1.4. 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, 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 further explanations.
• Downloads directory - default directory to store downloadable products.
• Use passive mode (recommended).

Additional settings:

• Max FTP threads - the number of threads allowed.
• Cache images - has to be enabled to cache images downloaded to Store Manager.

After setting up your FTP connection correctly, images will be uploaded automatically.

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 - some directory on the server, to which the user is connected 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 were specified, you may just browse your FTP and select which directory is used to store images. If you want to type path manually, start from user home directory as it shown above.

Now let's see some product image:

With the settings specified on these screenshots, FTP image path will be defined as:

ftp://<ftp server address>/<ftp images directory>/<ftp product images subdirectory>/<product image name>

i.e.

ftp://emagicone.com/store/images/product_img/dvd/the_matrix.gif

Note that this is FTP link, but not HTTP. FTP link should not be opened in a browser, but it is suitable for usage in Store Manager for downloading the image (it is show it in preview).

There are two buttons possible to use to 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 selected, this field will display local image path like shown in the following example: C:\My Images\some_image.jpg but right after upload, the local image path will be replaced with image name some_image.jpg.

This button is used to browse contents of FTP folder specified as "Images directory" and select some image stored remotely.