EasyPopulate 4.0 Support Thread

I installed my Zen cart thru webhost applications, webhost : Goddady and I can not find the EZ Populate under Admin, and go to Tools -> EasyPopulate 4? I have the newest version installed.

mc12345678:

Recognize them in what way? What is to be done if "recognized"? If there is a "character" or character sequence that initiates bolding and one that ends it, there is a sort of conversion function that could substitute the html bold character sequence as applicable. Though most csv generating processes remove character formatting so that it is only text. If though there is a utf8 character code for a bolded character then that would be most likely to what you are/were referring. I could be wrong, though the above question also is a little loosey goosey as well. :)

I see now that using <strong> ,etc, I get what I want.
Thanks

It looks like it is an additional module that I was not aware of

https://www.zen-cart.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=986

Would this be the correct d/l for the current ZEN cart version ?

treeoflife:

It looks like it is an additional module that I was not aware of

https://www.zen-cart.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=986

Would this be the correct d/l for the current ZEN cart version ?

It would be a version that offers some form of Easy Populate operation (though reportedly only operational up to ZC 1.5.1 based on the plugin's download page), but it is not the version applicable to this thread. This thread relates to the EasyPopulate V4, which is applicable for ZC 1.3.9 through 1.5.5x.

treeoflife:

I installed my Zen cart thru webhost applications, webhost : Goddady and I can not find the EZ Populate under Admin, and go to Tools -> EasyPopulate 4? I have the newest version installed.

If the latest version of EP4 (downloadable from here) is "installed" and the above issue is occurring, then I would suggest verifying that the files have been loaded to the correct location. The files (and folders) of the download's admin directory are to go into your (renamed) admin directory. Once they are placed there, then on next navigation of the admin window, an option should appear in the tools menu to initiate access to Easy Populate 4.

As to your install from your host, suggest that you attempt to go through a checkout process to verify that all necessary/applicable files and database options have been applied. Most "auto-installers" (none are written by ZC) seem to miss one or more things. The suggested route is to manually install the software available from this forum website at the home page. That installation though should not effect the ability to install EP4.

what I'm using:
zen-cart-v1.5.4-12302014
EasyPopulate-4.0-master
Minimum Order
MSRP_Display_1_for_ZC_4
responsive_sheffield_blue_2.0.templete

ALL was working Great for about 8 months, I've done 2-3 updates per month of almost 4,000 products with this Great Addon.... did a major update of products from a downloaded csv file via EP4 with openoffice cal...

Problem is... On some, only parts of the product descriptions were updated.. most died mid word.. there are NO special characters, No html coding in some that dies and even ones that worked before didn't work this time...

any hints where to start looking for a fix would be Greatly appreciated...

William

Remember if it's not fun, Don't do it...

Although stated that using easypopulate-4.0-master, that doesn't provide the version number associated with the install which could be important in relation to what is happening.

My guess though from the provided information is that when importing the single file that contains what looks like ~4,000 rows of data, is that the import timed out and only what had been transferred to that point survived/was written. When such an issue occurs there are several options made available by the software (though some servers may not support all built in options). For one, the import file can be split at a pre-determined number of rows per file. (this is one that is an option that is not so server dependent). The timeout period can be extended for EP4 as well as for ZC; however, some server configurations may not respect the request to extend those durations.

The other possibility is that the content of these descriptions includes characters (however non-special they may be) that need to be escaped such as quoted content. Or perhaps as experienced above the file was not saved as utf8 and therefore some of the character codes while not exactly "special" were incompatible with the character set used by EP4.

Then there is the debug.txt file that may exist in the EP4 file storage directory. If it is present, then at some point since it was last removed there was a problem with an import file. Recommendation would be to download it for temporary keeping, delete the file from the server and attempt to import a "trouble" file and see if it gets generated again. If so, then address that issue.

As to version information again, when in the tools->EP4 window the upper left area should identify a version number. Please provide that for information.

