After proper installation of Kimport component for joomla 1.5.x, you can try to manage the data using this component.

There is something you need to do before uploading the excel file to the component. The most important step to do is mapping the data columns to the excel columns. For instance, you probably have a table like this:

You can read the data structure by typing “describe [your-table-name]” on the command line or GUI-based mysql admin tools. Then you may now construct your excel file. Create a Excel file in Office 2003 (note that Kimport currently recognizes Excel2003), the paradigm of the excel file should look like: (Click the picture to enlarge the picture below)

You can see that the first column of the Excel is reserved to further use,  then the first row have to be IDENTICAL with the columns’ name of your data table. The second row is the data type property of the column. For instance, product_sku should be string, so the data type is written “string”.

Okay, now you know that the excel’s paradigm is to map the data meta information of the actual data table. The yellow high-lined part of this excel means the reserved information. Please also note the “sheet name” below. The sheet name should be the EXACTLY same as the table’s name. After the excel file is prepared, you can proceed to upload the file to the component.

Two steps are need to perform upload:

1. Select “Kimport” from the top menu “Components”. (click the image below to enlarge)
   
2. Select the Excel file from the local computer. Then click “Save” on the top-right of the page. (click the image below to enlarge)
   
3. If upload is succeed, you can see a information notification on the page. (click the image below to enlarge)
   

Easy, huh? But Still need to keep in mind when you arrange the Excel data:

• The first column of the excel file is reserved.
• The first row without the first column is mapped to the columns’ name of the data table.
• The second row without the first column is the data type of the column
• The sheet name of the excel file should rename to the EXACT name of the data table.

If you have ever been a web master, you would probably know joomla project or even use it for managing your web contents. It is easy to use and deploy. The only thing to do before using joomla should you have Apache and Php 5+ installed on your own server or hosting server. For SEF convenience, better have mod_rewrite on Apache server.

During the mainteinance of the joomla website, I was getting tired for adding new articles and other contents, that is, you have click on the “Add” button, type all the contents(or copy them from your notepad) to the relevant page, then press “Save” or “Apply” so that the new article is post. Then if you have another article to post, you have to go back to ground-zero and repeat the steps. 5 articles in all in one time gonna kill me, how about you get 20 more to post in one time? So that is the original idea for me to design a joomla component called KIMPORT. That component save my time adding the new contents. KIMPORT now becomes an administrator-oriented utility for manipulating the data table. Before adding new contents, you just fill in a specific excel file (2003) in a certain paradigm and then upload the excel with the component, then you got your data filled in the data table. The setup and the instruction guides please refer to the new post of my blog.

The initial version of KIMPORT is 1.5.0, which means it’s native for joomla 1.5.x. Since joomla 1.5.x is GPLv3.0, the license for KIMPORT is GPLv3.0 as well.

You can download the project source code with any SVN client:

svn checkout http://kimport.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ kimport-read-only

Or just only download the package for installation:

http://kimport.googlecode.com/files/com_kimport.zip