how to sell high res images allowing download after paying? Gallery2

Another one that is so 'obvious' that it always gets overlooked, is that the integration works by creating a new product type, called Product Type - Gallery Item.
If an image is set to Product Type - General, it wont display a thumbnail, as it knows nothing about getting the image from the Gallery.

Bingo bango (I just made that up)... it works. Thanks to your detailed help. I went into the wee hours working to understand the behaviors between G2 and ZC, and it makes total sense now. Of course it has limitations, but just getting this accomplished is a big deal.

Am not working to understand how to tighten up this very thing you mention below... the relationship of the Categories and the Album names. I seem to have a double naming thing going on in ZC, but hey, I am so much farther down the road than I was two days ago. Everything you pointed to was spot on.

Am certain I will have some niggling questions, but will learn deeper and be able to assist others.

One quick question... have you installed and used harslade's approach into this? Am curious as to your opinion if yes.

Can't thnk you enough for your help in this.

regards

Chuckl:

Another one that is so 'obvious' that it always gets overlooked, is that the integration works by creating a new product type, called Product Type - Gallery Item.
If an image is set to Product Type - General, it wont display a thumbnail, as it knows nothing about getting the image from the Gallery.

Typically, you need to create a Category into which you intend to place all your Gallery 'imports'. An obvious name would be 'Gallery' or 'Galleries'.
This must NOT be the top Zen Cart 'root' category.
You select this in Gallery2 as the Zen Cart folder for gallery items from the dropdown.
Thereafter, as you create Albums and add Images, they will automagically appear in Zencart. Do the work in Gallery.
What you are probably doing is creating standard Zen Cart Categories? Let the software do the work.

I haven't had the time to look over Hareslades work with the attention it deserves, and we did correspond some time back with a view to combining or aligning the contributions. I simply haven't had the time to get back to Paul and make it happen.
Hopefully in the not too distant future.

Rgds,

I have advanced much-ly in the last few days, thanks to your continued responses. Mucho gracias. I have learned a great deal about the behaviors between the applications.

Here's a twist that I thought I would throw out for grins.

Let's say there is a top level domain name like https://www.abc.com

We need to install ZenCart above G2. I got that so far. So, ZC could go into the root directory of this installation i.e. ../public_html/zencart

G2 gets installed in something like

../public_html/zencart/gallery2

I'm making these up of course as one would want to vary the defaults.

Now, G2 has the ability to use permalinks. A nifty way of creating an album and getting right to the the album images i.e. www.abc/zencart/gallery/f/myalbum

However, that is a bit ugly as a URL for say, my mom. And others. It is easier to remember https://www.abc.com/f/myalbum

So, am pondering how to have the TLD point to gallery2 i.e. https://www.abc.com, yet use Zencart in the mix. As I've learned, the URLs need to reside ina specific order else they get royally messed up. I've though about doing redirects, but am not sure how to 'carry' the permalink down to Gallery2 that way.

Dunno if this makes sense, but thought to throw this scenario out there as I chew on how to solve it.

Also, I would always give my mum photos and never charge her for them, of course. Was just the first example that came to mind...

regards, and tx for your help on breaking the ice on the prior installation. Makes total sense now...

Chuckl:

Typically, you need to create a Category into which you intend to place all your Gallery 'imports'. An obvious name would be 'Gallery' or 'Galleries'.
This must NOT be the top Zen Cart 'root' category.
You select this in Gallery2 as the Zen Cart folder for gallery items from the dropdown.
Thereafter, as you create Albums and add Images, they will automagically appear in Zencart. Do the work in Gallery.
What you are probably doing is creating standard Zen Cart Categories? Let the software do the work.

I haven't had the time to look over Hareslades work with the attention it deserves, and we did correspond some time back with a view to combining or aligning the contributions. I simply haven't had the time to get back to Paul and make it happen.
Hopefully in the not too distant future.

Rgds,

I suspect you're right that redirects are the easiest way to do it, possibly as a subdomain?

e.g. http://gallery.abc.com redirected to www/abc/zencart/gallery/ etc etc.

If you own the abc.com domain, you simply add a DNS record for the subdomain gallery.abc.com.

I set up Zen Cart in the root of the domain, i.e. Zencart is https://www.abc.com, and gallery2 as a sub folder, so the gallery becomes https://www.abc.com/gallery2, but there is no hard and fast rule that it has to be that way.

