Magento 1.6, Google Shopping / Products / Content - magento-1.6

Question

Magento 1.6 was out at the beginning of this week but upgrading from 1.5.1 with the mage_googleshopping extension (http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/Magento+Core/extension/6887/mage_googleshopping) up to v.1.6 was not something feasible.
mage_googleshopping remained compatible only with 1.5. Any working alternative to have the mage_googleshopping extension available on a clean Magento 1.6 installation or we have to wait for a stable extension release which goes with v.1.6?
Cheers,
Bogdan

Answer 1

I have browsed the Internet and searched for a problem to this, eventually I've turned into this script which runes separately but it connects to the Magento DB. The scripts generates the file, which can be uploaded following a schedule to Google.
Besides the fact that the script is totally editable, you can fully monitor all the processes behind it. The Magento script still can't be removed from a 1.6 Magento version.
The script wasn't developed by me but I did update it according with the latest rules enforced from 22/9/2011 by Google.
<code>
<?php
define('SAVE_FEED_LOCATION','google_base_feed.txt');
set_time_limit(1800);
require_once '../app/Mage.php';
Mage::app('default');
try{
$handle = fopen(SAVE_FEED_LOCATION, 'w');
$heading = array('id','mpn','title','description','link','image_link','price','brand','product_type','condition', 'google_product_category', 'manufacturer', 'availability');
$feed_line=implode("\t", $heading)."\r\n";
fwrite($handle, $feed_line);
$products = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->getCollection();
$products->addAttributeToFilter('status', 1);
$products->addAttributeToFilter('visibility', 4);
$products->addAttributeToSelect('*');
$prodIds=$products->getAllIds();
$product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product');
$counter_test = 0;
foreach($prodIds as $productId) {
if (++$counter_test < 30000){
$product->load($productId);
$product_data = array();
$product_data['sku'] = $product->getSku();
$product_data['mpn'] = $product->getSku();
$title_temp = $product->getName();
if (strlen($title_temp) > 70){
$title_temp = str_replace("Supply", "", $title_temp);
$title_temp = str_replace(" ", " ", $title_temp);
}
$product_data['title'] = $title_temp;
$product_data['description'] = substr(iconv("UTF-8","UTF-8//IGNORE",$product->getDescription()), 0, 900);
$product_data['Deeplink'] = "http://www.directmall.co.uk/".$product->getUrlPath();
$product_data['image_link'] = Mage::getBaseUrl(Mage_Core_Model_Store::URL_TYPE_MEDIA).'catalog/product'.$product->getImage();
$price_temp = round($product->getPrice(),2);
$product_data['price'] = round($product->getPrice(),2) + 5;
$product_data['brand'] = $product->getData('brand');
$product_data['product_type'] = 'Laptop Chargers & Adapters';
$product_data['condition'] = "new";
$product_data['category'] = $product_data['brand'];
$product_data['manufacturer'] = $product_data['brand'];
$product_data['availability'] = "in stock";
foreach($product_data as $k=>$val){
$bad=array('"',"\r\n","\n","\r","\t");
$good=array(""," "," "," ","");
$product_data[$k] = '"'.str_replace($bad,$good,$val).'"';
}
echo $counter_test . " ";
$feed_line = implode("\t", $product_data)."\r\n";
fwrite($handle, $feed_line);
fflush($handle);
}
}
fclose($handle);
}
catch(Exception $e){
die($e->getMessage());
}</code>
Change www.directmall.co.uk into what you need.
Assign the proper permissions.
Fully updated according with Google's requirements.