Dynamic Mopics

A section that causes some confusion in osCMax although once you get it you will understand its power!

Basic Settings

  • You should see the following if you go to Admin –> Configuration –> Dynamic Mopics

Understanding how it works!

  • Basically, Dynamic Mopics is there to make it easy to add additional images including larger images in a popup easy!
  • The script looks for the images based on a pattern input in the site admin. Extra images can be FTP'd up to the site using separate software.
  • If you are using 2.0.15, you will find that (thanks to E Jonsen) you only need to upload the large picture in the Admin. console and the thumbnail will be produced for you and stored in the correct folder for you.

Understanding how the image structure works

  • This is an extract (editted) from the original osCommerce help files from Joshua Dechant who wrote this contribution:
  • Lets take an example product image “oscmax_image.jpg”
  • Now, we want a big image for the main thumbnail. How do we get it? Simple: Create the larger image and save it as “oscmax_image.jpg”. Then upload the image (via FTP) to your catalog/images/images_big/.

Hey that was simple enough!

Using osCMax 2.0.15 and beyond

  • If you are using osCMax 2.0.15 you will find that you only need to upload your main image when entering your product details.

  • Simply enter the directory where you want to upload the image - leave as standard for normal use.
  • osCMax will create your thumbnail for you automatically (according to your settings in admin)

Setting up multiple images for products

  • Now how do we get some extra images for this product?
  • That is pretty simple too. Our imagebase is “oscmax_image”.
  • As you can see from the Extra Image Pattern setting that our additional image counting method is a, b, c, etc…
  • You can use any of the image types detailed in the Big Image Types and Thumbnail Image Type. You can even mix and match! (Since gif is listed first, it takes preference over jpg.)

So how do we actually add additional images and enlarges for them?

  • We can make them “oscmax_image_a.jpg”, “oscmax_image_b.jpg”, “oscmax_image_c.jpg”, etc… Then just upload them to the catalog/images/thumbs/ directory.
  • And then for the larger images, they would be named the same as above, except you simply upload them to the catalog/images/image_big/ directory.
You lost me!
  • No problem. Here is a simple summary for the filenames for all the extra images in this example:

Summary of image names for a worked example

Main image thumbnail:

images/thumbs/new_product_image.jpg

Main image large:

images/images_big/new_product_image.jpg

Extra thumbnails:

images/thumbs/new_product_image_a.jpg

images/thumbs/new_product_image_b.jpg

images/thumbs/new_product_image_c.jpg

images/thumbs/new_product_image_d.jpg

images/thumbs/new_product_image_e.jpg

images/thumbs/new_product_image_f.jpg

etc…

Extra thumbnails' large images:

images/images_big/new_product_image_a.jpg

images/images_big/new_product_image_b.jpg

images/images_big/new_product_image_c.jpg

images/images_big/new_product_image_d.jpg

images/images_big/new_product_image_e.jpg

images/images_big/new_product_image_f.jpg

etc.

  • Get it now? If not, read it through again!
  • Still struggling, post on the forums - but please make sure you have search and read through the other posts on osCMax.

Ridexbuilder's Additional Notes

Contrary to the above, I prefer to leave the default of imagebase_{1}

Say we have a main image called product.jpg

  • 1st additional image is called product_1.jpg
  • 2nd additional image is called product_2.jpg
  • 3rd additional image is called product_3.jpg
  • 4th additional image is called product_4.jpg
  • and so on…

Easier to follow?

E Jonsen

osCMax 2.0.15 Hidden Feature for additional images

Once you have become familiar with using the automatic thumbnail system, the following can be tried. This assumes that you have not changed the default Dynamic MoPics Image Pattern.

Example:
You want to upload two Product images (for the same product) called product.jpg and product_1.jpg

  • Add/Edit the new Product and upload product_1.jpg first
  • Click update so that you can see the preview page (you will notice the green message bar saying that the image has been uploaded.)
  • Click back and this time click the choose image button and select (the main) product.jpg image.
  • This sounds more difficult to read, than it is in practise - Try it! Just remember to upload the main image LAST. ;-)

E Jonsen a.k.a. Ridexbuilder

 
dynamic_mopics.txt · Last modified: 2010/08/16 11:39 by ejsolutions
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