5. FTP, SFTP, FTPS or FTPES Connection
fmPreferences - FTP Connection.
FTP connection is not required, you may skip it. FTP is used for images - downloading and uploading images for products, categories and Manufacturers. Also FTP is used to manage downloadable products. If there is no valid FTP connection specified, you will not be able to view images and upload them to your server as well as manage downloadable products.
See an example of properly configured FTP below.
FTP settings:
- Server address - IP address or domain name of FTP server. Do not use any prefixes or suffixes there, just simply the name or IP.
- FTP user name/ FTP password - specify login information.
- Images directory - default directory where all product images are stored. This is the most interesting setting, see below for more explanations.
- Downloads directory - default directory to store downloadable products.
- Use passive mode (recommended).
Additional settings:
- Max FTP threads - the number of threads allowed.
- Automatically download images - option has to be enabled in order to download images and automatically preview them in Store Manager application.
- Cache images option - has to be enabled in order to cache images downloaded to Store Manager.
Default FTP Directories:
- Product images - default subdirectory, where product images are stored.
- Category images - default subdirectory, where category images are stored.
- Manufacturer images - default subdirectory, where manufacturer images are stored.
Images directory
Every FTP user has home directory - certain directory on the server, where the user is connected to by default. Depending on specific configuration or FTP account settings it may be different from one server to another. After server address, user name and password specified you may just browse your FTP and select which directory to use images storage. If you want to type the path manually start from user home directory as it shown above.
Now let's see some product image:
With the settings specified on these screen-shots FTP image path will be combined as:
ftp://<ftp server address>/<ftp images directory>/<ftp product images subdirectory>/<product image name>
i.e.
ftp://emagicone.com/images/product_dir/dvd/the_matrix.gif
Note that this is FTP link, but not HTTP. FTP link may not be opened in a browser but it is suitable to use in Store Manager to download the image and show it in the preview.
There are two buttons that help you edit image. This one is used to browse contents of your local folders and select an image. When you press OK button on product edit form it will be uploaded to "Images directory" on FTP. When local image is selected, this field will display local image path, which looks like the following: C:\My Images\some_image.jpg but right after upload local image path will be replaced with image name some_image.jpg.
"Browse" button is used to browse contents of FTP folder specified as "Images directory" and select some image stored remotely.
Downloads directory
This is simply another FTP directory used to store downloadable products. Let's say, you sell at your store electronic brochures, programs or some other things which may be downloaded right after purchase. All mentioned above for images can be applied to downloadable products.
Note: FTP account (settings - login/password) used for image and downloadable Product management must have rights to read/write appropriate directories otherwise FTP feature may not work properly.
Click "Test Connect" button to verify whether all settings you have specified are correct. You should see "Connection Successful" message. Press OK to save settings and begin working.