Product Image Gallery

Hello everyone,

I'm working on a project, which, once upon a time, I would've used osCommerce for, but I have discovered Zen now, and I'm really getting to grips with it all and the amount you can actually do without having to change the code or delete bits like you do with osC.

Anyway, to my question...

I have been looking around for a method of having multiple images for my products, and all I seem to find is people having various sized files of the same image, but that's not what I want at all.

What I'm after is a way of uploading several different images to each product, creating a small gallery for each individual product.

I need it to be able to do everything through the admin side, rather than ftp'ing the images.

Can any of you fine people shed a little light on what I should do?

Thanks for reading, and any help you can give.

While it does involve FTP, first start with understanding ... and using until you know it well ... the built-in multiple-image support: https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=58

Install a fresh site with demo data, and visit the Bug's Life Collector's Edition product to see a simple example of it in action.

Then decide from there whether you really need to change things, and how much change is really worth the investment of time required. And then explore some of the available addons. But first understand what's built-in.

I understand what you mean, and the importance of making the most of what's already 'in the box', but I really do need this to work without the use of FTP at all. I appreciate your thoughts and suggestions, as well as taking the time to reply.

I've got so many changes to make though, that it won't be much like ZenCart by the time I've finished. I also a system for people to select a start and end date - so ideally want a radio button on the product creation admin page, choosing whether or not to display the calendar on the page that the user will see, so that they can select a start and end date.

But for the time being, I'm going to try and get the image galleries sorted out.

Any further thoughts?

It's more than just making the most of what's already there. If you don't understand how it already works, then you won't understand what you need to change, or hack out to replace for your own needs, etc. Also, you won't know whether a given addon will do what's needed or not, or whether it'll need special recoding, or how to recode it.

There's a LOT more built-in than just the need to FTP additional images. If that is all you need, that's something you can add yourself in a few lines of code or with an addon. But until you know whether what's built-in is enough, there's no point exploring the FTP part. Don't get hung up on the wrong point.

I know what you mean, but I figured if there was an add-on out there that did it, it would make life alot easier.

I was right though, I eventually managed to find a simple uploader for additional images.

For anybody else looking for the same kind of thing: http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?main_page=product_contrib_info&products_id=1146.

I've now got to apply the lightbox code to these images, shuffle things around a bit and that part will be done.

Thanks for your advice, DrByte. Much appreciated!