Designer Sandbox » Magento

Installing Magento [version 1.4.2.0] on ICDSoft

Vincent — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 05:59:54 +0000

You need to follow these steps to install Magento:

1. Download the installation files from the site of the vendor. Magento can be obtained from:

http://www.magentocommerce.com/download

Choose to download the full release of the software by selecting one of the archived packages from the drop-down menu next to “Full Release:” (magento-MagentoVersion.zip, magento-MagentoVersion.tar.gz, magento-MagentoVersion.tar.bz2) and click on the “Download” button.

2. Once you have downloaded the archive that contains the installation, you need to upload it to your hosting space.

You can either extract all the files from the downloaded archive and upload them, or you can upload the archive and use the web hosting Control Panel’s File Manager to extract the package.

The best way to upload big files or multiple files is via FTP. If you are not sure how to upload the files, please visit this page.

If you are installing the application in your main domain, or in a subdomain, you may need to delete the default index.php file first. You can do this either via FTP or through your web hosting Control Panel’s File Manager.

3. You need to create a MySQL database for the Magento application. You can do this through your web hosting Control Panel’s MySQL section. Be sure to create the database in MySQL 5 format.

You also need to create a MySQL subuser for Magento. You can create it from the MySQL section of your Control Panel as well. Be sure to grant all privileges to the MySQL subuser.

4. To start the instillation wizard, open in your browser the URL where the extracted Magento files are located.

5. On the first step of the installation, you have to agree to the Magento license terms. Check the “I agree to the above terms and conditions.” box and click on “Continue“.

6. On the next step choose the preferred “Locale“, “Time zone” and “Default Currency” settings for your installation from the drop-down menus and click on “Continue“.

7. On the following page - Configuration - use the following settings:

• Database Connection

Host: /tmp/mysql5.sock
Database Name: You need to specify the MySQL database you created for your Magento application.
User Name: You need to enter the MySQL username you created at your web hosting Control Panel’s MySQL section for your Magento application.
User Password: You need to enter the password you assigned to your MySQL user.
Table Prefix: You do not need to modify this setting if you are installing Magento for the first time under this account.

• Web аccess оptions

Base URL: You can leave the default value if you are installing Magento to the same directory where you have extracted the installation files.
Admin Path: Choose a directory name for the Magento administration interface.
Enable Charts – Check this option.
Skip Base URL validation before next step – You can leave this option un-checked.
Use Web Server (Apache) Rewrites – mod_rewrite is installed on our servers, so you can check this option to enable search engine friendly URLs for your site.
Use Secure URLs (SSL) – Check this option if you own a certificate for your domain and wish to use SSL. Enter the base URL for accessing your site via SSL (Secure Base URL). If you wish to use an encrypted connection for the administration interface as well, check the Run admin interface with SSL option.
Skip Secure URL validation before next step – If the base URL for SSL connections is protected by a HTTP password, you have to check this option.

• Session storage options

You can choose the location where the user session information is stored – as files on the hosting space (“File system“) or as entries in the database (“Database“).

Click on “Continue“.

8. On the next step – “Create Admin Account” – you have to create an administrative account.

• Personal Information

Enter your names in the (“First Name“) and (“Last Name“) fields and an email address for the administrative account in the (“Email“) field.

• Login Information

Enter a username (“Username“) and password (“Password“, “Confirm Password“) for the administrative account.

• Encryption Key

If you wish you can enter a key for Magento to use for encrypting passwords, credit card numbers and other information. If you leave the field empty, the system will automatically generate a key which will be shown to you on the next step of the installation.

Click on “Continue“.

9. You are ready! – Magento was successfully installed. Write down the automatically generated key (if you have not entered your own one on the previous step) and store it in a safe place. For security reasons, we do not recommend to store it in a file on your hosting space.

10. Open the file /lib/Zend/Cache/Backend/File.php using the File Manager of the online Control Panel and change

protected $_options = array(
'cache_dir' => null,

protected $_options = array(
'cache_dir' => '/tmp',

11. Click on “Go To Frontend” to open the main page of your Magento online store, or click on “Go To Backend” to open the Magento administration interface.

Important notice: You should monitor the site of the software vendor for any security updates of your installed application.

