Starting out in Mass Actions

-- Joomla version -- : 3.3.6
-- PHP version -- : 5.5.24
-- Browser(s) name and version -- : Firefox 39.0

Ok I am very new to this and have read around a lot.
I have read "Mass Actions: Documentation and tutorial"
What I am actually trying to do is export a csv file of all my products with stock so i can use the csv file to import them into an online shopping portal like bid or buy.

We cannot seem to find a plug in that will allow me to start a feed to this website.

Where do I start reading up on all of this to try to understand it.
In the Mass Action tutorial I found that I was not able to drop down any options in the "select a trigger" box. There are just no options available. see attached

Hi,

If you don't have any triggers, filters or actions in the dropdowns, please verify that the plugins "system / hikashopmassaction" and "hikashop / massaction_product" are published.

OK so I now have the drop down options appearing. Thank you.

I have managed to get it to display results for me.
But I can't get it to export a csv file or XLS file for me.

I have put into the export path field the following: C:\Users\Paul\Documents\Airsoft HQ\Website stuff\Mass Action csv files
and it says "message - succesfully saved" but nothing shows in that folder.

If I put nothing in at all to that field then it opens it in Excel though.

Also, in the Hikashop Documentation 'Mass Actions: Documentation and tutorial" There is no information at all on the field "Limitations"on the mass action page. start is 0 Value is 500 by default. What does this mean?

Hi,

The limitation field allow to limit the quantity of data to process. If set to 500 so it will process 500 elements.
This limit is present to avoid error overloads.

Regarding the path for the csv export, you have to set a server path, not a path on your computer, that can't work this way.
If your server is a linux one the path should like that: /var/www/mywebsite/myfolder/myfile.csv

Else you can set a relative path like: /myfolder/myfile.csv

OK thank you for this.

I have established if I put nothing in the Export path it will allow me to choose to open the file.

Now I have been experimenting with the mass actions features but I need more information. Where can I get more information on filters and how to use an OR function? i.e. all the products in Category_id = 183 OR Category_id = 92
I need more info on the formulas used to set up a mass action? i.e how do I use REGEXP

I have done the tutorial but have a number of problems so far:
How do I get the mass action to list all the products in two or four categories where the category numbers are not consecutive?
i.e. what if I want all the products in category_id 91, 183, 184, and 192?
Whenever I ask the product_description to appear in the report in a XLS file , It just bombs out - and in a csv file it prints everything vertically.

Hi,

There is no "OR" conditions for now in the mass actions, so you will have to process as many mass actions as categories.

Regarding the description issue, I think this is just the way your xls file reader is set that display the description this way.
If you open it in, for example, a text editor, you should see the description on one line.

Even when I open it in notepad It seems to present it vertically and not horizontally.
See attached

Also where can I get details on how to use all ]the options available on the Mass Actions screen?

Hi,

It present it horizontally but as there is line breaks in the description it keeps the formatting.

Here is the mass action documentation:
www.hikashop.com/support/documentation/s...massaction-form.html

I have been through this mass action documentation and tutorials.
But I really think that there is a lot more detail need on this section. Especially require more detail on the detailed option for FIlters.

I also think that an OR function should be introduced that surely can't be difficult to code in.

BTW I upgraded last night to the latest version of Joomla and Hika and I think the enhancements so far are really good.