EasyPopulate 4.0 Support Thread

chadderuski:

It may be possible, but I will have to know more about this "variations" thing. If you could point me to the exact area where you add or edit this.
Also, is it part of a mod you installed and not the default installation?

Thanks!

If I am not mistaken it was a mod called Stock by Attributes

Hello!
Sorry to ask if it already has been but upon skimming this thread I couldn't see an answer.
I put my prices into easy populate with tax, so when I uploaded them into the website they added tax again. Is there a was to make the prices in easy populate the gross price, not the net?

Thanks
Kerry

Hi,
Great comments and great Add-On!
However, I am having difficulty understanding how to upload new categories. I understand the use of "^" as a separator to show the destination category of a product, —once the categories are present— but I'm not sure how to upload the categories initially.
Which template is used? (I'm assuming it's the 'CategroyMeta-EP2012')
Do I need to add more "v_categories_names_1, 2, 3, etc? Or do I simply put the string with the "^' separator under the "v_categories_names_1" column and let EP4 do the rest?
Do I need to assign v_categories_id?

Sorry, for being so thick, but I don;t quite understand from your instructions.

"Categories are handled differently from other versions of EP. You can now import multilingual categories (Like Products Names, descriptions, etc.).
To achieve this, each v_categories_names_1, v_categories_names_2, etc. correspond to a language installed in your system, and individual category
names are separated by the Carat "^" symbol. For Example: Bar Supplies^Glass Washers^Brushes"

Different Top categories have different depths of sub-categories.

Thanks

Gordo

Hi,

Just discovered this mod. Fantastic effort on creating an improved version for 1.5 but I have a tiny problem. I don’t know if this is specific to me, or if others have had the same issue.

Product Descriptions that are lengthy are not fully uploading.

What I Did:-

1. Installed on EP4 a 1.3.9h site.
   1.1) downloaded CSV of products.
   1.2) checked data and all was goooood, nothing missing.

2. Installed EP4 on a 1.5 site.
   2.1) uploaded said CSV file.
   2.2) checked data and all seemed goooood, but on products that have long descriptions, only the first few words of the description uploaded.

No error messages were returned during upload. No errors in my cache folder.

Nostragordus:

Hi,
Great comments and great Add-On!
However, I am having difficulty understanding how to upload new categories. I understand the use of "^" as a separator to show the destination category of a product, —once the categories are present— but I'm not sure how to upload the categories initially.
Which template is used? (I'm assuming it's the 'CategroyMeta-EP2012')
Do I need to add more "v_categories_names_1, 2, 3, etc? Or do I simply put the string with the "^' separator under the "v_categories_names_1" column and let EP4 do the rest?
Do I need to assign v_categories_id?

Sorry, for being so thick, but I don;t quite understand from your instructions.

"Categories are handled differently from other versions of EP. You can now import multilingual categories (Like Products Names, descriptions, etc.).
To achieve this, each v_categories_names_1, v_categories_names_2, etc. correspond to a language installed in your system, and individual category
names are separated by the Carat "^" symbol. For Example: Bar Supplies^Glass Washers^Brushes"

Different Top categories have different depths of sub-categories.

Thanks

Gordo

Hi Gordo.

The CategroyMeta-EP file is not used to create new categories, but to allow you to edit and upload your meta tags for existing categories. I'll have to check, but I thought my documentation was clean on this.

You don't have to create your categories in advance. When you add a new product, you simply define the path that you want it to be in, and EP4 will create that category structure on import.

caffeitalia:

Hi,

Just discovered this mod. Fantastic effort on creating an improved version for 1.5 but I have a tiny problem. I don’t know if this is specific to me, or if others have had the same issue.

Product Descriptions that are lengthy are not fully uploading.

What I Did:-

1. Installed on EP4 a 1.3.9h site.
   1.1) downloaded CSV of products.
   1.2) checked data and all was goooood, nothing missing.

2. Installed EP4 on a 1.5 site.
   2.1) uploaded said CSV file.
   2.2) checked data and all seemed goooood, but on products that have long descriptions, only the first few words of the description uploaded.

No error messages were returned during upload. No errors in my cache folder.

