HOW-TO: Image Preparation

Excuse the complete Newbie question. I have to upload thouands of product images, since I switched from Volusion to Zencart. In Volusion i would FTP the images to my "images" folder. I just went to my Zencart FTp site and cannot find a folder for: images, images/medium and images/large directories.

Where are they? Do I have to create them? Please provide an explicit repsonse for the Zen challenged.

Does Image Handler help with this?

Thank you

Your images folder is in the same directory as your includes and admin folders, the medium and large folders are contained within the images folder. If you don't see an images folder maybe when you uploaded the cart it did not upload completely?

I found them. Thanks, don't know how i did not see them.

Can i create sub directories for my images under "images", by product type:

/public_html/images/baseball/product1.jpg

/public_html/images/basketball/product2.jpg

Then can I upload a csv file for my products with Easy Populate and specify in the product url field:

mystore.com/public_html/images/baseball/product1.jpg and

mystore.com/public_html/images/basketball/product2.jpg

Will my images then show up for those products?

Thanks SOOOO much!

Newbie here, hope some would answer my worry:

How Zen Cart read the images while viewing a product?

What I'm afraid is that I could have 50K products along with their small,medium,large images and it could be reading the folder full of images everytime.

My guest is that is reading the primary file from the database and from here it assume the rest, however would need to confirm this.

Please help.

Hi

I hope someone can help me. I have setup a shop for a client (http://www.actionlens.net/shop) who sells photos, so all his products are images. The problem is, all the images have a set height & width of 100 pixels, regardless of what the actual image sizes are.

I have followed the instructions on this HOWTO, and have the following opsions set:

Calculate Image Size - true
Image - Use Proportional Images on Products and Categories - 1

The moment I disable the width of any image, it gives me images which looks like they could be 1pixels wide. What am I missing?

Doesn't anyone know?

Have you uploaded the images in 3 different sizes to the correct folders or just the 100x100 images to the /images directory? Zen will take a large image and scale it down using the proportions but it will not enlarge a small image unless the larger image is there with the same name and uploaded correctly.

It's all in the placement in directories by sizing the images and then you won't need the proportional images setting at all. Search the forum for calico_cat and you'll find a great tutorial there.

Dalabera I would suggest with that many products and images that you use some subdirectories for your images to keep the folder sizes down to a manageable level and speed up the loading.

I first ran into this problem when managing my images due to FTP limitations where I could only view or work with approx 2000 images. The folder had 10000 images so there were some that could never be seen or worked with.

I'd also suggest the calico cat search and get your 3 different sized images to ease page loading times.

ted:

Have you uploaded the images in 3 different sizes to the correct folders or just the 100x100 images to the /images directory? Zen will take a large image and scale it down using the proportions but it will not enlarge a small image unless the larger image is there with the same name and uploaded correctly.

It's all in the placement in directories by sizing the images and then you won't need the proportional images setting at all. Search the forum for calico_cat and you'll find a great tutorial there.

I'm actually using the ZenCart addon for Gallery2 . So, the images are loaded into Gallery2 (http://www.actionlens.net), and then automatically updloaded to the ZenCart (http://www.actionlens.net/shop). Since this is a photography website, the image sizes differ

With the proportioning you're not going to be able to resize images that are not square to 100x100 without distortion.

One suggestion I saw was to start with a square image size ie: take your 426x640 image and put it on a transparent canvas of 650x650. Then the image size would be square and would resize properly and in proportion.

I'd check for a forum on the mod you're using and ask others that are using it how they handle the settings, I'm not familiar with that mod.

well, that's not what the FAQ's say:

https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=30

Your images are distorted because the images sizes are set to fixed dimensions, both height and width, and if your images are not the same ratio they will appear distorted.

To remedy this situation, open your Admin and point your cursor to Configuration on the menu bar. Chose Images from the dropdown list and click on it. On this page is a list of the various image sizes, choose the image size you wish to edit and set one of the dimensions to 0. Make sure you also set the following two options: Calculate Image Size = true and Use Proportional Images on Products and Categories =1. This will alow your images to be resized according to their own proportions.

Pic Optimizing and Adding Additional Pics Under a Product Description

I'd like to know if I'm on the right path for the following. I want to optimize my pics as discussed in this thread, however, I also need to add additional photos below some of my product descriptions as some products have more than one pic. Here's my logic:

Say my main product pic filename is "mypic.jpg" and after resizing and renaming to optimize I've uploaded the 3 files to :

images/mypic.jpg (100x100 px)
images/medium/mypic_MED.jpg (200x200px)
images/large/mypic_LRG.jpg (400x400px)

All my pics will be these sizes (squared and uniform and the same pixel sizes width and height)

Now, my product has two additional (different) pics but I realize they must be named the same as the main pic but with the numeric extension (01, 02, etc.). Should I be doing this below (naming and uploading to...) after resizing and renaming so they will function properly when clicked under the product description?

for additional pic #2

images/medium/mypic_01_MED.jpg
(the above will show pic #2 as medium sized and static under the description)

images/large/mypic_01_LRG.jpg
(the above will show pic #2 as large sized under the description when clicked on)

for additional pic #3

images/medium/mypic_02_MED.jpg
(the above will show pic #3 as medium sized and static under the description)

images/large/mypic_02_LRG.jpg
(the above will show pic #3 as large sized under the description when clicked on)

Is the above correct to not only optimize them but have them show correctly under the product?

(Think I've had a slight brain freeze trying to write this out....:laugh:)

Thanks for any input!

Bingo! You have the image naming and placement correct and that will work exactly as you expect it to.

Thanks for the quick reply, Ted! That answers my question and it does work great...:clap:

It's amazing how much better the graphics look when optimizing them. I had initially had only one sized pic at 450 x 450. The product image looked a little 'grainy' for lack of a better term probably because it was somewhat compressed in the allotted space. The only pic that looked clean and clear was the 'click for larger' pic. I did set the smaller image size in admin/configuration/images to 100 x 100 where needed but making them uniform in size (i.e., 200 x 200, etc.) helped a lot, as well.

Thanks again...

I have done all of this. Uploaded the images, to large, medium and to images nad I still have no images in my products? Any ideas?

I assume if i am using Image Handler 2 that i don't have to worry about all this Med and LRG and small and it will do it all for me and place the images in its bmz_cache folder ?

does anyone know how to format an image with text surrounding it in zencart on e-z pages?

I want my image to align to the left with text in a column to the right - is it possible to do this via the WYSIWIG interface?

Thanks, Elaine

All of this information has been wonderful! Thanks all!!! I'm a total newbie, so being able to resize my images was awesome. =)

But I still have a problem that I can't find an answer to. When people click on my categories list, I want them to be able to see four products across, not just one.
Here is a link to what I'm trying to change:
http://www.herplayroom.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=20

My friend says it is hard coded and that I can't change the display to be four across instead of one. Any help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!!!!

Look in Admin>Maximum Values and set Categories to List Per Row. As long as your image sizes will fit in a 4 across pattern that will do it.

Sorry Ted - that's incorrect. That's for CATEGORIES, not products.

What's needed here is the installation of the Column Layout (Grid Layout) module available from the downloads section.