External Link or Product Import & Images Path

[dallen]

I've searched the forum but can't find a post on this 'bug' (can't believe I'm the first...)

When adding products to Actinic via a csv or External Linking (to an Access DB in my case) I'm trying to auto populate the ImageFileName field with 'images/productreference.jpg'.

However, Actinic is stripping the '/' out of the field when it displays it. It's still there, and the image is displayed in preview and the correct path is there in the DB (ProductLinkedTest), it just doesn't display it in the Image field under Content -> Product Details.

This results in a 'The selected image file does not exist' error when i try to edit product details which are not linked.

I know there are workarounds (I've come up with several already) but as we have multiple sites with over 4000 products between them and I'm trying to implement some centralised product data management (from Sage MMS SQL DB into Access for manipulation and External Linking) I need this to work correctly!

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

[leehack]

What advantage are you gaining by externally linking for the image field? Why not let actinic handle the images normally? If they are named after the product reference, i can't picture any difficulties in this area. Maybe i'm misunderstanding.

[dallen]

The advantage to us is that we are looking to move 3 websites which are not currently Actinic sites to Actinic.

With several thousand products it would be handy to auto populate as much data as possible, and keep it somewhere where any changes can be propogated out to all platforms. As we already have a central storage area for images (amongst other things) if we can just copy them all over to the Images folder of any new sites and auto populate the ImageFileName field then it will save us a LOT of effort. Messing around with Excel spreadsheets between platforms just adds work for our already over-worked team!

As I say, there are several work arounds and i can get it to do what i want in a variety of ways, but I'd just like to know why Actinic strips this forward slash out of the field and if there's any way to stop it from doing so! It's not an illegal character in this field and it's being copied over all the DBs - Actinic just strips it out in the GUI!

<EDIT>

oh, and we're not letting Actinic handle the images 'normally' as such either - we've got various modifications on our different sites, so the original image isn't being used in a raw format in some sites - it's being re-sized/duplicated etc. But we don't want to have different image formats for different sites, and shouldn't need to!

[wjcampbe]

Why are you trying to keep the images in folders? They will all be dumped into the one acatalog folder on the wenbsite, so make life easy for yourself by putting them all in the site folder in Actinic.

That way no path information is needed, just the image filename, and your import will work just fine.

[dallen]

Lots of people keep their Actinic product images in an Images folder for various reasons... neatness, maintainability, network backups etc...

All I'd like to know is - why does Actinic strip the forward slash out in the GUI (but not the .MDB)? And can I stop it from doing so?

As already mentioned - I know there are lots of work arounds/solutions/alternative methods - but my question stands!

[leehack]

They're all going to end up in the same place with actinic, so just seems an exercise which will cause more trouble than it will solve. I guess you could create a custom variable at product level and get the image to be located by the variable name in a custom product layout. But what a ballache. If you want external this and that, get an online database cart, not a static html page creator.

[leehack]

If you want to know why actinic software strips out something, contact actinic and ask them. It'll be minor miracle if you get an asnwer in here as people use the design as per it's design and functionality. It's not gonna be a common problem, you are asking the wrong people.

[dallen]

If you want external this and that, get an online database cart, not a static html page creator.

Hmmm - Don't use Actinic.

Not really the answer I was looking for

[dave_finlayson]

'images/productreference.jpg'.

This may be too obvious but this should be a back slash, not a forward slash. Could this be your problem?

i.e

images\productreference.jpg

[leehack]

Actinic has its own marketplace Dave and it works in it's own area and does this well. Take it outside of this comfort zone and you may well need lots of investigationto overcome problems and the patience of a saint. After all of this you may come up with the answer that it is not possible and go back to what we are saying.

If there's one thing i've learnt with actinic, it is not to mess around with images, put them in the right place and point to them as normal.

[dallen]

We took Actinic well out of the comfort zone a long time ago - it's sweating and shaking uncontrollably!

We've overcome many, many problems or 'limitations' in the past.

We've implemented bespoke automation of various aspects of our business processes. This was merely a question as to why Actinic behaved the way it did and whether it was intended to do this or not.


But the prize goes to Dave Finlayson

This may be too obvious but this should be a back slash, not a forward slash. Could this be your problem?

Although having either a forward or backslash work equally well in theory - in this instance using a backslash is the solution!

Thanks mate!

[leehack]

We took Actinic well out of the comfort zone a long time ago - it's sweating and shaking uncontrollably!

Now that did make me chuckle.

Nice one Mr Finlayson, good spot!

[dave_finlayson]

Although having either a forward or backslash work equally well in theory - in this instance using a backslash is the solution!

You're referencing the file in Windows though, so on this occasion, as far as I'm concerned anyway, a forward slash will never work.

[dave_finlayson]

Nice one Mr Finlayson, good spot!

Why thank you kind sir! Never linked a database to Actinic in my life so was mildly suprised I noticed it!

Seriously though, do you really keep all your product images in the Site1 directory? That would drive me 100% barking mad. ALL our product images are in subfolder of Site1

[dallen]

You're referencing the file in Windows though, so on this occasion, as far as I'm concerned anyway, a forward slash will never work.

You'd think so wouldn't you! But Actinic deals with a / or a \ in the ImageFileName field in the same way (probably to help out people who only speak HTML and don't get the difference) - my problem was I forgot to switch out of HTML mode before dealing with databases

<EDIT>

I tell a lie - I'm obviously far too tired at the moment (4 week old baby in the house!) a / IS an illegal character in that field - all our Actinic sites point to images\productreference.jpg NOT images/productreference.jpg - I'm a muppet and can't believe i've wasted yours and my time with this!