language function: I wonder if it might not be better to end the column headings with standard two-character language codes, instead of "_1", "_2" etc? For example, "v_products_options_values_name_en" and "v_products_options_values_name_es" would be more intuitive than numbered columns, potentially hook into the language system more easily, and also not be order-dependent. Just a thought.. :-)

It wouldn't surprise me if that is the direction that chadder is/was going with the update. I do understand that the version to be posted in the plugins area is a large code change as when I began R&D for stock by attributes I was given some coding suggestions above and beyond a normal merge of instructions.

On the otherhand, I hope that his heart didn't just sink 3 miles deep from seeing that suggestion. :) It makes sense.

[k9dug]

Oh I hope not! He's doing a grand job.

I'll get stuck into my mods and if I come up with anything that works I'll let you guys see it.

Cheers :)

[scubasteve]

I am having two issues with getting the v_products_description_1 field to update.

1. It seems to load on a completely new product but when I try to update it does not change.
2. I also have issues with it truncating the field at random lengths. I have queries that search and replace all special characters with their HTML friendly equivalent which seemed to help in some instances. These are MEMO fields in Access 2007 and when I export I always go into the export spec file and make sure the field is set to MEMO and has a width of 8000 characters or so.

The text files look good and import the other fields like quantity and call the correct values. I'm currently working trying to update the Manufacturer: Charles Industries on my www.navigatorschoice.com site with is v1.5.0 but have the same problems with www.scubastevesmarine.com which is v1.5.1.

I have attached the file I'm importing currently. A link to one of the items is http://www.navigatorschoice.com/inde...oducts_id=1527, it updated successfully the quantity to zero and product is call to 1. But the description should have had some red text added to it which didn't update.

Any assistance with these issues is appreciated.

[joyjoy]

Can anyone please give me the link to the plugin for this add on? I'm trying to make sure I keep up with all my plugins with the most recent version and given the fact that there are several "Easy Populate" add ons I'm not sure which is which. Thank you!!!

[mc12345678]

Can anyone please give me the link to the plugin for this add on? I'm trying to make sure I keep up with all my plugins with the most recent version and given the fact that there are several "Easy Populate" add ons I'm not sure which is which. Thank you!!!

This plugin is yet to be published to the download section of ZenCart; however, like in many/most forums, if you review the first couple of posts http://www.zen-cart.com/showthread.p...t-Thread/page1 you should be able to determine from where a plug-in may be obtained. In this case, it is available on github, but should be submitted for ZenCart review relatively soon by the author.