Easy Populate 1.2.5.4 support

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.

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...

schoolboy:

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.

Thanks, Chad....I do use OO but only because I'm more familar with Excel do I use it also. However, I am transitioning to OO as each time I load (import!) my ul file into Excel Excel adds (each time) quotemarks to many of my product descriptions. After awhile it reached a point my descriptions were a mess. I searched out an application that would remove them all from my descripts (ported the descripts to Word to do this). Only problem now is I have no inch marks (quotes) at the end of my product sizes but no biggie unless I can find an app that will selectively put them back just on my dimensions. I noticed single quotes (aposthro's) will really cut a description short if they're used. Same thing applies to the product name if they're used in the name.

EZ is quite finicky about a lot of things. My entire list (2000+) wouldn't import even though EZ said it uploaded ok. Found that the fields containing the EOREOR had a leading space at the beginning of EOREOR. Once I removed that space my list ported fine.

All in all EZ is pretty cool for large product lists. Still learning all it's quirks.

Earnest,

You may want to experiment with text encoding on import into both excel and OO. They both default to different encodings. This can be a real pig-sticker if you use copywrite and trademark symbols. I use inch mark in descriptions without issue, but don't rember is I have apostrophes.

The one thing about OO is that on export of a tab-delimited file, it properly encapsulates each field. Excel with not do this, but "intelligently" skip quote encapsulation. I've seen this cause problems, but my situation may be further complicated as I am predominately working on mac these days.

Phazie's CSV version (his original, not the later mods that have problem issues) may be worth a look. It does have a bug or two like 1.2.5.4, but I found it workable.

-cj

When I first started experimenting with EZ all my product descripts had a quote at each end. I ported the list to Zen and not one descript showed (all blank). No biggie as I had just installed my store and was setting it up. All the other product attributes such as price, quantity, etc. came through fine. So quotes (inch marks) don't work for me. Neither do trademark or copyrights. I had one product containing the word "cafe" with the accent mark above the letter 'e'. All I got in Zen was the caf.... so in my case I have to be very careful in what my names and descripts contain. Using a small shareware application that does global character adding and removing in MS Word documents I just copy and paste my name and descript columns into a temporary Word document and I've been able to remove most of these types of characters quickly in a listing of over 2000 products. As an example, I just replace a quote mark with in. for inch and it works OK.

To save re-uploading all my images again if I'm playing with EZ and EZ deletes them (using the status=9 function) or I have to remove categories and products through my own EZ blunder I temporarily rename my images directories first. Example: images to tempimages, images/large to tempimages/templarge, etc. Zen admin squawks that it can't find those folders but it's only temporary. Once I'm finished with my category/product editing I rename them back to their original directory names and all my images are retained and I'm saved from FTPing them all over again.

I think I have EZ fine-tuned for my needs now, now that I understand what it accepts (and doesn't).

Rod
http://earnest-enterprises.com

Hi, i'm looking for some folks who want to more actively develop/cleanup this module? is anybody interested? You can chat with me here.http://speeqe.com/room/[email protected]/

It's just a web interface to a standard xmpp/jabber/gtalk mutliuser chat room, so feel free to join with a regular client as well.

I am currently committing to a local git repository and would love to share some of my changes with people :)

I just installed what looks like the newest version of EP 1.2.5.7b

This is the Easy Populate CSV version.

It all installed fine, and the directions dont seem to really explain how to start except to download the complete CSV file.

So I assumed one had to first click the create complete CSV file?? Upon doing this i got this error.

