new product - use existing image, no new upload?

[beatrice]

Hello,

- creating a new product
- at the media management
- I can upload a new image.

Can't I also choose an existing one from the datamanagement and the image orders I'd created there?

e.g. I sometimes have to change existing images and want to work on them and swap them/one folder in one go
and not wade through every product page and upload images one by one again.
Where do I find the already created images for the product pages?

Is it also possible to use own thumbnails and not let the system create them automatically?

bye,
beatrice

[thyon]

Isotope doesn't use the built-in file selector. You have to upload the new image. As long as the image is the same name, it won't actually store another image, but keep the same name and link it to the same file.

To update the file you can update it using FTP into the /isotope/C/charliechocolate.jpg (if your file starts with a C)
and then you must do a system maintenance and delete the system/html files as there will be thumbnails from the original, so that they must be regenerated.

You can setup any number of thumbnails in the store config. The system will auto-generate the thumbnail to your specs, and you can specify any number of sizes (thumbnail, medium, large, gallery). Normally your thumbnails are just smaller versions of your main images, so not sure why you want a custom thumbnail image?

You can also watermark each image with another image and place it in any corner.

[beatrice]

- Sorting them simply alphabetically is not that logical.
I'd like to name, organise and decide into which folders and subfolders images get sorted and also see those of isotope in my Files (Dateienverwaltung).
- I do also want to keep the same order/folders like I use for preparing images locally, so discussing them with clients, replacing, renaming, reworking them can all happen easier and quicker.
- I want to optimize the images myself for display (some need different sharpening, contrast, jpg quality than others, ...)
- especially thumbnails most often need further sharpening or saturation to look good.
- I might not want to use the the same image as thumbnail but maybe only a different cutting, close-up of a part of the image or a different proportion of it without distortion
(e.g. having always square or round thumbnails to give all an equal look even if I have to show different formats on the details page due to the different products like lantern post and canoe ...)
- some products/groups might require larger thumbnails than others, e.g. trousers, earrings, tents ...
- or products like brushes: the important thing for users is to decide after what the brushhairs look like, not the whole brush, but you don't want the first large image to be that superzoombrush-xxl then)

At least there should be an option in isotope to either use the file selector or let it do everything automatically...

[thyon]

They chose early on not to use the file selector, because it would introduce too many problems, including crashing the file selector or file manager (we all know how stupid clients can be). Imagine they dump all the images in a single folder, and then they have 3500 products? Now you understand why they did this, so that isotope would scale.

Consider the Isotope images as auto-managed, beyond your control, it's their choice to use the filename's first letter to manage the images, it just creates a split point, so that you don't get 3500 images in one folder.