Batching image advice,

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   I am working on moving my current website to product cart. I'd like to here comments on how to best approach uploading my images and tying them to the product. I have all my images labeled with my skew#.  I could also bring over all the thumb images I have although they are not quite same size as recommended for product cart and they are named differently then they are named by product cart.

    So it looks like I could use a batch image program, I see there is at least one add on from a product cart developer.  I could just use a re-sizer and then ftp them up there? There are probably 2000 product images, so if there are 3 different sizes we have a total of 6000 if I resize and ftp.

   Beyond getting the images up, is there easy way to tie them to the product? Today I imported some products successfully, that looks like it will work, but the image path that has to be entered in the .csv file is different for each line item. Which involves manually entering. Is there a way to get the path to generated correctly automatically? 

I am sure lots of people out there have gone through this already I would like to here from them.

Thanks

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Chris Hadden Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 23-January-2013 Status: Offline Points: 52	Post Options Post Reply Quote Chris Hadden Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Batching image advice, Posted: 01-February-2013 at 7:09pm
	I am working on moving my current website to product cart. I'd like to here comments on how to best approach uploading my images and tying them to the product. I have all my images labeled with my skew#. I could also bring over all the thumb images I have although they are not quite same size as recommended for product cart and they are named differently then they are named by product cart. So it looks like I could use a batch image program, I see there is at least one add on from a product cart developer. I could just use a re-sizer and then ftp them up there? There are probably 2000 product images, so if there are 3 different sizes we have a total of 6000 if I resize and ftp. Beyond getting the images up, is there easy way to tie them to the product? Today I imported some products successfully, that looks like it will work, but the image path that has to be entered in the .csv file is different for each line item. Which involves manually entering. Is there a way to get the path to generated correctly automatically? I am sure lots of people out there have gone through this already I would like to here from them. Thanks
	Chris

Brett Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 22-April-2008 Location: Phoenix, AZ Status: Offline Points: 89	Post Options Post Reply Quote Brett Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 03-February-2013 at 9:26pm
	ProductCart has a batch import/export function for products. I believe it allows you to set the image location. You could probably export all of your products, upload all of the images to your web server via FTP, and then use the exported spreadsheet to point all of the product images to the file location on your web server.

Chris Hadden Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 23-January-2013 Status: Offline Points: 52	Post Options Post Reply Quote Chris Hadden Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 04-February-2013 at 10:18am
	On the import/export spread sheet, there are 3 columns for image location on the import/export. The problem is each product image has a different name. Any advice on how these columns can be filled in correctly without manually going through the 3 columns to put in the individual skew?
	Chris

whizzinpc Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 17-January-2006 Location: California Status: Offline Points: 20	Post Options Post Reply Quote whizzinpc Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 04-February-2013 at 7:39pm
	You can put them all in a directory and transfer all the filenames to a text file. Doing a google search brings up instructions how to... https://www.google.com/search?q=filename+to+text&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a Edited by whizzinpc - 04-February-2013 at 7:40pm

Guests Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Guest	Post Options Post Reply Quote Guests Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 04-February-2013 at 8:27pm
	Hi Chris, It does sound like our batch images processor is the right fit for you. It works like this: Name your largest product image by it's SKU.jpg (which you say you have done) FTP those up. Push the process button (assuming you have the settings they way you want them). It does everything else for you. That's the fundamental functionality. There are other features too. Does this sound like the solution for you?

Chris Hadden Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 23-January-2013 Status: Offline Points: 52	Post Options Post Reply Quote Chris Hadden Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 04-February-2013 at 9:00pm
	well that sounds good but does that solve the problem of tying and images to individual products? If I am importing my products how do I quickly create the image path for each individual product. For example I exported a csv and the image path was 957R_1187_general.jpg in the column for that product. I am just unsure whether I have to name them in this format to get them to work and how to generate a list of all the images that can then be pasted into excel....I have not explored the advice of "WHIZZINPC" above. Maybe that would work.
	Chris

Guests Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Guest	Post Options Post Reply Quote Guests Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 04-February-2013 at 10:22pm
	Hi Chris, Yes, it does. I need to add a nice bulleted list of features to our write up. Here's how it works: Based on the file naming convention SKU.jpg -- for the largest image -- the processor runs through the batch of images you've uploaded to a temporary folder and resizes the detail, general and thumbnail images according to the settings you've set (complete with lossy control if the server is running ASPJpeg), stores each image in a sub-directory of the /pc/catalog/ directory (i.e. /detail/, /general/, /thumb/) and then uses the file name to find the product record in the database and updates the file location fields. It them deletes all of the temporary files. So, you don't even need to include that info on your spreadsheet imports. It even supports alternate images/additional product views (simply use the file naming convention SKU-alt1.jpg, SKU-alt2.jpg, etc) and sub-product images for Apparel add-on stores (generating just one "color/pattern" image for each size option group). It also includes two file clean-up features: when you delete/remove a product from the category, it deletes the product images from the server; or there's an orphaned images feature that finds all images for which there is no current product SKU and moves them to a temporary folder you can download for review. Depending on the size of the original images uploaded, it can crank through hundreds of images at a time. It only has one feature limitation that has come up (if one doesn't count naming product images by their SKU, which is generally a best practice anyways): If one uses the same image redundantly for various SKU's, runs into the core issue of using the file names to find products in the database (or, on the other side if the delete images option were installed, it would delete the image shared by multiple products if one where deleted). This is easily worked about, though. Hope that all makes sense. I certainly see that our description is due for an overhaul/update.

Chris Hadden Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 23-January-2013 Status: Offline Points: 52	Post Options Post Reply Quote Chris Hadden Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 05-February-2013 at 8:55am
	Yeah that sounds good. do the products have to be in place first? or would I get all the photos up then import products? Does it matter which is first? Let me know sounds like the batch image processor is what I was looking for.
	Chris

Guests Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Guest	Post Options Post Reply Quote Guests Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 05-February-2013 at 1:21pm
	Hi Chris, Yes, the data must exist in the database before an image can be matched to it. However, if necessary, the orphaned image clean-up tool could easily be adapted to find images for which there are product record matches, but currently don't have images assigned to them. It would be more difficult to handle alternate/additional product view and apparel sub-product images this way, though.