Author Topic: Ktools Photostore (Read 80927 times)

lisafx · « **on:** January 31, 2011, 14:26 »

Like a lot of us right now, I am trying to set up my own website to sell my images directly, using Ktools Photostore. Or more accurately, a web designer friend is setting it up for me.

It is proving a bit more of a challenge to get things just right than I had hoped, and Ktools has just shut down their support forums to new registrants

I thought it might be a good idea to have a thread here at MSG where we can discuss issues related to setting up our own sites, offer tips from our own experiences, and perhaps get some tips from others who have sorted it out already.

I would also be willing to pay someone with coding experience to help out the designer who is currently working on my site. The issues are minor ones, but still still a PITA if you don't know how to correct them.

If anyone wants to help out, either with some advice, or by helping code the site, please post here or PM me.

cthoman · « **Reply #1 on:** January 31, 2011, 14:46 »

Yeah, there were some little things that could be improved with it. I had to go through the English file and swap out the word photo for illustration or image. It would have been nice if they used something more generic like image. Also, my brother helped me add in the sub categories to the batch edit page which was a huge help. I need to get him to fix some search problems too. I know Elena said she had some bugs with the search as well.

lisafx · « **Reply #2 on:** January 31, 2011, 14:54 »

LOL - I was busy PMing you as you were responding here. Thanks a lot for responding.

If you or your brother can sort this for me I would be happy to pay you/him.

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #3 on:** January 31, 2011, 15:12 »

Quote from: lisafx on January 31, 2011, 14:26

Ktools has just shut down their support forums to new registrants

Why would they do that? Weird...

lisafx · « **Reply #4 on:** January 31, 2011, 15:23 »

Quote from: sjlocke on January 31, 2011, 15:12

Quote from: lisafx on January 31, 2011, 14:26
Ktools has just shut down their support forums to new registrants

Why would they do that? Weird...

Right...?!

When I tried to register for the forums it said they have disabled new forum registrations because 9 out of 10 of them were spam. As for the 10th - their legitimate customers - I guess we are SOL

Whiz · « **Reply #5 on:** January 31, 2011, 15:26 »

Quote from: sjlocke on January 31, 2011, 15:12

Quote from: lisafx on January 31, 2011, 14:26
Ktools has just shut down their support forums to new registrants

Why would they do that? Weird...

I think they did it a couple of months ago. I tried accessing them back then and had the same problem. You're right lisafx, it is due to spam. Go figure.

lisafx · « **Reply #6 on:** January 31, 2011, 15:26 »

Quote from: Whiz on January 31, 2011, 15:26

Quote from: sjlocke on January 31, 2011, 15:12
Quote from: lisafx on January 31, 2011, 14:26
Ktools has just shut down their support forums to new registrants

Why would they do that? Weird...

I think they did it a couple of months ago. I tried accessing them back then and had the same problem. You're right lisafx, it is due to spam. Go figure.

Did you ever work out a solution to your issues?

jamirae · « **Reply #7 on:** January 31, 2011, 15:28 »

Quote from: lisafx on January 31, 2011, 15:23

Quote from: sjlocke on January 31, 2011, 15:12
Quote from: lisafx on January 31, 2011, 14:26
Ktools has just shut down their support forums to new registrants

Why would they do that? Weird...

Right...?!

When I tried to register for the forums it said they have disabled new forum registrations because 9 out of 10 of them were spam. As for the 10th - their legitimate customers - I guess we are SOL

maybe you can email them and they will allow you to register. there's been a big spam bot hitting some forum boards, I know one that I help out with has been getting about 15-20 spambot registrants a day. But I just set it to 'admin approval' so I have to manually approve the legit new registrations which are only about 1 every few weeks or so. It appears they use the same forum software (from the screenshot I saw - looks like InvisionPowerBoard) and an upgrade would probably all but eliminate the spam.

Whiz · « **Reply #8 on:** January 31, 2011, 15:32 »

Quote from: lisafx on January 31, 2011, 15:26

Quote from: Whiz on January 31, 2011, 15:26
Quote from: sjlocke on January 31, 2011, 15:12
Quote from: lisafx on January 31, 2011, 14:26
Ktools has just shut down their support forums to new registrants

Why would they do that? Weird...

I think they did it a couple of months ago. I tried accessing them back then and had the same problem. You're right lisafx, it is due to spam. Go figure.

Did you ever work out a solution to your issues?

Yeah, my SQL would not work for some reason; I was having issues with naming the database and such. I had never done that before. But then it magically just fixed itself, so I was happy. That was really the only major hurdle I have had so far, other than my site dying the other day. But it came back to life ten minutes later. It said "Photostore has encountered a fatal error" or something to that effect. Spooky.

madelaide · « **Reply #9 on:** January 31, 2011, 15:34 »

These technical difficulties is the reason why I keep from buying a software and would like a more ready-to-use solution.

lisafx · « **Reply #10 on:** January 31, 2011, 15:35 »

Quote from: Whiz on January 31, 2011, 15:32

Yeah, my SQL would not work for some reason; I was having issues with naming the database and such. I had never done that before. But then it magically just fixed itself, so I was happy. That was really the only major hurdle I have had so far, other than my site dying the other day. But it came back to life ten minutes later. It said "Photostore has encountered a fatal error" or something to that effect. Spooky.

Oh, joy! Hope that is not a regular occurrence!

