using product images from another website

[Andy Warner]

Hi all,

I've browsed the forum, done some searches and not found an answer. rubbish at searching? probably!

Anyhow,

Ive got several shops (all on the same server with Pinbrook) all using a selection of the same stock. How can i setr up the shops to all use the same stock product images? I would like to have them on one site, and serve from there.

I've considered a 'special field' which I can use instead of the standard image, which has the URL of the correct image on the other site, which I think would work fine, but is there a simple way I've missed?

Anyone done this?

cheers

[fergusw]

Mod Rewrite would possibly be the simplest way. Replacing any server request for a .jpg or .gif file for one domain with the relevant path to the other domain

e.g. server reqeust for

http://www.[site of image to be replaced].com/acatalog/imagename.jpg

would be translated to

http://www.[site of location of original image].com/acatalog/imagename.jpg

Need a bit of Mod Rewrite chicanery!

[Andy Warner]

yer but, no but.....

Mod Rewrite would possibly be the simplest way. Replacing any server request for a .jpg or .gif file for one domain with the relevant path to the other domain

e.g. server reqeust for

http://www.[site of image to be replaced].com/acatalog/imagename.jpg

would be translated to

http://www.[site of location of original image].com/acatalog/imagename.jpg

Need a bit of Mod Rewrite chicanery!

trouble is, AFAICS, that actinic would still upload the images in all the sites, unless you can turn that off?

but good call!

[fergusw]

True - there is no direct, simple way around stopping Actinic from uploading images.

If you did employ this Mod Rewrite method then you could create the images as 1px square gifs and name them appropriately in the "duplicate" sites thereby vastly improving upload performance. A copy and paste between other "duplicate sites" wouldn't take long either.

Just another option...

[NormanRouxel]

Try this:

Keep all images in a common folder on your Actinic PC.

Use some PHP in your Product Image layout that extracts the basename from your image filename and prefaces it with "http://www.mysite.com/commonimagefolder/"

Stick a condition around this - isNotPreviewMode - so it only works on the upload and would still allow Preview to work.

I'm not sure if Actinic would then try to upload the image or not. Experiment and see.

[gabrielcrowe]

if you set the custom variable to text only, actinic will not upload the images.

is this the case? i cant quite remember.

[leehack]

If you don't want an image to upload, then don't define one, just define a URL for it instead in a new variable.

EDIT: you don't even need to add in the full URL each time, have a master variable for that at site level and then one for just the image name, so that variable 1 & variable 2 collectively form the URL. Pointless adding the same URL in each time, that's just inefficient and not needed.

Variable 1 = URL (site wide variable)
Variable 2 = image name (product level variable)

[Andy Warner]

Be Very Careful!

WOW!

ouch, that hurt.

My shop has over 1000 items - no big deal.

I removed all references to image files, and added a custom var, all well and good.

however, when i added the images into the layout, all hell broke loose.

When actinic tried to match the external data to the internal database, it crashed horribly with a 'too many files open' error.

The ONLY way I could get round this was to un-map the image field I was using. I've not investigated WHY this happened yet, could be I missed a '>' or a quote mark in some markup of the new imnage info, but I don't think so.

THe error was: too many files open
it was seeming to do this when looking at the content tab, building its preview. I guess I should have block-ifed to say 'dont show the image locally' as someone mentioned earlier. However, this seems to be the issue as i noticed the network link going APE when this happened (broadband, not LAN) so it seems actinic was fetching all the images to priview and display from the remote website. Well, if thats the case, then it shows it works but needs some refinement!

its the way to go, i think, but needs to be done properly in a small test shop first. not that i would have seen the issues I guess, liniing to one or two images....

anyway, I believe it'll work, just gotta try it properly, and where DOES the time go when you are having 'fun' with actinic?

cheers all for your input.

[Andy Warner]

is this a known issue ive missed

Try this:

Stick a condition around this - isNotPreviewMode - so it only works on the upload and would still allow Preview to work.

Norman, do you suggest the isNotPreview because actinic tries to show the images locally and goes and gets them from the remote server for EVERY page? it would seem thats the case.

To clarify, is this statement right:-

IMPORTANT: Stick a condition around this - isNotPreviewMode - so that Actinic doesnt try to show all the images in preview, thus crashing or at least slowing down. The condition means it only works on the upload and would still allow Preview to work, though you wouldnt see your image.

[NormanRouxel]

I was suggesting keeping the images on a common folder on your PC.

Then using the normal Image field in the product details to be set to point to the image in said common folder.

You would add some PHP to your product image layout that replaces the usual image file name with the full http://..... reference but only on non-Preview pages. On preview pages leave the image filenamee unaltered.

That way, on Preview you show the local image from that common folder.

The generated code that gets uploaded would use the full http://...

[fergusw]

Another method, employing some of the ideas already mentioned, would be to have a variable defined in Actinic to hold the image file name. You then could have some PHP which would only run once, i.e. on home page, that moves the image file names from the product image field into the user defined variable thereby stopping Actinic from uploading any images and allowing you to define the URL for live/published sites.
Using Norman's idea would mean that you could still preview without a problem.