Image queries

[mbdevelopments]

A few queries:-

the Image field for each item - is that link relative (image/3454.jpg) or absolute(www.website.co.uk/image/3454.jpg)?

Is the image displayed at its own size or it is shrunk to a pre-fixed size?

Can the image be a thumbnail with a link to a bigger version or a page with a few pictures ?

Ian

[NormanRouxel]

Ooops ignore this the forum posted my reply twice.

[NormanRouxel]

the Image field for each item - is that link relative (image/3454.jpg) or absolute(www.website.co.uk/image/3454.jpg)?

The images you use for a product can be anywhere on your PC. Once they are loaded into the live web-site all the html files and images files are placed in the acatalog directory. The catalog pages then usually use relative urls to the images, and since the image is in the same directory as the html it's just src="productimage.jpg"

Is the image displayed at its own size or it is shrunk to a pre-fixed size?

It's the same size as the original file.

Can the image be a thumbnail with a link to a bigger version or a page with a few pictures ?

Yes. In V6 you can have additional info pages that contain bigger images and additional descriptive text.

Norman

[mbdevelopments]

What is a sensible size for the images?
I was thinkinh 400 wide. All pictures will be run through the save for web feature of photoshop so they will be as small as poss in terms of memory size.

Ian

[NormanRouxel]

It's dependant on how important the pictures are and how many you have on a page. 400 wide seems quite big too me.

Don't have too many huge pictures as slow pages are a real turn off for users.

You can also (if using V6) show small pictures and offer a pop-up page containing more detail. As this is only loaded when reqested by the viewer there's no hit on load times for the page with the list of products.

Norman

[mbdevelopments]

The pop-up page sounds like a good idea but there are 1200 items which is a lot of pop-up pages!!
Is it a setting in each item?

Take you point about image size, I think 200 is a more realistic size.

Ian

[NormanRouxel]

Is it a setting in each item?

Afraid so. You have to tick a checkbox, enter the popup text and chooose an image for each popup. So you could have 1200 extra popup pages and 1200 larger images.

However doing things the one section per product method also give you 1200 product pages and full size images.

So it's six and half-a-dozen, really. The popup pages do mean that all your information about a product is in one place.

Norman

[mbdevelopments]

It looks like I can do all that and tick the boxes during a flat file import. I am doing a flat file import first to get all the products in then I am putting them where they need to be.

I think I will use a thumbnail of the product image (100wide) to launch the pop-up which will have the full description in there.

i think (hope!) that that should make the section pages load quite quickly even it it has ten or so products on there.

Looking hopeful, I just feel like I am procrastinating before taking 1200 pictures!!

Ian