How are pictures oganized and what folder to choose?

I am new to zen.
I didnt find any specific information about this question.

When uploading pictures for categories and products, what folder should i upload the picture to?

i see there are folders like attributes, banners, categories etc.

If i upload a category picture, should it be in the folder "category" and so on?

Because when i upload a lot of pictures, how are these organized? Wouldnt it be a mess if i try to find a picture in through ftp or file manager?

So i have to edit the pictures directly in admin->categories/products and not on the server?

Please help me to understand this

Thanks :)

Tutorials/FAQ's in the top nav bar is your resource for these basic often asked questions

https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=224

kobra:

Tutorials/FAQ's in the top nav bar is your resource for these basic often asked questions

https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=224

Thanks for answering. I have read through the manual, but what about making subfolders in the images folder and seeing those folders in admin?.

Here is an example of what i mean:

images/lenses/nikon -> here i will have all the small, medium and large pictures.

In admin i can only see the folders in image directory, not any subfolders.

Anyone knows?

You can make subfolders in your main /images/ folder, and they will show in the product editing page on the right, near the image "browse" line.

You can't put all of your small, medium and large images for a product line in one folder, because Zen Cart will not find them there. The medium images would need to be in /images/medium/lenses/nikon/ and the large images in /images/large/lenses/nikon/. The small images could go in /images/lenses/nikon/.

How many images do you expect to have? Unless you have too many to handle in one folder (a few hundred), they will probably be easier to work with by simply naming them descriptively according to mfr/model/etc., rather than going into lots of subfolders for every single image. At least keep the number of subfolders and levels to a minimum.

gjh42:

You can make subfolders in your main /images/ folder, and they will show in the product editing page on the right, near the image "browse" line.

You can't put all of your small, medium and large images for a product line in one folder, because Zen Cart will not find them there. The medium images would need to be in /images/medium/lenses/nikon/ and the large images in /images/large/lenses/nikon/. The small images could go in /images/lenses/nikon/.

How many images do you expect to have? Unless you have too many to handle in one folder (a few hundred), they will probably be easier to work with by simply naming them descriptively according to mfr/model/etc., rather than going into lots of subfolders for every single image. At least keep the number of subfolders and levels to a minimum.

Thanks for a detailed answer. Now i know how to do this:cool:

But i still do not see my subfolders. I have attached a picture, as you can these are the only folders i can see and no subfolders.
I didnt see anything to right near the image browse line.

May be you mean somewhere else? Look at my picture below what i mean:

Thanks

The "upload to directory" is what I am talking about; in my admin, it is to the right of the browse box.

The first level of subfolders is showing, but maybe Zen Cart does not show sub-subfolders here - I have never tried to use them so can't say for sure.

gjh42:

The "upload to directory" is what I am talking about; in my admin, it is to the right of the browse box.

The first level of subfolders is showing, but maybe Zen Cart does not show sub-subfolders here - I have never tried to use them so can't say for sure.

So for all your products which you have created large image for, you upload these in one folder? For example the folder "Large"?

Wont it be a mess to look for pictures if you have several hundreds of pictures in one folder?

Re-read gjh42's post

/images/medium/lenses/nikon/ and the large images in /images/large/lenses/nikon/. The small images could go in /images/lenses/nikon/.

Not all in one folder

I'm having a similar issue. No matter where I put the images they don't show up as multi-images. But for some reason I have two products that show multi-images even with the instructions are not followed.

Example:
http://a-girlygirl.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_10&products_id=30

I do not have the images in any sub-folders at all. For som reason there are two files in the /images/ directory. One is BB_Dakota_Caperton.jpg and the other is BB_Dakota_Caperton-8230161.jpg

For some reason these show as multi-images. When I try to upload an image for another product into the /images/ directory with the same name as the main file but with _01 after it the image does not show up. ???

I also created the file structure as listing in the faq (https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?print=58) and I cannot get any muli-images to appear on any products.

I am going to answer my own question. This is how I got the multi-images to work.

