self hosted images

[santeeswapper]

I have been having a heck of a time trying to manage uploading image folders and then using the import catalog feature to populate my store with new items. There has to be a better way!  Is it possible for me to self host my images say in Dropbox and in the "image" column of the .csv file put a url to a public folder in dropbox.  Have the store item image come from the hyperlink?  Any other recommended work around would be appreciated.  I can't even view my images from the store admin panel for some reason.  Jason

[bsmither]

"Is it possible for me to self host my images say in Dropbox."

 

For the moment, I am going to say no, it is not possible.

 

On the other hand, CubeCart is 99% human-readable and editable. We can add more code and change the existing code to do (just a wee bit shy of) anything we want CubeCart to do.

[havenswift-hosting]

Hi

There is already an issue on github for this enhancement request - https://github.com/cubecart/CubeCart/issues/77

Thanks

Ian

[santeeswapper]

I think if this can be something developed it would be super helpful.  I have thousands of items to add to my CubeCart store but the thing slowing  me down is the images.  I want to use the import catalog feature so I can build them in the spreadsheet (faster!) however getting the image to match up is a trick.  Right now I'm having my VA upload the image folder to the server and then trying to match up the file names but it's like working as a blind person.  Often times for whatever reason I upload the .csv file and for some reason the images don't populate.  Do I have the file name slightly off?  Did she .ftp the files correctly? Is there some cache issue? I'm spending a lot of time trying to answer these questions.  However, if I could just drop a direct link from photobucket or dropbox in that spreadsheet where I know the image is correct I could really be rolling. 

[PACRE]

Hi santeeswapper

 

Yes I agree uploading images and matching them to the product is so time consuming and should be modified in an upgrade

 

I don't know if this will help, but I rename my files with the same name as the product key, then when identifying the images in the product listing I have 2 pages open so I can refer to the "General" page as well as the "image" page

 

Regards Peter

[santeeswapper]

Yes as I said earlier I am totally shut out of seeing my images in the file manager. I don't know what went wrong there whether I have too many loose images or what but it won't load.  So my "Plan B" was to have my VA upload folders of images to the site and then match up the file names.  However, that has ran into numerous bugs.  So what I want to be able to do is what I'm doing on eBay now with their "file exchange".  I self host the images in my Photobucket account and in the .csv file I list the public hyperlink to the image. eBay captures the images and builds the item no problem. 

 

If I could do that in CubeCart I can continue adding things to my store.  As it is now I'm cripled with issue and my store is getting stale.  Please I hope the owners will add this ability. 

[bsmither]

"Often times for whatever reason I upload the .csv file and for some reason the images don't populate.  Do I have the file name slightly off?  Did she .ftp the files correctly? Is there some cache issue?"

 

Working strictly within CubeCart 5.2.13 for the moment, when image files are FTP'd to the /images/source/ folder (including subfolders), in admin, Images, click the Update File List tab. Doing this should update the Filemanager database table.

 

Then, when importing a product CSV, the importer should note the path/name of the value for a column named 'image'. If the Filemanager already knows about the image, it automatically make the association between image and product. If the Filemanager does not already know about the image, the importer will see if the file actually exists, and if so, collect some data about it. Even if the file does not exist, an entry will be made in the Filemanager table (I think that's a bug, but you can FTP the file later).

 

Using a browser traffic monitor (Firefox with Firebug, Chrome's Developer Tools, IE's F12), when you get to Images, the javascript in that page should see the 'fm' container and fetch the list of images in the root folder (/images/source/). You can see the ajax request in the traffic moinitor.

[santeeswapper]

When I click on the "Update File List" tab nothing happens. Or at least I should say it doesn't open that tab it keeps me on the home tab in that menu which is Dashboard>Filemanager>Files.

 

Ok another question - maybe I could have used the file manager to upload the images all along.  However, when I create a folder and hit upload the window that pops up will only let me select a single image to upload.  What I would need to do to make this work would be to upload a folder of images that would match up with new products that I want to create.

 

Can you give some advice on that? 

[PACRE]

The file manager will let you upload 4 at any time.

 

This is long winded, but I just had to change my image filenames and folder locations which is very tedious, but the good thing was that the database automatically reconfigured the products to the new image name, which is a huge bonus, and relieved about.

 

I found though that I can't edit the image folder filename ! which is a real pain as the order of folders is totally different to the category ordering list.