Product Catalog

[Matt]

Hello all,

I'm trying to think of a way to use XMPie to create a product catalog. Basically, it would take data from a table as so...

ID          NAME          DESCRIPTION          IMAGE

1           Widget1        This is Widget 1         \products\images\widget1.jpg

2           Widget2        This is Widget 2         \products\images\widget2.jpg

etc...

And, the final output on the page will look something like a grid of images with the product description below each image.

The gotchas are...

1) The amount of products vary. It is not a fixed number and will change based on the dataset provided

2) There will be enough products that it will span multiple pages

Since, the output is not fixed and the qty is large, it doesn't seem feasible to create an ADOR for each image on the grid, so I figure my only option is to do something with a Table ADOR, but that's where I'm stuck. I'm not sure how to manipulate the data in to a table that will work.

Any suggestions?

[Igor]

Are you using uCreate or uPlan to create a logic ?

if you are using inDesign plug-in you options are limited but you are on the right track by using Table ADOR

you will use in addition to recipient list (can be just a counter) additional list or it could be juts one file that have both recipients and product  (xls, mdb )

so if you have 2 CSV files one look like

File 1 

id, fname, lname , catalog-id

1, Igor, Vorobeychik, 1

2, Matt, SomeFamilyname, 2

File 2 

Catalog ID , ID         , NAME         , DESCRIPTION          ,IMAGE

1,                1           Widget1        This is Widget 1         \products\images\widget1.jpg

1,                2           Widget2        This is Widget 2         \products\images\widget2.jpg

2,                2           Widget2        This is Widget 2         \products\images\widget2.jpg

Point Table ADOR to file 2 and make Table Filed Catalog ID (that i added to your fileds )  Equals Recipient Filed catalog-id

that will be able to produce different catalogs for different people 

Now I use uPlan that allow create more robust User Views using SQL statements and more robust business logic and use it with Table ADOR , so sorry if my directions was not exact .

Igor.