P.S. https://www.abc.com is not the domain, it is the www subdomain of abc.com.

Fantastic. I was thinking about this the wrong way. You are spot on correct in these last two responses. Again, thanks to you, I get it.....

Will go craft a scenario and see how it behaves, but this layout works....

Am I stacking up 'beers owed' to ya? Or something commensurate?

Chuckl:

P.S. https://www.abc.com is not the domain, it is the www subdomain of abc.com.

As an FYI, here's what I did to solve the redirect. I used a domain name like zen.abc.com and then zen.abc.com/gallery2 for the two installations in something like public_html/zen and public_html/zen/gallery2

I then placed an .htaccess file in public_html and used mod_sec to redirect to public_html/zen/gallery2

It works, and it is interesting too as it leaves room for installing an CMS in the root directory as well.

Anyway, just a post to followup on a solution. There may be better ways, but this works.

tx, drhiii

Chuckl:

P.S. https://www.abc.com is not the domain, it is the www subdomain of abc.com.

Fyi.... my method ended up not working. Redirect did not pass the variable to the secondary address. Will keep chewing on how to solve this....

Chuckl:

P.S. https://www.abc.com is not the domain, it is the www subdomain of abc.com.

Here's a new one....

I realize that as objects are imported into ZenCart from G2, the permissions layer in G2 is lost. Everything becomes exposed once it is in ZenCart. Errr... not good if one is running say, a wedding type site where privacy is paramount... keeping families separate. Just musing....

Chuckl:

Typically, you need to create a Category into which you intend to place all your Gallery 'imports'. An obvious name would be 'Gallery' or 'Galleries'.
This must NOT be the top Zen Cart 'root' category.
You select this in Gallery2 as the Zen Cart folder for gallery items from the dropdown.
Thereafter, as you create Albums and add Images, they will automagically appear in Zencart. Do the work in Gallery.
What you are probably doing is creating standard Zen Cart Categories? Let the software do the work.

I haven't had the time to look over Hareslades work with the attention it deserves, and we did correspond some time back with a view to combining or aligning the contributions. I simply haven't had the time to get back to Paul and make it happen.
Hopefully in the not too distant future.

Rgds,

On a default G2 install, everything is visble in G2. Zencart does have the option of requiring logon to view, and there are various ways of restricting products viewed by user.
However, a proposed model for wedding photos and the like was to point the potential customers to the gallery, with a logon for that gallery, allowing them to use the 'purchase options' button in Gallery to switch to Zen Cart. Would probably need some slight mods to the Zen Cart templates, as the 'Back to Gallery' button is currently only visible on the product pages.
This could be added to the shopping cart view, or make add to cart return to the product page for instance.

And, of course by watermarking the pics and limiting the resolution of the viewable pictures - default album setup.

Hello. I'm still mucking around with the prior scenario of getting a TLD to point to G2, and then link back up to ZenCart. The URLs are of course munged, and can't figure out how to resolve that.

In lieu of that, I'd thought about somehow disabling the navigation within Zen Cart so other albums would not be exposed, to prevent viewing. The logic is slightly different that just watermarking to prevent sucking it down. This is not a scenario I am trying to solve for weddings, but it seemed appropriate to describe it.... Family A and Family B have private albums under G2. They are 'hidden' directories that do not require permissions to be set, only that unless the exactly URL to the directory is known, they could not be simply viewed or discovered. It is a reasonable tho weak measure of protection. So Family A can access their content privately but have no clue Family B has an album on the same system. Cool.

However, when Purchase Options are accessed, the tree structure is uncovered and revealed in Zen Cart. This is a problem of course. I thought to solve this, disabling any kind of navigation might be a way... dunno yet until I solve the real problem of the URL and pathway issue.

tx, drhiii

Chuckl:

On a default G2 install, everything is visble in G2. Zencart does have the option of requiring logon to view, and there are various ways of restricting products viewed by user.
However, a proposed model for wedding photos and the like was to point the potential customers to the gallery, with a logon for that gallery, allowing them to use the 'purchase options' button in Gallery to switch to Zen Cart. Would probably need some slight mods to the Zen Cart templates, as the 'Back to Gallery' button is currently only visible on the product pages.
This could be added to the shopping cart view, or make add to cart return to the product page for instance.

