I wish that there was a way to edit my catalog OFFline and then upload the changes when I'm done (or whenever it is convenient afterwards).

Fighting against my internet connection, slow and crappy hosting (godaddy.com), and customers (both online and in person) and their thousands of individual issues, all while trying to add/edit/remove products in my online catalog makes for headaches of immense proportions. If I could just work on my catalog with a piece of software that ISN'T a web browser would be such a wonderful change.

You may want to looking the feature called Easy Populate.

It lets you download a .CSV of all the products in your store,
so you can manipulate it offline with a spreadsheet application like EXCEL, then resave the file as a .txt file, upload it to Easy Populate and it will make all those changes for you.

Well, that sounds like would mean I have to edit my catalog without a GUI in any way similar to the current CRELoaded one, and I'd see that as just as much if not more of a pain than doing it online.

the CRELoaded cart is web server powered software and that is just the way it works.



Unfortunately there is no offline GUI based editor or the CRE Loaded software that I am aware of at this time.

If anyone knows about any Offline GUI based product editor for the CRE Loaded cart, please chime in on this thread and let me and AUwebman1 know, so we can check it out.

I know that there is none, that's why I say I wish there was.

Have you checked out the third party CRE Loaded Manager from Magnetic One?

http://www.creloaded-manager.com/

Actually....that kinda looks exactly like what I'm talking about....

We'll see if the trial shows me that it's worth the price.

Actually, there is a GUI that will allow you to edit your store/s without the need to visit the web interface.

http://www.magneticone.com/store/CRE.Loaded.Modules/CRE.Loaded.Management

Store Manager allows you to work on your live store from your desktop. It doesn't allow you to work offline and upload later in a GUI interface.

The way I do this is with a local server running Xampp. You can use it on your desktop. Best advice is to get a version that is the same as the server you run on. In other words, don't get Xampp with php5 and mySQL 5 if your server is running php4 and mySQL 4. Get the one that is the same version so when you upload you don't have surprises. You might have to dig around a little in the archives if you run older versions of php and mySQL.

Set up your sites's configure files for localhost and copy your server database to your local version of mySQL (I use Navicat). Now you have your website running on your desktop and can edit files and make database changes without affecting your live site. Once you have it the way you want it, you upload and test. I have local copies of all my websites and all my client's websites so I can pull them up and work on them without an Internet connection. Also saves your bacon if you suffer a hack or edit live files and need a backup copy.

That is how most developers work on sites locally (offline). It's a bit of a pain to first discover and set up but after you get the hang of it is a great way to go. Especially if you're doing design work.

Best regards,

Jody

Revisiting this topic.

I've been using Magnetic One's Store Manager now for about 6 months and it's been working great for me so far. To clear things up from what I was talking about back then, what I was looking for was a way to cut out the browser-based administration because the Product Catalog on the admin side of my website runs SOOOO freaking slow, and often stops loading the page halfway through (the header and navigation will show but the rest of the page remains blank). So I was looking for a way to add to and edit my catalog outside of the browser, not necessarily offline. Store Manager does just that, and it has a system that seems a little better organized and functional than CRE Loaded's browser-based software.

I still use the web browser admin panel for all my other needs (customers, orders, store config, etc), but I add/edit the entire product catalog almost exclusively with Store Manager.

I am intrigued by DSAuthority's method of running a localized version of the site, especially because of the insurance of having a local backup of the most current database. One thing about that though... what about customers? Since products and customers are all in the same database, and I have a copy of that database locally, is it set up to download new customers as they register and edit their accounts and place orders?