Warning: mysql_fetch_array(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /home2/fusionsp/public_html/******/easypopulate.php on line 852
Success File Full-EP2009Dec17-0909.csv successfully exported! The file is ready for download in your /tempEP/ directory.
Warning An SQL error has occured. Please check your input data for tabs within fields and delete these. If this error continues, please forward your error log to the Easy Populate maintainer
I looked at the log file and it shows this.
MySQL error 1054: Unknown column 'p.EASYPOPULATE_CONFIG_CUSTOM_FIELDS' in 'field list'
When executing:
SELECT
p.products_id as v_products_id,
p.products_model as v_products_model,
p.products_image as v_products_image,
p.products_price as v_products_price,
p.products_weight as v_products_weight,
p.products_last_modified as v_last_modified,
p.products_date_added as v_date_added,
p.products_tax_class_id as v_tax_class_id,
p.products_quantity as v_products_quantity,
p.manufacturers_id as v_manufacturers_id,
subc.categories_id as v_categories_id,
p.products_status as v_status,
p.metatags_title_status as v_metatags_title_status,
p.metatags_products_name_status as v_metatags_products_name_status,
p.metatags_model_status as v_metatags_model_status,
p.metatags_price_status as v_metatags_price_status,
p.metatags_title_tagline_status as v_metatags_title_tagline_status, p.EASYPOPULATE_CONFIG_CUSTOM_FIELDS as v_EASYPOPULATE_CONFIG_CUSTOM_FIELDS FROM
products as p,
categories as subc,
products_to_categories as ptoc
WHERE
p.products_id = ptoc.products_id AND
ptoc.categories_id = subc.categories_id

Is this how I should have started doing the upload? If so, what does this error mean?

I am trying to prepare a ZC site for adding products via Easy Populate.\

I have set up all of the various product categories, but only have added a handful of actual products in a couple of different categories, manually.

When I export the CSV file via EP, only the categories that contain products are seen. The categories that lack products are not in the CSV file.

Is this normal? Do I have to add at least one product in each category before exporting? Or am I missing something?

TIA

pixelwrangler:

I am trying to prepare a ZC site for adding products via Easy Populate.\

I have set up all of the various product categories, but only have added a handful of actual products in a couple of different categories, manually.

When I export the CSV file via EP, only the categories that contain products are seen. The categories that lack products are not in the CSV file.

Is this normal? Do I have to add at least one product in each category before exporting? Or am I missing something?

TIA

Empty categories will not be included in the file... normal behaviour.

Secondly...I just tried to click on the download complete CSV file and it took me to this??

Warning: mysql_fetch_array(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /home2/fusionsp/public_html/*****/easypopulate.php on line 852

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home2/fusionsp/public_html//easypopulate.php:852) in /home2/fusionsp/public_html//easypopulate.php on line 1200

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home2/fusionsp/public_html/*/easypopulate.php:852) in /home2/fusionsp/public_html//easypopulate.php on line 1201

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home2/fusionsp/public_html//easypopulate.php:852) in /home2/fusionsp/public_html//easypopulate.php on line 1205

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home2/fusionsp/public_html/*/easypopulate.php:852) in /home2/fusionsp/public_html//easypopulate.php on line 1209
v_products_model,v_products_image,v_products_name_1,v_products_description_1,v_products_url_1,v_specials_price,v_specials_last_modified,v_specials_expires_date,v_products_price,v_products_weight,v_last_modified,v_date

Rather use EP 1.2.5.4

See my WIKI:

http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.php/Easy_Populate

schoolboy:

Rather use EP 1.2.5.4

See my WIKI:

http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.php/Easy_Populate

ok but the csv version doesnt have a uninstall sql? any directions as to how to properly remove a mod? My old template had sooo many extra useless mods that i couldnt figure out how to get rid of.

And if i dont get rid of this, how do i install the older version?

fusionsp:

ok but the csv version doesnt have a uninstall sql? any directions as to how to properly remove a mod? My old template had sooo many extra useless mods that i couldnt figure out how to get rid of.

And if i dont get rid of this, how do i install the older version?

It looks like the csv version creates the same dbase tables as 1.2.5.4 so there's no need to do a SQL uninstall.

All you need do is remove the php FILES, and you do this via your FTP program.