Did you install EP4 on the 1.3.9h site?
Did you re-save the CSV that was exported from the 1.3.9h site after checking it?
If you edited the CSV (or resaved an open one), did you use OpenOffice to do this? MS Excel is not the best to use for making CSV files.

It sounds like you may have a character in your descriptions that is confusing the script. This can happen if the v_products_descriptions_1 column is not properly delimited when you edit and re-save the CSV file in excel depending in which version of CSV you pick (native/dos/windows). OpenOffice will properly encapsulate all fields when you save your CSV.

If you can post or PM me a few rows of your data file with the problematic data, I'll be able to help better.

You should be able to Export a CSV and turn around and Import the same CSV with no error (you never opened the file).

-chadd

kezerb:

Hello!
Sorry to ask if it already has been but upon skimming this thread I couldn't see an answer.
I put my prices into easy populate with tax, so when I uploaded them into the website they added tax again. Is there a was to make the prices in easy populate the gross price, not the net?

Thanks
Kerry

Hi Kerry,

Hmmm. Yes, I never quite understood why EP 1.2.5.4 would allow you to upload price with tax, only to calculate the price without tax before inserting into the database, or why that would be useful. But I left this code in place. I figured this may help in other countries. In the US, better to calculate tax at checkout.

Go to Configuration -> Easy Populate 4 and set "Upload/Download Prices Include Tax" to true. Test that and let me know if that works for you as expected.

Hi, thank you for replying!

I just typed a huge step by step guide to what I did and attached the file you requested. But Zen Cart website timed out on 'posting' the message and it was lost! :(

so in brief. I used open office, i did not make any changes to the .csv file.

Please find attached the .csv file i use. I have removed all the rows with exception of two products that failed to have their 'descriptions' fully uploaded. Happy to upload publicly so it may benefit the community as there is no sensitive data.

I have also just renamed the file now, to make sure I post the correct file. It was not renamed for the upload to the test 1.5 website.

the .csv file failed to attach.

caffeitalia:

Please find attached the .csv file i use. I have removed all the rows with exception of two products that failed to have their 'descriptions' fully uploaded. Happy to upload publicly so it may benefit the community as there is no sensitive data.

I have also just renamed the file now, to make sure I post the correct file. It was not renamed for the upload to the test 1.5 website.

Hi! Thank you for posting the data. This makes trouble shooting much easier for me!

This is what the problem is: Smart Quotes! and you are moving from character set ISO-8859-1 to UTF-8 ...

This is not a perfect fix, but it will get your data into Zencart.

1. IMPORTANT: When you open your file with OO, be sure to select your Character Set "Western Europe (ISO-8859-1)
2. You will now be able to see your smart quotes around the word "green"
3. To make life simple, change these smart quotes to plain quotes or add some html formating like <i>green</i> if you want to offset them.
4. IMPORTANT: When you save, be sure to check "Edit filter Settings" and make sure your character set it UTF-8.

I am not sure how effective OpenOffice is with converting character sets. What I got was not perfect, but would import. Instead, you may want to convert the smart quotes manually.

Awesome... you learn something new every day!
Thank you!

Hello chadderuski,

thanks for making easy populate work with 1.5!

At the moment I'm running 1.3.7 but I'm redesigning my site and upgrading to 1.5 at the same time. I clean installed 1.5 using the database upgrade so that my categories and products and descriptions would be intact, which they are. However, when I installed your version of easy populate and downloaded the csv in a few of the descriptions where I had used ... (dot dot dot) … appeared instead.

Whats going on and how do I fix it and stop it happening again?

davowave:

Hello chadderuski,

thanks for making easy populate work with 1.5!

At the moment I'm running 1.3.7 but I'm redesigning my site and upgrading to 1.5 at the same time. I clean installed 1.5 using the database upgrade so that my categories and products and descriptions would be intact, which they are. However, when I installed your version of easy populate and downloaded the csv in a few of the descriptions where I had used ... (dot dot dot) … appeared instead.

Whats going on and how do I fix it and stop it happening again?

You have a similar situation as caffeitalia, but with ... (which is call "ellipsis").

