Easy Populate 1.2.5.4 support

[bradlawson]

Ok, i am a little confused. Now Easy Populate Reg. is still free, but the feature packed advance is not, right? Wasn't easy populate reg. in the download section before, why is it not now? I read a pervious post by langer, and i guess there is a problem with the new easy populate reg for 1.3.6, is that why you can't download it?

Thanks

Brad

[oeginc]

Ok, i am a little confused. Now Easy Populate Reg. is still free, but the feature packed advance is not, right? Wasn't easy populate reg. in the download section before, why is it not now? I read a pervious post by langer, and i guess there is a problem with the new easy populate reg for 1.3.6, is that why you can't download it?

Thanks

Brad

That's correct, and I have fixed a few of the problems in the "free" version of Easy Populate and uploaded it to here, but ZenCart appears to be taking their sweet time approving downloads, as of this moment it's been 7 days and still no word.

Maybe I'll just have to setup a download section on one of my websites somewhere.

[steveorg]

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Originally Posted by milkyway
Hi langer and all,
I have some problem here, I have an excel file containing datas of few hundred products. I tried to re-arrange them in EZ-populate format.
I face difficulties when it comes to product's description, because ZenCart use HTML format, while the description I have in hand is in plain text format. So when I upload them it will not displayed corcetly, because of no HTML tags such as <p>, <br /> to arrange them.
So it would be a huge task to edit the description one by one, do you have any idea how I can import the excel into ZenCart without having to edit the description into HTML?
Thanks
milkyway

I had a similar issue - with nearly 3000 products. I (partially) resolved it as follows...

As I wanted double line breaks after each sentence in the product description, I decided to use the "friendliness" that exists between MS WORD and MS EXCEL.

I highlighted the entire "Product Description" column in Excel, then Copied to clipboard.

I then Pasted the column into MS Word. I now had a single column "table" of all the product descriptions.

Then I converted TABLE to TEXT, with breaks selected as paragraphs (not tabs).

Doing "Search & Replace" I replaced all instances of ^p (paragraph) with $$$ . (This is just a unique string that I can easily find later to "reconvert" $$$ to ^p .)

Now I have a massive paragraph of sentences, broken at various intervals by $$$.

Then I did a "Search & Replace" for "fullstop + spacebar" (. ) - ie: the end of each sentence - and replaced it with .<br /><br /> (fullstop + tag + tag).

Now I had all my sentences properly tagged with the double <br /> html.

Then i did a search & replace for $$$, turning them back into ^p.

Finally, I highlighted all text and did a TEXT TO TABLE, with PARAGRAPH as the line break.

Before copying and pasting back into Excel, I created another column in Excel NEXT TO the original Product Description column.

I PASTE the altered column into this new column, and alongside is the original text. I can quickly do a random sampling to see if the text in both columns matches up. Check the first, last and several middle records. If they match up, you're pretty safe that your new column is identical to your old column, but now you have the <br /><br /> tags in place.

Delete the old column, remembering to shift its EP header over to the new column first.

You can achieve the same results with the following Excel VBA procedure. It replaces all paragraph and line breaks in the column headed by v_products_description_1.

Sub InsertBR()
    Application.ScreenUpdating = False
    Cells.Find(What:="v_products_description_1", After:=ActiveCell, LookIn:= _
        xlValues, LookAt:=xlPart, SearchOrder:=xlByColumns, SearchDirection:= _
        xlNext, MatchCase:=False, SearchFormat:=False).Activate
    Range(Selection, Selection.End(xlDown)).Select
    For Each cl In Selection.SpecialCells(xlCellTypeConstants, 23)
        cl.Replace What:=Chr(13), Replacement:="<br /><br />", SearchOrder:=xlByColumns
        cl.Replace What:=Chr(10), Replacement:="<br /><br />", SearchOrder:=xlByColumns
    Next cl
    ActiveCell.Select
    Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

Usage note: To work correctly, all records must have a description. Otherwise, the code will stop at the first blank description.

Steve

[bradlawson]

Just post the new verison some where and put the link on the fourm.

Thanks

Brad

[jvoce]

I'm starting out with easy populate and I'm already having an error. All I've done so far is complete the installation.

When I click on the easy populate button under Tools Easy Populate screen comes up but it as has this message below:

Import Data from file in temp/

Warning: dir(../temp/) [function.dir]: failed to open dir: Invalid argument in .../admin/easypopulate.php on line 695

Fatal error: Call to a member function read () on a non-object in ...\admin\easypopulate.php on lin 697

What does this mean, and what can I do to fix it?

[langer]

jvoce, what version are you using?

[oeginc]

I'm starting out with easy populate and I'm already having an error. All I've done so far is complete the installation.

When I click on the easy populate button under Tools Easy Populate screen comes up but it as has this message below:

Import Data from file in temp/

Warning: dir(../temp/) [function.dir]: failed to open dir: Invalid argument in .../admin/easypopulate.php on line 695

Fatal error: Call to a member function read () on a non-object in ...\admin\easypopulate.php on lin 697

What does this mean, and what can I do to fix it?

It sounds like you don't have a directory called 'temp' in your cart directory... That's where easy populate stores files that it creates on the server. The default installation comes with some sample EP files in that directory (Attributes-EP*.txt, Category-EP*.txt, Froogle-EP*.txt, Full-EP*.txt, PriceQty-EP*.txt and there is a blank index.html file as well).

[jvoce]

Zen-Cart Verison: 1.3.6
Easy Populate: ep_v2_75_zen-cart_1_2.zip

I just noticed that you're website says it has problems with it. I'll try the other version.

Hopefully that should work?

[jvoce]

I've downloaded your version, and so far it looks like it's working. We have to try and tweek the excel file that comes out from one of our own computer programs to place the items properly in the file.

We are looking forward to the day that more flexability is given for attributes matching unique model numbers.

Thank you, and Merry Christmas.

[hbtrading]

That's correct, and I have fixed a few of the problems in the "free" version of Easy Populate and uploaded it to here, but ZenCart appears to be taking their sweet time approving downloads, as of this moment it's been 7 days and still no word.

Maybe I'll just have to setup a download section on one of my websites somewhere.

Hey if youd like me to help out with hosting the new file I would be more than glad to...let me know.