In the left frame (local drive) open up EP CSV version module admin folder and see what sub-folders and files are there (something like includes, then inside that, boxes, extra_datafiles, functions, languages.

In the right frame (remote server), navigate to the identical folders and simply delete the "macthing" php files that are appearing in your left frame for EP-csv. Do not delete the FOLDERS on the server... just the EP files inside them...

In other words, you are using the ORIGINAL module files on your local drive as a GUIDE to see what must come off your server.

EP 1.2.5.4 comes with a admin and a temp folder when you unzip the mod download. There are some EXTRA FILES there, but ignore them.

NB: you do NOT need to run the install.sql file unless you have problems getting EP to auto-run it later. See the readme... EP 1.2.5.4 ONLY needs the "admin" folder ftp'd... nothing else

Now... if you already have a folder called "tempEP" on your server (that was being used by the CSV version), you can keep it there, or re-name it to just temp.

(If you keep it as tempEP, you'll LATER change/check the EP configuration in your shop admin panel to make sure you have the correct name specified.)

If you have re-named YOUR SERVER's admin folder to something else, then remember to re-name the "admin" folder in ep to the same name.

So, you will have this scenario on your FTP program, with EP 1.2.5.4 in the left frame and your server in the right frame

LEFT . . . . . . .| RIGHT
admin . . . . . | admin
temp . . . . . . | cache
install.txt . . . | editors
install.sql . . . | email
license.txt . . .| extras
readme.txt . . | includes

... just ftp the admin folder on the left, to the right, by clicking the right-facing arrow in the FTP console.

Then... follow my WIKI tutorial on Easy Populate.

How do you replace the line breaks in an excel spreadsheet with <br /> tags? I'm trying to do an edit/replace but the line breaks are not visable in excel.

I'm trying to import descriptions with Easy Populate but having problems with excell formatted text.

Thanks

Has anyone found a solution to this issue? I've been searching and have not been able to find any.

To clarify the problem:

You have old items in your database and are uploading updates to those items. the Date added column auto updates to todays date. Hence making all old items appear new and show up under new products side box.

I use zen-cart 1.3.8a
and ez populate 1.2.5.4

thanks in advance

Michael C.

pritchb:

How do you replace the line breaks in an excel spreadsheet with <br /> tags? I'm trying to do an edit/replace but the line breaks are not visable in excel.

I'm trying to import descriptions with Easy Populate but having problems with excell formatted text.

Thanks

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=144306 (See my post #4)

A few notes converning CSV files:

A number of people are having issues with CSV files (phazie's version, and the latter hacks to it) so I just wanted to relay a few notes from what I've noticed in my own work.

Working with CSV files is convenient ... you download your CSV file, and double-click it to edit ... then click "save" and upload... WRONG!!

You cannot just click "save". You must use "save as" and from the drop down box and select "CSV Windows". Just clicking "save" will put the file in microsoft's version of a CSV file, and this will not import correctly into EP!

Now, lets say you use OpenOffice to edit the CSV... look at the import window on open. Most people just click through and are fine. HOWEVER, if you have any special characters like (R) (C) tm the degree symbol, you must make sure your character set matches your data. OO will default to UTF-8 ... but most websites (in the US) will be Western ISO-8859-1. If you try to upload UTF-8 data to an western iso-8859-1 website, you will get "funky characters". This has to do with your databases and what collation they are in.

You can check your database collation by going into your phpMyAdmin and picking the products database, then "structure". You will see a "Collation" column. This in most cases will be latin1_swedish_ci which is compatible with iso-8859-1.

This perhaps sounds complicated, but it really isn't ... it's just a matter of knowing what your databases is going to export (say you typed descriptions in the zencart admin) or what type of data your vendor supplier is giving you.

HTML also has special characters that you can use in place of the extended characters. So, for the (R) registered symbol, you can use the HTML equivalent ® There are HTML equivalents for (R) (C) tm the degree symbol and more. Just google it.

