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Should I Convert Legacy Images to Image Machine?

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    Should I Convert Legacy Images to Image Machine?

    Questions.
    1. Is it a worthwhile exercise to "convert" all existing products and legacy images to the Image Machine?
    2. If so what's the process?
    3. In the Miva Merchant blog (this one) there's a reference to a "coming soon" post called "Converting From Legacy Images To The New Image Machine." Does it exist yet? Naturally, it has my attention.


    Here's a little more info. I'm running a MMUI store and have been reading up on using the Image Machine and Additional Images.

    Current set up may be a little antiquated, but it works. Our product pages, for example, use Toolkit to see if an image file exists that's named some iteration of the product code (prodcode_001.jpg), if so it'll display a little thumb of the image and on-click it'll zoom in using Floatbox. It's worked for me because I set it up, I'm comfortable with it, but it does take time to create each size of the thumbs, main image and zoom images.

    And now I have an employee who is in charge of adding products to a particular category every week. So as I delegate out more work like this, I'm thinking we need to start using the Image Machine, mainly for the automated re-sizing. That's fine, I'd like that.

    So what do I do about the existing products and images? The behavior of Floatbox and the Miva Merchant zoom/expand are a little different and I don't care for mixing the behaviors if we keep the existing products and images the way they are now. I want my customers to have the same click behavior no matter which product they're looking at.

    Make sense?

    Thanks,
    Mark
    Last edited by Mark Stephens; 08-22-14, 12:46 PM.

    #2
    Re: Should I Convert Legacy Images to Image Machine?

    Originally posted by Mark Stephens View Post
    Questions.
    1. Is it a worthwhile exercise to "convert" all existing products and legacy images to the Image Machine?
    2. If so what's the process?
    3. In the Miva Merchant blog (this one) there's a reference to a "coming soon" post called "Converting From Legacy Images To The New Image Machine." Does it exist yet? Naturally, it has my attention.


    Here's a little more info. I'm running a MMUI store and have been reading up on using the Image Machine and Additional Images.

    Current set up may be a little antiquated, but it works. Our product pages, for example, use Toolkit to see if an image file exists that's named some iteration of the product code (prodcode_001.jpg), if so it'll display a little thumb of the image and on-click it'll zoom in using Floatbox. It's worked for me because I set it up, I'm comfortable with it, but it does take time to create each size of the thumbs, main image and zoom images.

    And now I have an employee who is in charge of adding products to a particular category every week. So as I delegate out more work like this, I'm thinking we need to start using the Image Machine, mainly for the automated re-sizing. That's fine, I'd like that.

    So what do I do about the existing products and images? The behavior of Floatbox and the Miva Merchant zoom/expand are a little different and I don't care for mixing the behaviors if we keep the existing products and images the way they are now. I want my customers to have the same click behavior no matter which product they're looking at.

    Make sense?

    Thanks,
    Mark
    Problem is it doesn't sound like you're actually using legacy images which would have a path to the image available for export.

    Basic idea would be to first get image machine working on the site the way you want > create an image type > import the location of the images into the image machine image type for each image. You would also want to ultimately remove your resized version of images when you're done because image machine will resize them and create new files for every one of them.


    hope that made sense
    Last edited by Mark Hood; 08-23-14, 06:25 AM.
    Mark Hood
    Vermont Gear

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      #3
      Re: Should I Convert Legacy Images to Image Machine?

      Yes, makes sense! Thank you. After I posted I realized I'm making this more complicated in my head than necessary.

      Comment


        #4
        Re: Should I Convert Legacy Images to Image Machine?

        Pardon the interruption, but...

        while we are talking about the image machine, did they ever make it so that you could adjust the final quality (and thus, file size) of the images that are generated by the image machine?

        If not, then yoiu might need to do what I do, which is

        1) generate the images,
        2) ftp them down to your local computer,
        3) run through photoshop Save For Web (which reduces the file size in about half by stripping a lot of non-crucial data from the image), and then
        4) ftp them back up to your store.

        Kind of a hassle, but I found that if I have four or five different images, my pages take FOREVER AND A DAY to load if I don't optimize the images.

        Hope this helps.
        Mark Romero
        ~~~~~~~~

        Comment


          #5
          Re: Should I Convert Legacy Images to Image Machine?

          Originally posted by Siamese-Dream.Com View Post
          while we are talking about the image machine, did they ever make it so that you could adjust the final quality (and thus, file size) of the images that are generated by the image machine?
          Yes they did and it's also possible to remove resized versions using the image management tool.
          Mark Hood
          Vermont Gear

          Comment


            #6
            Re: Should I Convert Legacy Images to Image Machine?

            Where would one find tutorials to reacquaint themselves with the image machine function?
            Mark Romero
            ~~~~~~~~

            Comment


              #7
              Re: Should I Convert Legacy Images to Image Machine?

              A bit late and not really deep but should help.

              http://www.miva.com/videos/category/products
              Keith Oratz
              PrepareSmart, LLC - Emergency Preparedness Supplies and Professional Grade Search and Rescue Gear
              www.preparesmart.com

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