Thank you mc12345678... My Bad.... it was the language and utf8.. changed these and everything flowed like it did before. took 54 seconds to update 3,978 items... I truly love this addon ... saves so much work
and the version is:
Easy Populate 4.0.30 - Beta 06-27-2015

Thanks again.......

hivtop:

Thank you mc12345678... My Bad.... it was the language and utf8.. changed these and everything flowed like it did before. took 54 seconds to update 3,978 items... I truly love this addon ... saves so much work
and the version is:
Easy Populate 4.0.30 - Beta 06-27-2015

Thanks again.......
As was suggested to jkenwell, the version should be updated to 4.0.36.ZC or newer. Upgrade should be as easy as uploading the new files, then when on the tools->easy Populate 4 screen, select the upgrade link in the upper right hand corner and tada...

hahaha.. why did I know someone would tell me to "update"... will do it... BUT... after 40 years of working on computers, my motto is: "If it ain't Broke, why fix it".. LMAO The only problems I've had with this fine addon is "My own fault"... hahaha

uploading a product broke my site?

i was able to download a product that i entered from the admin page. i have only 1 product in 1 category which is named in both english and chinese. i was able to see category_name_1 in chinese in the csv file.

i then created a simple csv file, removing only a few columns such as item available date, item expiration date, etc. enter both chinese and english item names and descriptions. upload and import.

after that, my new home page is totally broken. "best sellers", "new products", etc are gone. no new product shows up. i then proceeded to upload the same product with v_status=9, and that deleted even the existing product...

i tried empty tables "products" and "product_description" in phpmyadmin, but that didnt do anything.

how do i fix this?

Should have been able to also see category_name_2 (or some other number depending on the language installation/removal history).

Perhaps some basic questions in addition to some other information to gather:
Are you using product_model (default) as the primary key (configuration->Easy Populate 4) and was there a model provided in the new upload?
Is/was the products_model (or other primary key if chosen) the same as the original product?

In the setup of your site (including language files) is utf8 or another character set used?

If the original file is imported (not edited but as stored on the server) does the product return to the site?

If the edited file is again uploaded but this time to include the date fields that had been removed and verified to have a different primary key, does the product appear as desired?

Before attempting this for this first time, were there other product in other categories and have they been affected? (ask because that is not fully clear based on the above report of having 1 product in 1 category but then no items appear in the other sub-groups.)

Also, what was the source of the download of the program?

sorry, i was not clear enough.

i downloaded both ep3 and the language pack from here. both and zen cart are the newest versions.

i just realized that i did not have primary key set. (so the default is products_model.) i did not specify product model (the 1st column). i did have category_name_2 in english (category_name_1 in chinese).

i never specified any character set or utf8. i just set default as chinese on the admin page. the ep4 admin page does show
Internal Character Encoding: UTF-8
DB Collation: utf8

now i set the primary key as "blank_new", added back the columns i deleted but left blank. after importing, i get the product with english title and description, regardless of my browser language... and the home page layout still is messed up, including e.g., 'Categories' shoing up as 'HEADER_TITLE_CATEGORIES', 'privacy policy' shows up as 'FOOTER_PRIVACY'.

gdtw:

sorry, i was not clear enough.

i downloaded both ep3 and the language pack from here. both and zen cart are the newest versions.

i just realized that i did not have primary key set. (so the default is products_model.) i did not specify product model (the 1st column). i did have category_name_2 in english (category_name_1 in chinese).

i never specified any character set or utf8. i just set default as chinese on the admin page. the ep4 admin page does show
Internal Character Encoding: UTF-8
DB Collation: utf8

now i set the primary key as "blank_new", added back the columns i deleted but left blank. after importing, i get the product with english title and description, regardless of my browser language... and the home page layout still is messed up, including e.g., 'Categories' shoing up as 'HEADER_TITLE_CATEGORIES', 'privacy policy' shows up as 'FOOTER_PRIVACY'.

Those last identified issues are related to definitions existing for the defined language(s) and/or the assignment of a language to its associated language folder. EP4 does not modify the database language assignments, therefore it would appear that the define for the associate language and page has been modified, moved or removed which is unrelated to the import/export of data using EP4.

Is there a way to add custom product fields into a NEW table (ie:) zen_products_custom that will work with EP4 import/export?

