I'm trying to divide up my 600, or so, product images into different folders so they're not all in the one "product images" folder - which no longer responds when I open it in IE since there are so many.

But the product images seem to come through (in the product details page) from folders in some places and not others.....

- Goto File Manager - FTP in the admin panel
- Then I add a folder such as "productimages2", "productimages3", etc.
- I upload the images from my computer into the new folder.
- Then I can go into the product detail editor for a particular product I already have and just change the name of the image from "productimages/widget.jpg" to "productimages2/widget.jpg" and this works okay.
- Then I can just delete the original images in the "product images" folder.

**however, the window where I upload the images in this scenario does not have the Thumbnail creator option**

But if I just go to the "Basic Edit" or "Advanced Edit" in product details editor, then go to "Images", and hit "Browse" to get to the main images folder - "productimages" - and try to add the same folder there (such as "productimages2") it doesn't recognize the images if I then switch to "productimages2/widget.jpg".

If anyone understands what I'm talking about, I'm basically trying to figure out the best place to add the new folders to store my product images, and still be able to use the Thumbnail creator option if possible.

Thanks!

If you want the thumbnail option to work, you'd create a folder (by going to the product, images, browse) which is actually a subfolder of productimages... so, if you created a folder called "one", it'd be:

productimages/one/widget.jpg

Hope that makes sense!

jared, gave you the right info, I just wanted to add that we make a folder for each category and put images inside these folders. I think the guidelines are to not put more than a 100 images in one folder.

Another thing, when you go into the productimages folder and have 600 images, don't wait for all of the images to load in this window, just hit the stop loading button on the window so you can hit the create a new folder icon and not have to wait on the entire window to load.

Awesome, so - ProductImages/productimages2/widget.jpg - is what I should be doing. That's working.

And not more than 100 per folder, got it.

One more question:

In product detail pages, I'm using the images I had in "Large Image" in "Image Gallery" and no longer need the "Large Image'' part filled in. Should I erase the link and Alt Tag in the "Large Image" sections and leave them blank, or does it not make a difference?

Not sure I understand your question, alt tags do help but you only need them if there is an image.

What I mean is I have "Productimages/one/widget.jpg", for example, as a Large Image. But I don't need a Large Image since I'm using the Image Gallery. So does it matter if I leave "productimages/one/widget.jpg" or should I leave the Large Image blank?

From what I know if you leave it blank, then when someone hits that product, there will not be a picture there. It will say "Click to View Images" but no picture.

Even though we use the gallery on a few products, we want the customer to a picture when they hit the product. You never know, people may buy without looking at the gallery.

Hope this helps.

Macrick does make a very good point about the number of images in one folder. I do have a few folders that have over 1000 images in them and everything works good on the website but when I click that folder for editing or viewing it takes a little longer to load, which can be frustrating.

I have also found that when you upload a large amount like 1000 or 2000 the last image always fails to upload and you have to upload it manually. I think it just reaches a point at the end where it has an issue during the final stages of the uploads.

Other than the loading time to view the folder and the occassional image error at the end I have not had many other issues with the large quantity in one folder.

Just make sure you structure your images folders well so that you do not have to make many changes later, which requires you to change the image links for the products. If you take a little more time naming and organizating the structure in the begining it will help in the long run.

There IS a picture. When someone clicks "view other images" underneath the product photo in the product details page, I have it set so it gets the image from the Image Gallery instead of Large Image.

But I still have the photo link "productimages/one/widget. jpg" (for example) in the Large Image space, and I have the alt tag for Large Image as well.

So I'm wondering if it makes any difference having the Large Image and it's alt tag if they aren't actually being used on my site?

this is hard to explain I guess