Thumbnails in the cart...a few Qs

[TraceyHand]

I'm thinking about adding thumbnails to my cart but I'm unclear on a few points.

Firstly, if I don't have a thumbnail image for a product..does it just show nothing? or a noticable space where it should be? How does it look in the cart?

Secondly, I have a lot of products set up with associated products (colour/size choices etc)..if these associated products are added to the cart (sum of component prices, component as separate orderline, no orderline for main product) will it show the thumbnail from the associated product or the main one?

Thanks

[pinbrook]

Whilst i don't know the answer, if I were investigating this, I'd go to the layout that displays the thumbnails in cart and see what variable it uses. This wil llead you back to the image it uses, if it is thumbnail you could consider changing it to product image with a fixedwidth - like the BS listing

[TraceyHand]

ok, thanks Jo. I'll hunt through previous posts on how to do the product image with a fixed width..it's something I've been thinking about anyway and would certainly cut down image production time!

(the variable in the AUG to put into the cart summary was just "thumbnail" so presumably uses the product thumbnail)

[pinbrook]

why don't you get Normans dynamic product resizer, I used it on lessbounce.com/acatalog. (LIVE TODAY!!) after 3 mnoths of fraught data conversion.

Norman's patch allows you to start with any old image size, it will create 2 images of the size you specify. Neat patch, neat price too

All you needto do to fix a width is add width="75" to an image and it wil lget crunched. Again see the search on this site - sometimes the image looks abit crunched but you can fix those on a one by one basis

[TraceyHand]

I was looking at it earlier actually.
I almost had a mental shopping list going on as I was reading through the V8 add-ons!!

The problem with using the width=75 on my main product images, I've found, is that, while usually I have fairly standard images sizes (200x300 mostly) some are longer and some are wider (using a centered image and text below) and then they look odd. For the products with these longer images, I've created separate thumbnails using a different, more proportionate, image as a thumbnail.
If I set the fixedwidth for the cart images, it's going to display the odd sized ones rather than the thumbnails I've done.

Unless..I don't suppose there's a way to get it to use the thumbnail image by default and, if there is NO thumbnail image specified, to use a fixedwidth version of the main product image?

Or could that be asking too much?
LOL

[pinbrook]

I use 75 width for thumbnails, BS, search etc, main products ideally I use somewhere between 125 and 225.

The best plan is to make every image a square before you start then you can easily apply resizing filters

[leehack]

Specify just width and not the height, you should get better results then.

Or, run a batch on your product images folder (specify width only, usually 75), saving thumbnails into a thumbnails folder, with something like "TN-" added to the start of the image name to signify thumbnail and avoid duplicate filenames.

Then run an excel formula which will add the TN image references into actinic and it can all be done in 30 minutes. Use the existing image name to create the thumbnail image name. Process goes something like:

*A1 is cell reference of image filename field, change to suit your situation

="TN-"&A1

Just drag this formula down and it will add "TN-" to each image name in the thumbnails field.

[TraceyHand]

ooh..that's clever!

I might have a go at that..then, at least, I can pull out the dodgy ones and put amended ones in there..

Cheers Lee

[leehack]

You will only get dodgy ones if the main image is dodgy also. The batch will keep the current aspect ratio and will just set all widths to be 75 wide, but will let the length adjust accordingly. In other words a 225 x 300 image, will be 75 x 100 when resized or a 300 x 200 will be 75 x 50 when resized etc.

I still stand by the fact that all images should be the same size as much as possible though, just pad it out, makes such an easy job of having a uniform look to a catalogue AND section image layouts, if required.

If i can make 4,500 radio control products all the same size, anyone can do it with their images!

[TraceyHand]

I know..I agree..
to be honest I probably have only a handful of items that have odd-sized images but unfortunately one of those is one of my best seller items so I had to make a new thumbnail.

On reflection, it'd probably be less time consuming to re-do the odd-sized images!

[leehack]

Tracey not sure if you know, but if you select 'details' view in explorer, when looking at your image folder, it will list the image sizes, just sort on the column and all of the odd ones will be grouped together. Select first one, hold down shift and then select the last one and click return, it will open them all up in your software and just amend them there and then. It sounds time consuming, its very quick, especially if you know about the aspect ratio and fixed size possibilities on the selection tool.

[TraceyHand]

I knew about the view showing the image dimensions but I have to admit it'd never occurred to me to sort them by it..
Actually...that gives me another idea too..for something else I've been meaing to do! I can use that method..it's perfect
Thanks!!