mpc Posted January 16, 2007 Share Posted January 16, 2007 is it possible to display product images from an external server instead of or aswell as my catalog/images dir? iv have tried some code in product_php and get some results but i think there is more to do. anyone got any ideas or have done this?? would be greatfull, iv been at it for days now... :'( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wuppy Posted January 16, 2007 Share Posted January 16, 2007 is it possible to display product images from an external server instead of or aswell as my catalog/images dir? iv have tried some code in product_php and get some results but i think there is more to do. anyone got any ideas or have done this?? would be greatfull, iv been at it for days now... :'( It's possible - I think what you are describing is called "Hotlinking" but I think it is a bad idea. You never know what the other site owner will do with the picture (if it changes or moves), plus unless you have permission from the external site, its frowned upon. (Unless it is a link given to you for that purpose, like advertisement affiliate links, or special links made for this purpose i.e. adding a YouTube movie to your blog by using the link they give you.) To help protect sites that don't want this to happen to them, many hosting providers give their customers the ability to block people from "hotlinking" to their sites -- a great feature -- especially if your hosting company charges based on bandwidth. Having someones site like your store link to your images/etc. this way can be very costly to the site hosting the content that is being linked to, because while you (as the site owner with the stuff people are trying to link to) is paying for bandwidth associated with serving their images to other websites, he will most likely not earn any revenue from it (unless you are paying per view or something ..) Plus your site is at the mercy of the external site causing pictures sometimes changing or worse - slowing down the viewing of your catalog because the system serving the images is slow, or down, or whatever. Especially since your catalog could overload the external site with queries slowing that machine down... Sorry for the long winded answer. :) Are you trying to do this so that you don't have to take the time to get your own pictures? Copyright issues? Etc? -keith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mpc Posted January 16, 2007 Author Share Posted January 16, 2007 It's possible - I think what you are describing is called "Hotlinking" but I think it is a bad idea. You never know what the other site owner will do with the picture (if it changes or moves), plus unless you have permission from the external site, its frowned upon. (Unless it is a link given to you for that purpose, like advertisement affiliate links, or special links made for this purpose i.e. adding a YouTube movie to your blog by using the link they give you.) To help protect sites that don't want this to happen to them, many hosting providers give their customers the ability to block people from "hotlinking" to their sites -- a great feature -- especially if your hosting company charges based on bandwidth. Having someones site like your store link to your images/etc. this way can be very costly to the site hosting the content that is being linked to, because while you (as the site owner with the stuff people are trying to link to) is paying for bandwidth associated with serving their images to other websites, he will most likely not earn any revenue from it (unless you are paying per view or something ..) Plus your site is at the mercy of the external site causing pictures sometimes changing or worse - slowing down the viewing of your catalog because the system serving the images is slow, or down, or whatever. Especially since your catalog could overload the external site with queries slowing that machine down... Sorry for the long winded answer. :) Are you trying to do this so that you don't have to take the time to get your own pictures? Copyright issues? Etc? -keith thanks for that. I have an xml of products and images etc from a supplier and use ez populate to upload. The xml has image path like http:/10.100.100.12/images/image.jpg. i cant see how to config ez to handle this. So was just considering changing the path in osc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 16, 2009 Share Posted October 16, 2009 thanks for that. I have an xml of products and images etc from a supplier and use ez populate to upload. The xml has image path like http:/10.100.100.12/images/image.jpg. i cant see how to config ez to handle this. So was just considering changing the path in osc. it would have been nice if the guy just answered the question instead of giving a lesson on why he thinks its a bad idea... lol. please someone show how to so this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
achieve Posted October 28, 2009 Share Posted October 28, 2009 thanks for that. I have an xml of products and images etc from a supplier and use ez populate to upload. The xml has image path like http:/10.100.100.12/images/image.jpg. i cant see how to config ez to handle this. So was just considering changing the path in osc. I have just encountered a similar situation for a client of mine, and would also like to know if anybody has come up with a solution for this. Thanks in advance! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
achieve Posted October 29, 2009 Share Posted October 29, 2009 While looking to see if there was any update on this thread, I then came across this contribution - http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/4936 I haven't tried it yet, but will let you know how I get on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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