Also. There is a big difference between normal single and double quotes and SMART QUOTES. Be sure you use the standard " and not the smart quote equivalent for your delimiter!

If you want to use a lot of special symbols and smart quotes, I recommend using OpenOffice.

Exporting CSV data from OO:
Once your data is ready, you select "save as" from the main menu, "Text CSV (.csv)" from the File type drop menu AND check "edit filter settings". You need to make sure you have the proper Character set selected!!! For CSV file, you would use the comma for your Field Delimiter and for TAB delimited files (aka .txt files for 1.2.5.4) select {TAB}.

The nice thing about OO is it will properly delimit every field with " (or what ever you choose). Excel will NOT do this!!!! It tries to be smart and in the end often causes problems.

Now the clincher. These notes are very pertinent if you are using a MAC. I have not verified on the PC yet, but I imagine everything would still apply. I think the CSV files on Windows normally export as "CSV Windows" but have not had a chance to check this. Windows users have it a bit better because they don't have the Mac end-of-line recognition problem that some mac users have encountered.

Hope this info helps!

Oh. Just remembered. If you look at your text data and see a lot of funky characters, try changing your font to Lucidia Sans Unicode. This is a good way to see if your data is in UTF-8.

i downloaded the .csv file that had the products i had inputted manually, added new products to the list (in Excel), saved as .csv and tried to upload the new list. it goes through all of the old products fine but stops at the new items with a SQL error.

" An SQL error has occured. Please check your input data for tabs within fields and delete these. If this error continues, please forward your error log to the Easy Populate maintainer" at the top of the screen.

The first item were the error occurs says "ADD NEW PRODUCT FAILED! - Model: WCA4540 - SQL error. Check Easy Populate error log in uploads directory".

i have checked to make sure that the new item looks the same (column-wise) in Excel as the previous entry (old product) but i can't see anything that would stop it there. any help would be appreciated. :lookaroun

meandk0610:

i downloaded the .csv file that had the products i had inputted manually, added new products to the list (in Excel), saved as .csv and tried to upload the new list. it goes through all of the old products fine but stops at the new items with a SQL error.

" An SQL error has occured. Please check your input data for tabs within fields and delete these. If this error continues, please forward your error log to the Easy Populate maintainer" at the top of the screen.

The first item were the error occurs says "ADD NEW PRODUCT FAILED! - Model: WCA4540 - SQL error. Check Easy Populate error log in uploads directory".

i have checked to make sure that the new item looks the same (column-wise) in Excel as the previous entry (old product) but i can't see anything that would stop it there. any help would be appreciated. :lookaroun

if you have any non-empty cells after the last column you can get this behavior. check your .csv file with a text editor like notepad to see it still is correct. And also note my previous post above.

All else fails, attached some of the offending data so we can see it.

Version: 1.3.8 no upgrade
Previously installed add-ons: ez seo, stock by attribute
OS: Linux

:::PROBLEM:::
The below Warnings and Fatal error keeps occurring. I can login into the admin area just fine, only when I try accessing the EasyPopulate Module. eg(when i go to admin=>tools=>easypopulate, and CLICK)

eg(http://www.*************.com/admin/easypopulate.php)
it gives me those follow lines of error....

Warning: Unknown: failed to open stream: Permission denied in Unknown on line 0

Fatal error: Unknown: Failed opening required '///public_html/admin/easypopulate.php' (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in Unknown on line 0

:: MY CURRENT STATE OF MIND ::
I was going to create my own script, but do to my time constrant, i figure zencart should have an addon for this use, but I cant get this one to work. Now after burning many hours of trying to get this to work, I'm now on a even tighter time constrant and now asking you fellow Zenners for some assistants.

:: THE QUESTIONs ::
Have anyone ran into this same PROBLEM and have found a SOLUTION?
what exactly is the problem, the error is point me to line 0 but all i see is "<?php " ???

THANKS AHEAD OF TIME FOR ANY ASSISTANT