How to completely disable Magento module

Michael Wai — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 06:31:14 +0000

Disable Magento module? Easy, in admin panel, click the menu “System” -> “Configuration” -> “Advanced” in “Advanced” Section, select “disable” for the module you would like to disable, and it’s finish, right?

Sorry but … NO! If you disable the module in admin panel, it will only disable the module output, not the module functionalities. The Observer, cornjob, setting in config.xml are still in use and running.

Then … how to disable the module completely? Well, it’s also easy, you only have to change the ‘active’ tag to false in module XML file storing in ‘/app/etc/modules/YourNameSpace_YourModuleName.xml’:



    
        
            false
            local

or simply rename the file extension (eg. YourNameSpace_YourModuleName.xml_old); or delete this file which is not recommended.

Happy Magento’ing ~

How to create coupon code for fixed amount discount

Michael Wai — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 07:55:25 +0000

In your selling period, sometimes you would like to make offer for promotion or festival. Here I will show you how to create a coupon code between a specific period for all products and customers with unlimited usage.

In admin panel, click the menu “Promotions” -> “Shopping Cart Price Rules”, then the list for all coupon codes for all websites are shown. Clicking “Add New Rule” button on right hand side and input the following:

in “Rule Information” Section:
- Rule Name: the name of the discount.
- Description: description of this coupon code, will not show to customer.
- Status: always set to “active” if you want this coupon to be used.
- Websites: only select the store this coupon code will be available.
- Customer Groups: select all of them by Ctrl + mouse left button.
- Coupon: select “Specifc Coupon”, and the “Coupon Code” input box will be shown. Please enter the coupon code in that box.
in “Action” Section:
- Apply: select “Fixed amount discount”
- Discount Amount: input the fixed discount amount
- in “Labels” Section:
- In Default Label:
- Default Rule Label for All Store Views: Please input the wordings that you want to display in the all documents, shopping cart.

After all input finished, click “Save Rule”. This coupon code is available to use. You can check it by adding a product to shopping cart and enter the coupon code.

Happy Magento’ing ~

Magento – Hide the price for a free product using jQuery

Vincent — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:04:39 +0000

In the new version it was moved to the /catalog/product/view/type files. There is a separate file for each product type. Inside those file the line: getPriceHtml($_product) ?> is responsible for outputting the price.

But better yet, this tutorial I will show you how to write a simple jQuery script to change all “$0.00″ to “FREE”

First create a new javascript file and name it ds.js and insert the following code as follow.

jQuery(document).ready(function() {
	jQuery("span").each(function(i, e) {
		if ( (jQuery(e).attr('class') == "price") && (jQuery(e).text() == "$0.00") ) {
			jQuery(e).text("FREE");
		}
	})
})

Now create a folder name called js within your folder and save the following file under it. skin/frontend/default/YOURTHEME/js/ds.js

Simply open your page.xml which located
app/design/frontend/default/YOURTHEME/layout/page.xml
and add the following line

skin_jsjs/ds.js

Be sure that your magento site had jQuery enable.

Magento Fixed – Description not showing, Change on your old template to work with 1.4.1.1

Vincent — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 04:19:29 +0000

After the new updates to magento, if your template description field suddenly disappear from the frontend, don’t panic. It’s just a simple line of code change will fix this problem. Open catalog.xml and view.phtml, and you will need to make the following change.

This is the code that magento had changed.
Old line of code, this code can be find under this location,
app/design/frontend/default/YOURTHEME/template/catalog/product/view.phtml or
app/design/frontend/base/default/template/catalog/product/view.phtml

getChildHtml('description') ?>

New implementation from magento core for 1.4.1.1

getChildGroup('detailed_info', 'getChildHtml') as $alias => $html):?>
    ">
        getChildData($alias, 'title')):?>
        escapeHtml($title); ?>

So next you will need to look for the following code in your template file.

app/design/frontend/default/YOURTHEME/layout/catalog.xml
Old Code look like this.

New updated code for ver 1.4.1.1


	detailed_info

By changing to the updated code, you are now able to view the description again.

