Importing items

[jar3300]

Folks,
I'm currently using another cart that is a real pain in the Ass. I'm looking for an easier to maintain solution.

Once I set up on my cart, can I import all of my items and their info such as:
Category
SubCategory
image location
thumb image location
weight
size
etc, etc.

Also, the store we have now is basically two stores. One that is all available via online and the other that doesn't lend itself well to online. Consequently, I think folks miss alot. We'd like to have all of our stuff side by side and denote which ones they can "buy now". Do all items in the cart have to display a "buy now" button? Is that something that can be handled via an import?

Thanks
Jim

[Jamie]

Hi Jim,

Sorry for the delayed response. We missed your post somehow. My apologies.

Once I set up on my cart, can I import all of my items and their info such as:
Category
SubCategory
image location
thumb image location
weight
size
etc, etc.

This can be done, but is tricky. We have no support built into the cart for importing data. You need to generate a text file containing 1 MySQL query for each product, and one for each product / category relationship. Then, import the text file into your database using phpMyAdmin. This post shows the syntax for inserting one product:
http://www.ldev.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2824&postcount=2

This post shows the syntax for inserting a product into a category:
http://www.ldev.com/forums/showthread.php?t=431&highlight=import

If you wanted to import a category, you could do it with this syntax:
INSERT INTO Categories VALUES (50, 'Speakers', '', 0, 'yes', 43, '', 'Speakers off all shapes and sizes', '', '', '', '', 0, '', '');

Each value in a category record represents a field name, in this order:
record_number int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
Name varchar(100) NOT NULL default '',
Display_Name varchar(100) NOT NULL default '',
Do_not_display tinyint(4) NOT NULL default '0',
Tax_Items varchar(25) NOT NULL default 'yes',
Parent_Category int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
Image_of_Name varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
Description text NOT NULL,
Brief_Description text NOT NULL,
Image text NOT NULL,
Thumbnail_Image text NOT NULL,
Additional_Text blob NOT NULL,
Sort_Index int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
Products_per_page varchar(15) NOT NULL default 'DEFAULT',
Options text NOT NULL

Also, the store we have now is basically two stores. One that is all available via online and the other that doesn't lend itself well to online. Consequently, I think folks miss alot. We'd like to have all of our stuff side by side and denote which ones they can "buy now". Do all items in the cart have to display a "buy now" button? Is that something that can be handled via an import?

The cart does not have this functionality, but could easily be modified to handle it. What I would suggest is using one of the optional fields in the product table, like "Keywords" as an indicator whether or not you want to allow an item to be purchased. You could then add a "1" in that field when an item should not display the "add to cart" button.

Then, in the template "show_product_detail.php", which controls the display of the product, you could change this line:

<?=$Add_to_Cart?>

to:

<?
if ($Keywords != 1) {
print $Add_to_Cart;
} else {
print "This item is not available for purchase online. Please call for a quote.";
}
?>

Thanks,
Jamie