Google base is an increasingly useful place to have a presence for eTailers and I have created spreadsheets of data from the KK mySQL tables and (after a lot of concatenating cells :( ) and saving it as a tab delimited file, created detailed data feeds acceptable to Google base.
I was on the point of writing a java app to read the tables and create an xml file to do it when...
I now notice they have created a Store Connector which automates (Well we will see!) the process.
It reads from stores set up using Yahoo, eBay and oscommerce so I reckoned it ought to be able to deal with KK. I entered the username, password and URL of the admin page but it says the connection failed. Has anybody else tried Store Connector?
I am guessing the crawling mechanism is not directly accessing the db tables but reading the HTML output of the admin GUI which means the KK admin UI would have to be identical to the oscommerce one. If that is the problem shall I (we) lobby for KK compatability?
Meanwhile, I'm sure that a java application that creates an XML file that can be fed to Google from the KonaKart tables , would be a most welcome contribution to the KonaKart community ;)
Julie, if Google Base confirm they will not cover KK I will either write the app to create XML or just write a BIRT report that creates a tab delimited file.
I will consider writing a vanilla version which grabs values as-is and provide it for general use but I will need to customise it for my own commercial use because the product name does not include the manufacturers name nor the product category. For Google base, the ideal product name includes both- eg "Ford Popular Car" rather than just "Popular".
If I write the app it can appear as a custom panel in the admin app perhaps?
I will return with Googles reply and my plan...