I put all the files in one folder /image/Clothing/ I might have an older version of zen-cart because when i followed the faq it does not work. but when I put the images in one folder with _01, _02, etc they show up.

http://a-girlygirl.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_10&products_id=100

BB_Dakota_Caperton.jpg and BB_Dakota_Caperton-8230161.jpg would be correct names for a main image and an additional image for a product (assuming they are in the main /images/ folder). The behavior you described with them is exactly correct.

When you have main images in subfolders like /images/Clothing/, additional images for them must be named with an underscore like _01, _02, etc. I can't tell exactly what you did to make the additional images not show the one time. The faq applies to all reasonably current versions of Zen Cart including yours.

You do need to learn how to use the /medium/ and /large/ folders - you currently have only one copy of each image for large, medium and small displays, giving thumbnails in the range of 100kb. This is 10 to 20 times too big, and will make your pages load very slowly when you have a dozen thumbnails.

I have a question on getting ZenCart to use the respective sizes for a product (small for thumbnail, medium for product page, large for pop up). I tried following this FAQ to no avail.

I've uploaded three sizes named the same file name with the extensions _small.jpg, _medium.jpg, _large.jpg in the respective folders small, medium, and large.

But ZenCart is only using _medium.jpg because that's the one I selected in the Admin - Product Info page. How do I get ZenCart to use the correct files for each size? I'm assuming I have to specify where for it to look?

Years ago I used an older version of ZenCart that had fields for thumbnail, medium and large sizes for the product image in the Image - Product Info page. Why is this missing in the v1.3.8?

Additional information:

The directory setup is:

images/small/athena_small.jpg
images/medium/athena_medium.jpg
images/large/athena_large.jpg

I also noticed Product Info - Image Medium Suffix & Product Info - Image Large Suffix in Admin > Configuration > Images. Do I need to change these from "_MED" & "_LRG" to "_medium" & "_large"?

I figured it out! What I was doing wrong was I wasn't putting an athena.jpg in the main images folder and needed to have the suffixes match the setting in Admin > Configuration > Images.

Hi all,
i too am having the same problem, i have the demo data on one site for practise and a store i am building in another folder.
The demo site seems to work ok, in terms of the small, medieu and large popup. But on my store, it does not. some how i cannot get zc to point to te medium or large folder. it will only point to the small image. i have my _MED and _LRG images in images/medium/ and images/large/. there must be a file i can edit to get zc to see these folders. i know i have to edit the jscritp file to set the size for the large image in;
includes/modules/pages/product_info/jscript_main.php

If i look at the properties of the medium image on the demo site, i get, images/medium/dvd/imagename.
where do i find this file?
I could load the images in the medium and large folders, but it looks too messy.

Many thanks in advance for you assistance.

Soul39,

You upload your small image when creating a product and this gets uploaded by the admin side to the /images dir.

You ftp the _MED and _LRG named images to their respective dir's and Zen Cart automatically locates them

This ia all in the naming schema - avoid special characters and spaces in the base image name and use this as a guide

image.jpg
image_MED.jpg
image_LRG.jpg

Kobra,
i have a server on my laptop, for testing. DAMM! Just thought of something. I got the path wrong, in my last post.
This is what i have images/medium/patterns/image_MED
and images/large/patterns/image_LRG

Sorry!!
why can't zc find them?
My small image is fine, because zc cannot find my medium and large image, it uses the small one.
should zc be able to locate the MED and LRG images given the path above?
Does this make sense?
I will go a double check the naming convention and file names.

Soul39,

I had your same problem.

If that's the case, you need to put your small sized photo in images/patterns. Then ZC will look for the _MED and _LRG photos in images/medium/patters and images/large/patterns.

Bugger!!
that means that i have to go back and edit each product, to place the small image in the images/patterns folder. That sounds like hard work. Seeing that i have over 100 images.
there must be an easier way? Can it not be done via SQL or MYPHP?
Someone must know, or, have a script already written to acomplish this.

Many thanks in advance for your assistance.

soul39

Hi, ALL, I HAVE SOLVED IT! :clap:
Wish i had paid closer attention to the zc tutorial on image preparation.
If i had used images/patterns/image name as may BASE folder, then usiing images/medium/patterns/image name would be OK.
The trick it, if using subfdirectories for images you must put the small images into a subdirectory to start with

I will just have to put _MED images here images/medium/image name

Thanks to everyone that tried to help

Soul39