How to add a list of categories from txt file

[Vitis]

Hi,
I have a main category named
Grape Varieties

I want to add a chunk of a few hundred varieties to this category and
have a list in a notpad .txt file such as

Almeria
Alwood
Bianco
Cabernet
et....

Is there an easier way than to add each of them one at a time thru the admin?

Any help would be grapely appreciated.
Michel

[Bruceper]

Yup, and I'll tell you how since i'm such a nice guy

And by the way, you haven't commented on my Grape pictures yet.

If you're only doing categories then you need to make yourself a text file. Name it whatever you want.

All you need in this text file to make it work is 4 things for each category

category_id parent_id name description

Category_id is the category_id of your new category. This should start at ONE number higher than the highest category you currently have

parent_id should be 0 if you are making a MAIN category. Otherwise the parent_id will be the category_id that the link belongs to

name is quite obvious, this is the name of your category

description is quite obvious as well, it is the description of the category.

Put all that together and you've got yourself a category database!

But you need to do it in a certain way, which I'll tell you if you give me $20 (or just read a little further).

category_id parent_id name description
1 0 Category 1 Description 1
2 0 Category 2 Description 2
3 0 Category 3 Description 3
4 0 Category 4 Description 4
5 0 Category 5 Description 5


Each row is seperated by a TAB character. If it's not then it will NOT work properly!

Of course the above is missing some info such as category permissions, cat pricing, meta keywords and descriptions but that's the basic info. I've attached a sample with ALL fields so you can take a better look. Don't forget to turn word wrap OFF to view this properly. Of course you can also import it into Excel so you can work with the info easier. Once you're done export as text - tab delimited.

Enjoy!

[Vitis]

What grape pictures?.....

I think I get the picture of how this is done but I'm way too afraid of messing up my grapey database. I'd have to see for example, the text file with one category addition filled in (exactly) the way the file needs to look when I export it. I guess I can do it by hand.....only a few hours or a day probably....

I don't know with your example if I'm supposed to export it with the descriptions listed at the top of the txt file, for example...

Thanks again, though and tell me what you mean about the grape pics...

Do I need to go over there this winter and set up a vineyard for you?
M

[Bruceper]

I sent you a PM with some links to pictures of my grapes. They are large pics so they'll take a while to load.

http://www.avtronics.net/Grapes2.jpg
http://www.avtronics.net/Grapes5.jpg

The descriptions at the top of the file must be deleted, those are there as an example only. Also delete the first blank line.

I've attached a sample category import file with 10 lines and it is set up exactly how it needs to be for when you import into your directory.

Don't forget to change the category numbers as mentioned above!