Product Image Gallery

[joshpappas]

I'd like to create a product image gallery with images that customers send us of our products in use. However, I want these to be featured separately on the product page from the regular product photos. Is it possible to still manage these by adding them to a product and using ImageMachine? How would I need to set that up?

Thanks,
Josh

[Brennan]

Re: Product Image Gallery

Yes you could manage it though Image Machine however, it would require some custom coding to limit certain image types from showing up.

You would essentially have image machine writing two separate sets of image based on image type inclusion/exclusions. None of this is built in but it is all doable with some custom coding.

[joshpappas]

Re: Product Image Gallery

Brennan,
Thanks for your reply. I think I was closer to a solution than I initially realized. I was getting hung up on how to run Image Machine more than once with different size settings, but your comment caused me to dig further and I figured that out. Very handy.

My remaining issue is that I wanted to create an image type called "Customer Images" and assign that to everything in the gallery, then filter that type code from the regular product display thumbnail area. That would work great except it seems that I can't assign an image type to more than one image, so I'll end up with some untold number of image types and have to add more every time I get a new photo to feature. Is there a way around that? When I initially uploaded a few images I was able to assign them all the same type, but when I added subsequent images it started changing the assignments so that only one image could have a given type code at the same time. I assume the initial behavior allowing multiple images to have the same type was a bug, but everything worked perfectly that way, so I would love it if I could just do that.

Thoughts?

Josh

[Keitho]

Re: Product Image Gallery

Good question Josh.

I use a simpler system wherein I have a "Custom Product Examples" Category and unique items strictly created just to house the images. I need to do some more editing to get rid of the purchase options but its been a great place to guide potential customers to see our previous work. It's working well in the live 9.x store with my older 5.5 template structure. In my dev store I'm playing with the Iron and Wool theme (with all the new templates in place) and it seems to be working.

One thing I've noticed in both stores is that all the images that don't have an image type show up just fine. I think you just need to have one designated Main and tagging the rest is optional. Don't know if that observation might help your situation.

Here is the link to the "Custom Product Examples" Category in the live store:

http://www.preparesmart.com/mm5/merc...tegory_Code=97

[joshpappas]

Re: Product Image Gallery

I was working on this late last night and ended up just creating a bunch of custom image types that all start with "customer" for now since that's an immediate solution. Hopefully a more concise way of handling that will come along in time. Until then, this is what we've got:

https://www.superiorcelebrations.com...sparklers.html

I think it turned out nicely.

Keith, I like what you've done. Very straightforward and definitely gets the job done. I think the main difference for us is in the way we want to feature the images on the same product page as the rest of the product images, which does create some additional complexity.

Brennan, thanks again for telling me it was possible and pointing me in the right direction.


Josh

[Keitho]

Re: Product Image Gallery

Josh, love your site and what you have accomplished. There's a really nice flow. The closest we get is to have the one of the "Example" Items as a Related Item on the regular Product Pages.

BTW, did you see our Glow in the Dark Items? The megaphone (or Grab and Glow-a-Fone, as we call it) and Perpetual Light Sticks are very popular and might be useful for you.

http://www.preparesmart.com/mm5/merc...tegory_Code=20

[joshpappas]

Re: Product Image Gallery

Thanks, Keith. I'll check it out!

[Jbrennan]

Hello Josh. I really like the Gallery you created. I currently have a Miva website and would like to add something similar. Is this something you can help me with? Our website is https://brennanscatering.com .

Thanks,
Jason