CSV Improved - News

With things moving along here at CSV Improved, it is time to look forward and give everybody an insight into what is planned for the middle term future. Currently there are 2 components, CSV Improved and CSVI SOBI for importing/exporting data into your website. Two more components will be added in the course of this year and are expected in the fall of 2009. These components are CSVI Joomfish and CSVI redVMPRODUCTFINDER.

CSV Improved has made a successful transfer from Joomla 1.0 to Joomla 1.5. Currently CSVI SOBI is being revised and in testing to make it work in the same manner as CSV Improved. Both CSVI Joomfish and CSVI redVMPRODUCTFINDER will be build on the basis of CSV Improved. This will give a familiar feeling when using these products and no new system needs to be learned.

Along with these new components will come a name change for CSV Improved. To distinguish what kind of CSV Improved version is being used, CSV Improved will be renamed to CSVI VM.

All components will be licensed and distributed in the same manner, this means:

• Users with a subscription will get new releases first
• Users with a subscription will get priority support
• A release becomes publicly available after 4 weeks of its initial release date
• All releases are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Netherlands License

The first draft of the CSVI VM Handbook has been released, this will see further updates, additions, corrections. With new features constantly being implemented the available fields page also needs updating. This will also take place in due time. Please report any pages that are missing or give a page not found warning. This will increase correctnes and completenes of all available fields.

The summer holiday is also drawing near. The month of July support will be limited as I am on holidays. Following this, as per August 1st, all support for Joomla 1.0 and associated versions will come to an end. All support and development will be focused on the Joomla 1.5 native version.

Translations are currently being added to CSV Improved and for this I wish to thank the translators. If CSV Improved is not yet available in your language and you wish to help out, please contact me. Help us to let CSV Improved speak your language.

The single most seen message by users is probably the "Incorrect column count".

What does it actually mean?

The incorrect column count means that the columns CSV Improved has found in your file is not the same as the columns in your configuration. Let's clarify this with some examples.

Example 1, the trailing field delimiter:

The CSV file looks like this:

product_sku,poduct_name,category_path
PROD1,Product 1,Products/Software,

The field delimiter used is a comma, this means we have a total of 3 fields:

1. product_sku
2. product_name
3. category_path

The product information we want to import has a total of 4 fields:

1. PROD1
2. Product 1
3. Products/Software
4. 
   

Now we can clearly see that there is an incorrect column count because 3 is not the same as 4. Why are there 4 fields for the product information? As we use the comma as field delimiter, after every comma a new field starts. So the comma after Products/Software also creates a new field. The trailing comma must be removed. Always check your file for trailing field delimiters.

Example 2, the duplicate fields:

The CSV file looks like this:

product_sku,poduct_name,product_name,category_path
PROD1,Product 1,Product 1,Products/Software

The field delimiter used is a comma, this means we have a total of 3 fields:

1. product_sku
2. product_name
   
3. category_path

The product information we want to import has a total of 4 fields:

1. PROD1
2. Product 1
3. Product 1
4. Products/Software

Since the product_name field already exists already the same name again is ignored. This leaves you with 3 fields to import while the data contains 4. Either rename or remove the column to solve the issue.

Example 3, the missing field:

The CSV file looks like this:

product_sku,product_name,category_path,product_publish
PROD1,Product 1,Products/Software

The field delimiter used is a comma, this means we have a total of 4 fields:

1. product_sku
2. product_name
   
3. category_path
4. product_publish
   

The product information we want to import has a total of 3 fields:

1. PROD1
2. Product 1
3. Products/Software

Here we have a situation where the configuration fields are more than the data fields. What happens is that in a spreadsheet program like Excel a cell is not exported until it is "touched". In this case the column header product_publish was added but no value was put in for the product. To solve this the cell must be given a space or anything actually so it becomes a used cell after that it will be exported.

Example 4, the wrong number of fields:

It is possible to use the column headers in a file to tell CSV Improved what fields you want to use. There is another way and that is to assign fields to the template used for import via the templates menu.

The CSV file looks like this:

PROD1,Product 1,Products/Software

The template fields assignment looks like:

product_sku
product_name
attribute
category_path

This means we have a total of 4 fields:

1. product_sku
2. product_name
3. attribute
4. category_path

The product information we want to import has a total of 3 fields:

1. PROD1
2. Product 1
3. Products/Software

This is another situation where the configuration fields are more than the data fields. The solution here is to remove the assigned fields that are not being used.

With the ever growing number of users of CSV Improved the time is ripe for a handbook. The handbook covers many topics from the installation of CSV Improved to the use of XML files and from template creation to maintenance. As this is the first draft of the handbook it is definitely not complete but a good step in the direction of better documentation. Your feedback is requested for enhancing the completeness and correctness of the handbook.

The handbook is freely available for download from the download section for all users with a subscription.