Glad your issues got sorted on their own

Thanks for the suggestion, Jami, about contacting support to register for the forum. Just did that. Hopefully I will hear back soon.

lisafx · « **Reply #11 on:** January 31, 2011, 15:37 »

Quote from: madelaide on January 31, 2011, 15:34

These technical difficulties is the reason why I keep from buying a software and would like a more ready-to-use solution.

Don't get discouraged. I am sure we will get the kinks worked out, and hopefully this forum can serve as a way to share info to help others struggling with the same issues

WarrenPrice · « **Reply #12 on:** January 31, 2011, 15:51 »

My big issue with selling directly has always been lack of know how in writing/drafting the appropriate license. Do you feel comfortable with that?

ThomasAmby · « **Reply #13 on:** January 31, 2011, 16:04 »

I also just bought the Photostore and am using these days / weeks to set it up, thrilled about it

Brilliant thread and idea

Quote

I had to go through the English file and swap out the word photo for illustration or image.

HAHA I was in the same situation, took me around half an hour to figure that out.

Generally it's a PITA to find out where to start with a script containing more than 2000 files, but as you get to know it things start to roll.

I have a problem of my own, which is that my store doesn't show uploaded images on localhost. There are just x'es instead of the uploaded images, which makes it hard to design the framework. Funny enough, it's not a problem when I upload to my website (I'm using webhostingpad). Anyone who's got an idea how I fix this local problem?

lisafx I don't know how much experience you have with PHP/MySQL and HTML/CSS. I'm no programmer but I know just enough to get myself going by trial and error, so if you have questions I'll be happy to see if I can help you out. I doubt I'll be able to though, if your web designer can't !

Here's an appetiser for mine

STAY TUNED

ppdd · « **Reply #14 on:** January 31, 2011, 16:28 »

If you bought the software, you can submit to their support system and they are quite responsive. If you are customizing, the forums can be helpful, but it seems like they are not used as much as they were in years past. Most people are waiting for version 4, which has ben in the works for years. Several years. If it's ever released, it will be great - the product of many years of requests and refinements. But it's a decent sized if.

Generally, the site kicks out "Photostore had encountered a problem" when the SQL server isn't available.

lisafx · « **Reply #15 on:** January 31, 2011, 16:46 »

I tried submitting a support ticket, but it takes 48 hours for them to get back to you.

redwater · « **Reply #16 on:** January 31, 2011, 16:52 »

I just bought ktools photostore a few weeks ago and i'm still working on getting my images up (i have about 2000 plus mainly illustrations). i've no prior knowledge on web programming stuff but their support is quick to help. they normally respond to your support ticket within 24 hours based on my experience.

madelaide · « **Reply #17 on:** January 31, 2011, 17:07 »

Maybe we could have gotten a bulk sale discount!

lisafx · « **Reply #18 on:** January 31, 2011, 17:20 »

Thanks so much for the helpful replies so far, and for the e-mails with helpful tips.

Thanks to some of them I have managed to get a few of my issues ironed out and am in the process of working on others.

Once I know more about this I will be happy to pay it forward too.

Open_ · « **Reply #19 on:** January 31, 2011, 21:39 »

~~im now developing selling platform from scratch, a platform where buyer pay direct to us via paypal and you can say good bye to middle man. this project still in early stage, wish me luck.~~

Whiz · « **Reply #20 on:** February 03, 2011, 10:43 »

Does anybody know how to make the search results set to match exact terms instead of match all terms by default?

ThomasAmby · « **Reply #21 on:** February 03, 2011, 12:42 »

I've stumbled upon some problems setting up this store, that I couldn't find any answer to in the Ktools FAQ. Maybe because those are not common problems, maybe not. I figured I'd share what I learned so far to set it up for local editing. Might be obvious to some, but for people like me who are not very familiar with PHP/HTML I think it could be helpful

Photostore doesn't generate previews of uploaded stock photos
After several days I learned from the helpful support team at Ktools that I had to go to php.ini and change the setting called error_reporting to "2039" (mine was set to "E_ALL"), which worked.

Finding out where to edit
There are many included files in each document so it can be a PITA to find out where to edit or change any of the text. You can't just search for the text in the document you're at, most of the time you'd have to go to English.php which is located in the language-folder and search for it there. The text is stored in variables, so you can only search for the variables on for instance index.php, header.php etc...

I'll update if/when I come across more problems

redwater · « **Reply #22 on:** February 03, 2011, 15:46 »

thanks, for those tips, Thomas, especially about finding out where to edit or change text. BTW, how's the progress on setting up your site? i'm still half way on mine, probably won't be up and running till end of Feb.

cathyslife · « **Reply #23 on:** February 03, 2011, 17:58 »

Just started working on mine yesterday. Lots of things have to be changed in the php files, but fortunately the uploading of photos is pretty well managed.

lisafx · « **Reply #24 on:** February 03, 2011, 18:34 »

Good tips here. Thanks for sharing, Thomas. In my case, I have no ability to edit PHP files, and would be afraid I'd screw something up if I tried. Gonna have to outsource this part of it.

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Author Topic: Ktools Photostore (Read 80927 times)

lisafx

cthoman

lisafx

Sean Locke Photography

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Whiz

lisafx

jamirae

Whiz

madelaide

lisafx

lisafx

WarrenPrice

ThomasAmby

ppdd

lisafx

redwater

madelaide

lisafx

Open_

Whiz

ThomasAmby

redwater

cathyslife

lisafx

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