Suggestion: Resize product images on the fly

[AbleMods]

I'm seeing the potential for a larger store to wind up with a massive productimages folder. Every product requires three files. The image browse controls on various admin pages are going to have timeout issues trying to parse through all that.

Isn't there a way AC7 could resize a single image size on-the-fly as the control renders? Product management would be easier and cleaner having to only deal with a single image file per product.

Just some thoughts....

[jmestep]

It probably could be done, but the image displayed will not be as good and the page load will be slower because the image file size will be larger. The page load is the big issue --maybe not so much on a product page, but if you are on a category page with lots of images, it will really be slow.

[AbleMods]

True. I was thinking just the product image though. But I guess "the product image" is too general, since it's also in the shopping cart, search pages etc.

A search page would slow down a bunch if it had to display 20 images all being resized on the fly.

Bad Joe, Bad Joe.

[Logan Rhodehamel]

A search page would slow down a bunch if it had to display 20 images all being resized on the fly.

In early development of AC7 we had this. But yeah, it causes a lot of extra processing overhead. And then we run into the problem that you don't have complete control over the final image.

We may need to improve our tools for managing that large product image catalog.

[AbleMods]

I really like how you've started with the image management, I think it's a great starting point. It'll mature over time I'm sure.

With 3,383 products now, my image folder has over 10,000 files. You could easily add a way to delete images when a product is deleted. But my bigger concern is just sheer quantity in a single folder.

I think the easiest solution would be to create a required image path value on the add category dialogs. Then when a product is added to that category, it automatically inherits the parent category image path. Products assigned to multiple categories would just have to parse down through all category imagepaths until one copy of standard, thumbnail and icon sizes have been obtained.

If I had to assign an image path to every category, it would have forced me to organize everything in the early stages of site construction. As it is now, that task is done at the product level.

I may have 5,000 items for any one manufacturer or warehouse, but my sub-categories are always going to be thin so the user doesn't get 25 pages of items to sort through. I think that's where the image organization level should occur.

I'll keep thinking on it though - that's what vacations are for

[mjackson]

For managing large quantities of data from multiple vendors do you have the ability to set up vendors blind in the backend of AC7 so they can enter thier own product?

[AbleMods]

For managing large quantities of data from multiple vendors do you have the ability to set up vendors blind in the backend of AC7 so they can enter thier own product?

It's possible. How much of the product record details the vendors have the ability to enter would dictate how much effort it would be to modify the backend pages.