Have a look at this mod, which I suspect could be used to present a 'blank' shop, with the customer getting to the right page via a link from the Gallery. I seem to remember there was also another mod that allowed categories by customer. A search on the site here on hide categories or similar might turn it up.

http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?main_page=product_contrib_info&cPath=40_47&products_id=391

Rgds,

Ah, most excellent. I will drill down into this this eve.

Am having the craziest time trying to manage a certain behavior towards creating Categories in ZC and having G2 accept uploads. I've followed to a T the recommended sequence of installation, and then varied it as many ways as I can, and I recall being able to do this a couple of times but I can't repeat it.... that of being able to install ZC, install G2, go all the way through adding the extended table variable for long path names, URL Rewrite in G2, everything, and no matter what sequence I do this in... I get an error when I upload images to any new category like say, Gallery or NewAlbum or whatever. It however works when assigning it to the default ZC Category Top, which the ReadMe's and other materials say Not to do.

Sigh... Scratching my head on this as I've thrown as many variations on the installation sequence as I can think of, and no go... thoughts?

Anyway, I appreciate this continued support, and this mod below looks like a possible solution. Once I get my head around this, I will be able to help others of course.

drhiii

Chuckl:

Have a look at this mod, which I suspect could be used to present a 'blank' shop, with the customer getting to the right page via a link from the Gallery. I seem to remember there was also another mod that allowed categories by customer. A search on the site here on hide categories or similar might turn it up.

http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?main_page=product_contrib_info&cPath=40_47&products_id=391

Rgds,

Trying to do things the hard way again?

When creating a new album in gallery2, set up all the settings for the new album - sizes etc etc, and save it. Head back to the main page, navigate to the new album and select add items. Add away.

Log out of galley, and open Zencart. The newly added album will be there. The Category is created automagically , and all images are likewise added.
I have sometimes received a 404 Page not found on newly added images when I immediately select 'larger image', but this might be a 'sizes' or 'caching' thing. Reselecting it finds it immediately.

Without knowing what error you are getting, it's difficult to be more precise.

Rgds,

Chuck

From the readme:

The Gallery2 install coexists quite happily with the Zencart Image Handler and Lightbox addons, but does NOT interact with them. i.e. They work with products added in the normal way in Zencart, the Gallery2 addon works with the images added in Galley2. See https://www.jep.co.za for the test site, where Galleries images are from Gallery2, and Portfolio images are entered in Zencart.
To get technical this implies that the Gallery2 addon is operating on products of type Product-Gallery, and the IH2 and Lightbox are handling products of type Product-General.

Does anyone have an idea of how to get IH2 and lightbox to address product-gallery as well.

I'm going to start re-vamping my store with gallery soon and changing all the products to murals made from gallery photos.

The ih2 and lightbox would be great to keep.

Thanks. I'll be back for help soon:smile:

Pablosan, the short answer is 'you rewrite Image Handler'.

Image Handler is very hard coded to exactly the Zencart formats, and a Gallery path gives it instant fits. All you get usually is a thumbnail or an error.

Possible solutions are to investigate the Gallery2 options in that regard, it has lightbox, slideshow, etc support, and the minute you click on 'larger image' you are on a Gallery2 page, not a Zencart page, so you can use any Gallery2 feature you like.

From my first comment however, it should be obvious that I am looking at the whole product type thing in my 'copious free time'.

Rgds,

Chuck

I'd here to report that the beta v1.9.1 is so far working ok for me with Gallery v2.2.3 and ZenCart 1.3.7.1.

One thing I don't like is that I had to create a category under Top wherein all my gallery items where synched to. However this makes my users have to drill into an "Art" category instead of having the gallery folders start branching out from Top. Is there a way to do this?

Thank you for developing this. It is a fantastic module to have with the PayPay Express option in the new ZenCart.

Cheers,
Steven

Thank you Steven for the kind words, the credit for developing it goes to Michael Rodriguez-Torrent who developed it for earlier 1.2.X versions of Zen Cart as a Google Summer of Code project.

I simply altered and added to the code to make it work with Zen Cart 1.3.X.

Glad to hear it works for you, the Top level Category problem was not been something I looked at, I simply took Michaels' word for it from the original version. He seemed to think it was pretty fundamental, but I'll take a look when I've got a moment.

Rgds,

Chuck