Easy Populate 1.2.5.4 support

[gregger]

Apologies if this has already been asked, but it's late and the thread is 270 pages long!

Is there someway of automating the import? I have scripted the update of products etc on my machine on a daily basis, this then uploads the csv to the server, i then want to kick of an EP import script or webpage - without having to manually visit the admin section and click on import.

Thanks
Greg

[schoolboy]

After I added it that way I saw an option in the admin section for EasyPopulate that is called "Custom Products Fields" --- the description from that menu reads:

Custom Products Fields
Enter a comma seperated list of fields to be automatically added to import/export file(ie: products_length, products_width). Please make sure field exists in PRODUCTS table.

Would that menu do the same thing?

1. You cannot ADD data to a dbase table unless there is a field available to STORE that data. That is why the above comment says: "Please make sure field exists in PRODUCTS table."

2. You can add whatever FIELDS you like to the products table, and then put data into those fields - but the data that sits in these new fields is of no use to you, unless and until you incorporate it into your webshop. In other words, you will use php commands and scripts to bring that data into some useful function or operation within your store.

This will involve either editing existing PHP files so that the data can be made "useful" (perform some function), or writing new php files to do the same.

[Earnest-Enterprises]

Personally I think EZ is a great mod. Once you have your basic product tab delimited file created you can add, delete, etc. just by editing that one file and saving it under a different file name. Yes, it DOES take a lot of work to get the first file created (it won't do it by itself...) but once that's done you're really on easy street.

I am having a minor problem I can't figure out. When I UL my entire product listing to Zen it's cutting off part of the product name and the descriptions as well. It doesn't do it with every product, just at random. Example: if I have a candle called "Spice Candle" I may get just "Spice Can" as the product name. In the product description it will cut off part of a word mid-sentence in the descript and the remainder of the descript isn't there at all.

Prices, quantities, model number and everything else comes through fine and nothing is changed during the upload (i.e., prices?) in those areas. I DO save all cells/columns in my spreadsheet as 'general', nothing else, regardless of what they contain.

Any idea(s) what might be causing this? I've checked my titles and descripts in my tab delimited file and everything is there and complete. I've even widened the column holding the descriptions then saved the file (thinking that may help) but it still doesn't give all descripts in my store.

Thanks!

Rod

[Earnest-Enterprises]

Schoolboy...

Any advice on how to have EZ port my product names and descriptions properly (completely)? I have done it several times and many names and/or descriptions are partial or don't exist at all. Of course I can manually edit each of over 2000 products but that kind of defeats the purpose of EZ.

When I'm editing my products in my spreadsheet is there any special cell formatting for the text in those cells? Length of product name and/or descripitions? Font type? Characters I should avoid using, etc? Also when I do edit names/descriptions in my sheet should I port again using all existing fields and not just those fields that are missing data to do an update?

I usually select the entire spreadsheet and format the cells as 'general' (in Excel 2007). If I use OpenOffice I format the cells as text. Is there a preference as to which spreadsheet does the better job (Excel or Openoffice) in your opinion?

Thank you. I have all my products in place. It's just the names and descripts that are giving me fits now. Prices, quantities, etc., port fine and are correct.

BTW, I am using EZ 1.2.5.4.

Rod

[schoolboy]

Easy Populate like things kept SIMPLE... as does php and MySQL. The minute you start using "special characters" in the content (data), you risk corrupting it, because some characters are used in the programming for various purposes.

Back and forward slashes, single quotes (even as apostrophes), % signs, @ signs, and many others, can wreak havoc in the data.

I have seen many people give their images very elaborate names - some using square brackets, periods, slashes, aplostrophes, etc - or a convoluted combination of all of these. And the result is usually a confused mess in Easy Populate.

Even in the product description text, some characters give real problems - such as single quote marks and apostrophes. I try to use HTML character codes for these, so instead of saying "it's the best product on earth", I would use the HTML character code for the apostrophe (it& # 3 9 ;s) - no spaces of course... I put spaces here to prevent your browser rendering it as an apostrophe!

I deal with a lot of this in my WIKI
http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.php/Easy_Populate

Additionally, if your product descriptions are long - or contain formatted line breaks - a program like Excel can TRUNCATE the text. Many people write up their product data in programs like MSWord and then use COPY and PASTE to get the text into the spreadhseet. This will copy MS formatting too - which is an absolute NO-NO.

So when I populate the v_products_description datasets I MAKE SURE not to have formatted line breaks and replace all these with <br /> tags. I remove ALL other formatting - or at least replace it with good, clean html tags.

Read my WIKI for additional advice.

[Earnest-Enterprises]

Thanks, Schoolboy. I now have a direct link to your wiki and will be scouring it.

My product supplier supplies the images and they correspond to the model number (i.e., 12000 is the model number and the image is 12000.jpg). So that makes it simple for me. Nothing fancy with image names and I won't be reinventing the wheel there.

I'll check those descriptions that have ported correctly to see what they contain (or don't) then compare them against those that didn't and see what those that are partial contain that is messing up. Understanding how EZ looks at and ports text/characters will help me a lot.

Sounds like editing my products in Word first may be a better approach or maybe better yet, Notepad, where there is no formatting at all. I know when I receive my product descriptions and sizes are described my supplier many times uses, for example, 3/4 as all one character (as would be see in a MS Word document) and not three independent characters, 3 then / then 4. This may also be an issue in the porting.

Thanks again!

[chadderuski]

Earnest,

Give OpenOffice a try! OO will properly encapsulate exported fields in "" (quotes) where excel will often not. OO will also allow you to have more than 256 characters in a field.

-cj

Oh, and OO is free!

[elkbow]

I don't know if this helps, but I went into the phpadmin and changed the varchar up to around 125 and it allowed my entire product name to appear. Seemed that the description length was too short.

[schoolboy]

I don't know if this helps, but I went into the phpadmin and changed the varchar up to around 125 and it allowed my entire product name to appear. Seemed that the description length was too short.

There are other tables (orders, for example) where Product Name is stored. If you have 125 in one table and 64 in another, you are on a disaster heading...

All field lengths for common data MUST be the same...

[elkbow]

There are other tables (orders, for example) where Product Name is stored. If you have 125 in one table and 64 in another, you are on a disaster heading...

All field lengths for common data MUST be the same...

I searched them all out and changed them. Every one worked fine. Some were around 105 in length with no problems.