Here is a good article on the problem:

http://www.toao.net/48-replacing-smart-quotes-and-em-dashes-in-mysql

You can do a manual edit and do a search/replace in a good PLAIN text editor and use the html equivalent which is …

These conversion issues are common when moving from iso-8859-1 to utf8. I have an update I'm posting soon that will help with some multi-byte character issues, but I'll have to look at these problematic characters more closely.

Hope this helps!
chadd

PS! Be sure to read the notes on using OpenOffice. OpenOffice will let you select your character set on import/export of your csv file. Excel will NOT!

caffeitalia:

Awesome... you learn something new every day!
Thank you!

Glad this helped. Be sure to read the above linked article - very useful info.

Concerning Curly Quotes, EmDash, Ellipsis, etc...

I have a solution that may help people deal with this. Will include in my next push to Github. Basically, I'm going to add an option to EP4's Configuration page that will let you choose whether to leave these characters as is at import, change to simplified versions, or replace with HTML equivalents (best choice in my opinion).

I hope to be able to push the next update withing the next couple of days.

-Chadd

Congrats Chadd on your success with EP4. :clap:

I had an indirect exposure to your work about a year ago when checking in with JRobeson on his project.

I am testing EP4 in a new install of ZC1.5 that must use attributes. Basic import of standard products/descriptions using EP4 seems to work fine.

My tests with attributes are not successful, until I change the filename beginning to your sample name: Attrib-EP-xxxx

I also used the file structure in the sample (single line per product, only the 4 columns, desired attributes in one column, separate by commas).

The results info at the bottom of the screen shows no updates/no adds, but the items do in fact update.

Adding price is critical. I'll test some of the other attrib options. Any other filename beginnings that should be used with other columns added?

Stan

VideoStan:

Congrats Chadd on your success with EP4. :clap:

I had an indirect exposure to your work about a year ago when checking in with JRobeson on his project.

I am testing EP4 in a new install of ZC1.5 that must use attributes. Basic import of standard products/descriptions using EP4 seems to work fine.

My tests with attributes are not successful, until I change the filename beginning to your sample name: Attrib-EP-xxxx

I also used the file structure in the sample (single line per product, only the 4 columns, desired attributes in one column, separate by commas).

The results info at the bottom of the screen shows no updates/no adds, but the items do in fact update.

Adding price is critical. I'll test some of the other attrib options. Any other filename beginnings that should be used with other columns added?

Stan

Hi Stan! How have ya been?

Yeah, Johnny has some awesome stuff in his code. Haven't been in touch for some time. I don't know what he thinks of 1.5. I think zenmagik will have to catchup before he considers supporting 1.5. When I complete attributes for EP4 I'll give him another poke to see if he interested in the code. We had different ideas on how to solve the issue. His were more along the lines of what langer does in his 3.03 version. I have a rant about that somewhere :) ....

You are correct. I do NOT have any nice stats to the attribute import yet. I added the stats so you could turn off "verbose" output for better performance, but since I'm still working hard on the import code so I haven't added stats yet. What "price" are you referring to?

Yes, for Attribute import to work you need to follow naming convention of the file.

I am going to be back on attributes very soon. I got sidetracked fixing the UTF8 multi-byte character handling for multi-lingual categories which I'm going to try to push to github tonight. Then it's back to giving myself monster headaches with attributes!

-chadd

I need to price by attribute. Adding the attributes is good, but have to edit each one to add pricing. All the other attribute issues (default, etc) would be the same, so could set as global (I think).

Looking at your full export, I think it is v_options_values_price.

VideoStan:

I need to price by attribute. Adding the attributes is good, but have to edit each one to add pricing. All the other attribute issues (default, etc) would be the same, so could set as global (I think).

Looking at your full export, I think it is v_options_values_price.

Yes. My plan is to allow simple and complex attribute creation. Simple to create the basic entries and assign to products, complex to make fine adjustments and settings. Trying to do everything at once is very complicated when you take error checking and multiple languages into consideration.

Chadd

is there a way to move products from one category to the other ? I don't want to have
double items in the catalog and I haven't figure out if there is way to do so ?