Shortening Increment ID length for Orders, Invoices, Creditmemo and Shipments

Michael Wai — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 03:52:50 +0000

By default, Magento use 8 digits for Orders, Invoices, Creditmemo and Shipments’ increment ID. However, sometime you would like to change the length to meet 3rd party’s system requirement. This can be easily accomplished by:

modify the field “increment_pad_length” in the “eav_entity_type” table for whatever entity you’re wanting to modify.
modify the field “increment_last_id” in “eav_entity_store” table with the same “entity_type_id” in table “eav_entity_type” which the document type’s increment ID you would like to change. Remember to change all existing records for this “entity_type_id”.

After you changed them, the coming new document will use the new increment ID.

Happy Magento’ing ~

How to get attribute option label in Magento with different store view

Michael Wai — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 03:37:23 +0000

In Magento customization, sometimes you may want to get the value of attribute’s option. In below example I will show you how to do it.

Assuming that there is an attribute named “dropdown_field” and contains 4 options label: “Option 1″, “Option 2″, “Option 3″, “Option 4″. The codes below get the option label which is set in product:

// get product Model
$_product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product');

// get the attribute object
$dropdownAttributeObj = $_product->getResource()->getAttribute("dropdown_field");

// if input type for this attribute is dropdown or multi-select
if ($dropdownAttributeObj->usesSource()) {
      // get the option label
      $dropdown_option_label = $dropdownAttributeObj->getSource()->getOptionText($_product->getData('dropdown_field'));
}

How about multiple websites / store / store view? No worry, it’s automatically get the correct label for you; or you can use $this->__() translation method in your template files.

Happy Magento’ing ~

Delete all orders, reset bestseller and most viewed products in Magento

Michael Wai — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 01:48:34 +0000

In your Magento development period, you may create many order to test the checkout process. Before the website launch, you should find that there is no “delete” action for orders. What? Is it crazy?

Unfortunately, it’s really crazy (maybe) that you cannot delete order in Magento by default. Like me, there are over hundred orders leave in backend which make our sales confused. In this case, you can execute following SQL statements to delete the ALL orders in MySQL database:

TRUNCATE TABLE {prefix}sales_flat_order;
TRUNCATE TABLE {prefix}sales_order_tax;
TRUNCATE TABLE {prefix}downloadable_link_purchased;
DELETE FROM {prefix}eav_entity_store WHERE entity_type_id IN (SELECT entity_type_id FROM {prefix}eav_entity_type WHERE entity_type_code IN ('order', 'invoice', 'creditmemo', 'shipment'));

Then go to backend, then Reports > Refresh Statistics, select all items and run Refresh Lifetime Statistics.

But wait, most viewed products and bestseller haven’t reset yet. How?

Fine, here is the SQL statement to reset the most viewed products report:

DELETE FROM {prefix}report_event WHERE event_type_id IN (SELECT event_type_id FROM {prefix}report_event_types WHERE event_name IN ('catalog_product_view'));

If you need to delete other reports, you can add the following types to the previous SQL construction in last WHERE statement: ‘sendfriend_product’, ‘catalog_product_compare_add_product’, ‘checkout_cart_add_product’, ‘wishlist_add_product’, ‘wishlist_share’. These types are easily to find in {prefix}report_event_types table.

To truncate Bestsellers you will need to truncate the table ‘sales_bestsellers_aggregated_daily’, ‘sales_bestsellers_aggregated_monthly’ and ‘sales_bestsellers_aggregated_yearly’. Here are the SQL statements to truncate them:

TRUNCATE TABLE {prefix}sales_bestsellers_aggregated_daily;
TRUNCATE TABLE {prefix}sales_bestsellers_aggregated_monthly;
TRUNCATE TABLE {prefix}sales_bestsellers_aggregated_yearly;

That is. It’s not easy job and you may have to get some basic SQL / MySQL knowledge. Of course, using phpMyAdmin is the better way.

Thanks for Magento Support for this help.

Happy Magento’ing ~

Magento – Adding external product link for all your products

Vincent — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 06:32:45 +0000

This tutorial is all about add an external link, either it is a Amazon product link, demo link, or any external link. This script is what you need for your magento. Within this page, you will find the step by step screenshot of creating your own attribute/set, and calling those attribute from your own template.

First you will need to create all the attribute / attribute set for your products. Below is an example of creating an external product links.

Here’s something I had created for my template selling site.

First select the Attribute from the menu, and click on Manage Attributes

Click the Add New icon to create your Attribute.