Documentaion

"MultiScraper for Zen Cart" software Documentation

MultiScraper is the software for automatic bulk product upload from any big market directly into your Zen Cart store
We developed this application in such a way that creation of large high-grade store with lots of categories and products has become a matter of several weeks or even days.


Installation

MultiScraper is stand-alone application, it will use some Zen Cart system files to integrate into your store.
Installation process is as simple as possible.

Inside the MultiScraper's Installation package ("MSPRO" zip archive) you will find the "multiscraper" folder, do the following:

  • Upload WHOLE this "multiscraper" folder into your Zen Cart directory on your web server, NOT THE CONTENT OF "multiscraper" FOLDER BUT WHOLE FOLDER.
  • Then try the next url in your browser: "http://{YOURSTORE.COM}/multiscraper/"
    you will see the autorization page, use initial password: "password"
  • Set "write" (0777) permissions for the file: /multiscraper/public/files/log.txt
Video of Installation process

Notice 1 : If your store is installed NOT into the domain root folder ("public_html" folder as a usual), but in some subdirectory (for example http://yourdomain.com/store/), do the following:

  • OPEN file: /multiscraper/.htaccess
  • FIND: RewriteBase /multiscraper/
  • REPLACE WITH: RewriteBase /{YOUR_ZEN-CART_SUBFOLDER_NAME}/multiscraper/
  • SAVE and try again

Notice 2 :If your store's webserver is Nginx, not Apache, the MultiScraper will not be in the working state out-of-the-box, a little more configuration needed.
In this case, don't hesitate to contact MultiSraper support center, we will explain in details, what to do


Interface

MultiScraper's User Interface contains of 5 pages

  • "How to use" page has 5 tabs in horizontal menu:
    • Overview: list of donor webistes supprted by this particular MultiScraper release.

    • Configuration: the exhausted explanation how to let MultiScraper grab products automatically.

    • FAQs

    • Proxy support: the exhausted explanation how to let MultiScraper grab products via proxy servers.

    • Safety: the recommendations how to make MultiScraper more secure.

  • "Settings"page will be opened by default after you logged in and contains of the common settings related to common behaviour of your MultiScraper.
    Near each setting there is the tip ("question mark" icon), click it and you will get the popup window with the detailed explanation of this setting.

  • "Tasks"page. The most important page of the MultiScraper's interface, we will create and manage the tasks for MultiScraper here, see the "Usage" section of this Documentation for more.

  • "Log"page reports you about MultiScraper's job results

  • "Manual launch"page. You may test the MultiScraper using this page.



Configuration

The most important thing that you have to know about MultiScraper is that it does it's job ITERATIVELY.

For example, if you are trying to grab whole category which is paginated, MultiScraper will do this in the next way:
  • iteration 1 : checks the first page of listing and add all products URLs in the list of delayed tasks, also defines the URL of the next page of listing
  • iteration 2 : grabs the number of products that is specified at the "Settings" page at the "Items grabbed each iteration" setting
  • iteration 3 : checks the second page of listing and add all products URLs in the list of delayed tasks, also defines the URL of the next page of listing
  • iteration 4 : grabs another set of products
  • iteration 5 : checks the third page of listing and add all products URLs in the list of delayed tasks, also defines the URL of the next page of listing
  • iteration 6 : grabs another set of products
    • etc...

So the configuration is to let MultiScraper be launched PERIODICALLY, for example once in every 2 minutes.

More detailed explanation of how to let MultiScraper grabbing products automatically you will find at the "Configuration" section at the "How to use" page of your MultiScraper's interface


Usage

Let's start checking out if our MultiScraper able to do something except to be easy-installed.

We will create 2 tasks, one for grabbing 3 separate products, another one for grabbing whole listing

Example task 1: [Separate Product grabbing]
   We will create the task for grabbing 3 separate products from 3 different websites, let it be Banggood.com, Lazada.com and Shein.com.
   We will insert them into 3 different categories in our store and will add $40 to each one product's price.
   The task's form should looks like this:


Let's try to grab them using "Manual Launch" section

This is how it looks in the video


Example task 2: [Whole listing grabbing]
   Now we will create the task for grabbing WHOLE category, for example, from Sunsky-online.com and Buyincoins.com. Let's say:

  • We want to grab all products from some listing
  • We want to add %20 to the original price grabbed
  • We want to limit the number of images in description to 5 and limit the number of images in main slideshow to 4
  • We want to insert all grabbed products into different categories and subcategories
  • We don't want images in the description be uploaded to our store, let them be loaded from the internal source
  • And we do not want MultiScraper to update the price after grabbing (during further updates) as we are going to change some prices after the products are inserted in our store
   here is like our task will look like: now:


Let's start


After the products are grabbed, we may see the "Products grabbed" table, main table with ALL grabbed products and tables with products grabbed by each particular task:



TroubleShooting

if you faced any problem during installation or usage of this utility, please contact us using this form or directly to the one of the following mailboxes:

multiscraper@yahoo.com
phenomena44@gmail.com

The support available Monday-Friday from 8am to 6pm on GMT (except holidays).

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