Linking multiple products to one image file

[Matt Kitchen]

Hello,
My first time at this, so sorry if I'm asking a silly question!
I'm putting up a bookshop online using Actinic & WorldPay. Actually I've hired a web designer to do this.

As the books are in various languages, we have one image file linked to multiple products. My web designer is advising me that we cannot have one image file for multiple products.

Is this true, or am I being spun a tale?

In addition I want to vary the cost of postage for delivery overseas, I'm also told this is impossible.

Thanks in advance for your help

Matt

[jont]

Nope - you CAN use the same image for different products - just tried it and it is fine.

Overseas deliveries are no problem to set either - there are as many countries as you can name already set and you can add others as you require - each can be set with different prices or grouped into zones.

I would consider if your designer is upto the job or Actinic friendly

[Matt Kitchen]

Thanks for your reply

I already had a sinking feeling over my web designer, perhaps he is using an older version - even so I'm losing confidence fast!!

[jont]

Actinic is a little peculiar at first for most web designers - best to employ someone who specialises in Actinic to get the most from it.

There are several people on here who have produced some terrific sites. Try a search on "recommending web designers" or post a new thread. The TOS on here will not allow communication on the forum but they can contact you via email to discuss prices etc.

[shiver]

You can use the same image as many times as you like, as long as it's renamed each time otherwise Actinic wont alow it to be used.

This is due to all product files going in to the acatalog folder on upload, if the images weren't named differently they would get over writen.

[wjcampbe]

Have to disagree with Justin here. If several products/variants/sections use the same image - they use the same image(full stop).

I have no issues with Actinic asking me to change my mind when I re-use an image file, nor would I expect one (thinking default section image).

[shiver]

Pehapse your right Bill, sounds like I've got it confussed with images of the same name.

I did a site a few months back with over 2000 products and had a few problems with images with the same name and using the same image. Haven't touched actinic since, so appolagies if I've confussed things. I'm a bit rusty pehapse I should just keep my advise to my self

Actinic wont allow you to make any major error, so just give it ago.

[Matt Kitchen]

Thanks for the advice folks!!

Downloaded the trial actinic v7 myself to have a little play around. Once I figured out what I was doing, I imported my flat text file with the image paths named.

The result of pointing several products to the same image file was that it appeared to work without hitch. I had more problems with the full description which came up with lots of hash keys instead!!!

Thanks again
Matt

[TraceyHand]

I did a site a few months back with over 2000 products and had a few problems with images with the same name and using the same image. .

Allow me to clear up the confusion here.
You can, of course, use the same image/filename for more than one product, as the OP was asking.
HOWEVER, if you attempt to use the same image/filename from DIFFERENT FOLDER LOCATIONS on your PC, Actinic will not let you.
Say you have a folder for size 14 trousers (using my examples here, no idea what you sell!) and one for size 12 trousers and you wanted to display the same item in each size section on the website? You can't have the same filename (which would, presumably, be the same photo) in both folders and use one for the size 12 section and one for the size 14. You'd have to use them both from the same FILEPATH.

Oh, and a message to the OP, I'd seriously consider changing your web designer as they obviously have little or no knowledge of Actinic.
IMHO, if someone is going to "muddle" their way through it as a first-timer, it may as well be you!! That way you can learn on the job

Alternatively, as someone else suggested, search or ask on the forums. There are some good ones here!
HTH
Tracey

[SusanF]

In a similar vein - I created two folders for product images within Site1 - Thumbs and Large. Each folder contained different images but with the same names. I didn't realise that when it came to uploading, all images are bunged together within /acatalog without the sub-folder structures created in Site1, so having image files with the same name wasn't allowed. I had to change the names of all my thumbnails to upload successfully.

Regards,
Susan.

[jont]

It is always good convention to label your smaller and larger images such as image_sm.jpg and image_lg.jpg accordingly even when not working in Actinic (which lumps all images into the same folder) to make finding and identifying them easier at a later stage.