Access via REST?

[madstock]

Firstly, the off-the-shelf version of the ShopWindow software looks great, and would seem to be suitable for most needs, with it's live querying of the database.

However, I was wondering if there are any plans to include access via REST, or if you could advise me of an easier way to basically download all of the products of a certain category.

As an example, say I wanted to download (not access live, but physically download) a feed that contained all of the MP3 players that are in the product database, I am aware that I would need to set up a query via the API that contained

1. Username
2. Password
3. What I want to do (i.e. search database)
4. What I want to search for (i.e. "category ###")
5. What info I want regarding "category ###" (i.e. name, description, image url, deeplink, merchant, category, brand etc.)

But being aware of something is not the same as being able to do it!

Alternatively, are there any plans to expand the "standard" Datafeed download, so that one could construct a url as such:

http://shopwindow.affiliatewindow.com/datafeed_products.php?user=USERNAME&password=PASSWORD&mid=SUBSCRIBED&format=XML&compression=zip&category=### (very similar to the Tradedoubler offering)?

Thanks in advance for any help that you are able to give.

[amarath]

Hi Madstock,

Thanks for the post.

In order to access a particular dataset such as 'mp3 players', a request has to be made using ShopWindow API. There is no alternative at present.

However, offering an advanced datafeed download is something that we are currently looking into, as we are going to be requesting more data from merchants within their feeds, and this needs to be available in the best possible format to affiliates such as yourself.

If you would like to discuss your requirements, please feel free to get in touch and we can have a chat :)

Thanks

Amo

Amarath Singh Sokhi
ShopWindow Integration Manager
Digital Window Ltd

amarath.sokhi@digitalwindow.com
Tel: 020 8269 4853
www.digitalwindow.com

[madstock]

Cheers Amo, it looks like I will probably use a sort of work-around for the time being.

Also, are you going to incorporate sitemaps into the build?

[amarath]

No Probs Madstock :)

Developing sitemaps is interesting; we already have our category list which could potentially form a basis for them.

This is something I will look into, as this may be a useful addition in future releases.

Thanks for that, very good suggestion.

Amo

[madstock]

Further to the above, I have worked out how to display the data as a pipe-separated datafile, which is fine for import purposes, but the product limit per SOAP request is set at 100 - is there any way to increase this?

E.g. Childrens clothes (cat 98) have nearly 5,000 products, and to download them all I would need to make 50 SOAP requests, which would surely put more strain on the server than one? This data would be "got" via a CRON in any case.

Currently I get: http://www.results-finder.co.uk/feed2.php?c=98 having bumped up the product limit to 100.

Thanks in advance if this is possible - if it isn't, I may as well stop wasting time with it! (Incidentally, the results-finder.co.uk site is just a test site, and is not live, I would be looking to add the products to the sites at http://www.specialoffers.at and http://www.madstock.com )

Cheers!
Duncan

[amarath]

Hi Duncan,

Ill look into this first thing and see what can be done :)

Cheers

Amo

[amarath]

Hi Duncan,

If you are looking to take the data in a feed, it may be more beneficial to take our new datafeeds which are going to be released shortly (highlighted in my earlier post).

The reason for this is that the API is used to call content that you will output directly in your page, rather than save the data as a feed and then output.

For this reason, we have limited the product number to 100 per call, so that each time a user searches they can view upto a 100 products (providing an entire category of products to a user may be overwhelming).

We will be providing a much improved dataset in our feeds shortly, so this sounds to be a more feasible option for you.

Thanks

Amo

[madstock]

Cheers Amo, in that case I shall sit and wait.