Thanks

~D

djdavedawson:

Is there a way to add custom product fields into a NEW table (ie:) zen_products_custom that will work with EP4 import/export?

Thanks

~D
Of course there is, though it would require some coding to do. There is/was a plan to add the capability directly into the user defined field of the admin configuration; however, there have been some other things to address before fuly delving into that.

There are notifiers throughout the import and export code that support I think all related operations that are going on. Using/having some sort of relational key one can add observer operations, collect/use/manipulate the data and affect the desired table(s).

My suggestion is to begin working on the export before the import (though thinking about what will be needed to support the import while generating the export).

Also suggest taking a look at what/how mesnitu has incorporated the bookx product type into EP4 by way of the above mentioned notifier/observer interaction. While there are still some improvements in coding that can be applied, he's come a long way with the effort. I also have something at my website that uses the notifiers/observers to integrate Ceon URI Mapping with EP4, but that's a slightly different story. It does, however, apply changes to a different table than the products table.

Now, all of that was said because the question related to a different table other than the products table. If the field(s) in question are in the products table then simply need to add the field (new_field instead of v_new_field) into the user defined field(s) list.

Thank you for the quick response.

I will start digging into the export for some ideas and to get a feel for how it's written.

As a related followup question, is there a simple way to change the "User Defined Products Fields" to use v_products_description instead of v_products ?

Thanks Again MC

~D

djdavedawson:

Thank you for the quick response.

I will start digging into the export for some ideas and to get a feel for how it's written.

As a related followup question, is there a simple way to change the "User Defined Products Fields" to use v_products_description instead of v_products ?

Thanks Again MC

~D

Clarification of "language", the prefix of v_, as used within Easy Populate, is associated with a field within a table. It appears though by context that the question is if the User Defined Products Fields can instead be User Defined Products Description Fields. So, the "direct" way would be to modify the use/assignment of the table to the User defined ($custom_fields) in both the export and import routines, though currently because the products_description table is language dependent such queries are done within a separate loop when a products_description related field is needed/used instead of pulling in all of the associated data when querying for product specific information. Would need to add a little more to the applicable section of code to actually make use of those custom fields (User defined) against the products_description.

So for example to support the export, the query related information to generate the "header" of the file is located in admin/includes/modules/easypopulate_4_filelayout.php, the custom_fields would still need to be included in $file_layout relatively as they currently are, though would need to be addressed as part of a language dependence and be further generated to support the language identifier. Hhowever, within the same file the custom_fields are assigned against the products table through code similar to below, such that in the full product export (if not most of the areas) look for this or something like it where the actual field data is pulled/identified:

    if (count($custom_fields) > 0) { // User Defined Products Fields
      foreach ($custom_fields as $field) {
        if ($chosen_key != 'v_' . $field) {
          $filelayout_sql .= 'p.'.$field.' as v_'.$field.',';
        }
      }
      unset($field);
    }

Basically, and without a truly deep dive the above code would need to be commented out because the associated fields would no longer be a part of the product table.

Then in the export file the additional field(s) would need to be addressed as part of the language loop(s). All of the fields from the products_description table are retrieved; however, not all are specifically used (but because they are available they could be tapped into somewhere at/around line 375 of admin/easypopulate_4_export.php within the foreach loop. doing something like this:

foreach ($custom_fields as $custom_field) {
      $row['v_' . $custom_field . '_' . $lid2] = $row2[$custom_field];
}

This would then be processed such that the array key would be verified against the file_layout records and pushed to the export file... Then a similar reverse process would be needed for the import. But, "unfortunately" it is not as quick of a fix as I had originally considered, but it is still doable.

Hope that helps at least a little.

Hi
Speaking of custom fields, do you think ti would be possible to also add some modifiers to priceqty file layout?
This file is quite good to manage import / export prices / stocks, specials, etc... as the name of the file suggests :)
But with a notifier, one could easily add some more or less fields to it.
Recently I had to do it, and making a new file layout for a couple of fields, would almost duplicate the same file operations, it 's not worth it. I think...maybe I'm wrong, because I have a huuuuuge filelayout for books that takes all the courage of making another one. Actually never try to make a simple one.
Anyway, a suggestion.

Best regards