Magento

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First Impressions

The first impression of Magento is of a very clean very modern website. The first few versions (1.0,1.1 and 1.2) were quite slow in their page load times, but this is something that has been addressed with the 1.3 release. The functionally is absolutely superb, its easily customizable, FREE, SEO friendly and looks great.

There is quite a following on the internet for Magento, the Magento website has lots of useful information on it and some great extensions. If you cant find anything on the site then Google it!!

Introduction

Magento is an Open Source e-commerce platform that i found about 8 months ago. I have been very impressed with what i have seen on the website http://www.magentocommerce.com and the features that Magento has to offer. Before going live i have run Magento on both our test server 'in house' and also on our test Vhost at Positive Internet.

Requirements

   * Supported Operating Systems:
         o Linux x86, x86-64
   * Supported Web Servers:
         o Apache 1.3.x
         o Apache 2.0.x
         o Apache 2.2.x
   * Supported Browsers:
         o Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and above
         o Mozilla Firefox 2.0 and above
         o Apple Safari 2.x
         o Google Chrome
         o Adobe Flash browser plug-in should be installed
   * PHP Compatibility:
         o 5.2.0 and above
         o Required extensions:
               + PDO_MySQL
               + simplexml
               + mcrypt
               + hash
               + GD
               + DOM
               + iconv
               + SOAP (if Webservices API is to be used)
         o Safe_mode off
         o Memory_limit 32M or more 
   * MySQL:
         o 4.1.20 or newer
         o InnoDB storage engine
   * SSL:
         o If HTTPS is used to work in the admin, SSL certificate should be valid. Self-signed SSL certificates are not supported 
   * Server - hosting - setup:
         o Ability to run scheduled jobs (crontab) with PHP 5
         o Ability to override options in .htaccess files

Install

HOWTO: Bulk Import Export Categories

http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/ds-categories-export-import.html

Extension Key 

http://connect20.magentocommerce.com/community/Dotsquares_Categories_Exp_Imp

Manual Install 

$ ./mage install connect20.magentocommerce.com/community Dotsquares_Categories_Exp_Imp

Make sure you have the following directories fully writeable... 

var/import/category
var/export/category

HOWTO: Reset User Passwords

All users... 

mysql> UPDATE admin_user SET password=CONCAT(MD5('qXMyPassword'),':qX');

Just one user... 

mysql> UPDATE admin_user SET password=CONCAT(MD5('qXMyPassword'),':qX') WHERE username='username';

HOWTO: FIX: Index process is working now. Please try run this process later

cd /path/to/var/locks
chmod 0666 *

Or...

  1. Empty the /var/locks/ folder on your magento installation directory and set 777 permission to that folder
  2. If the above doesn't work, try to run the script /shell/indexer.php

HOWTO: View And Clean Logs

php -f ./shell/log.php help
php -f ./shell/log.php status
php -f ./shell/log.php clean --days 15
php -f ./shell/log.php clean

HOWTO: Mass update your Magento SKUs

http://www.tripleginteractive.com/blog/magento/how-to-update-magento-skus

HOWTO: Remove Site Map And Link In Footer

Admin > System > Configuration > Catalog > Catalog > SEO > Autogenerated Site Map > No

HOWTO: Fix Category Url Filter in Magento Layered Navigation

http://blueclawecommerce.co.uk/blog/fix-category-url-filter-in-magento-layered-navigation/

HOWTO: Fix Search results product URL and multiple categories

Admin > System > Configuration > Catalog > Catalog > Search Engine Optimizations > Use Categories Path for Product URLs > No

http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/41386/#t317746

HOWTO: Allow Backorders / Back Ordering

Admin > Catalog > Manage Products > Product > Inventory > Stock Availability > In Stock  (ALL = is_in_stock = 1)
Admin > System > Configuration > Catalog > Inventory > Product Stock Options > Backorders > Allow Qty Below 0 And Notify Customer
Admin > System > Index Management > Stock Status > Reindex

HOWTO: See Live Customers / Visitors

Admin Panel > Customers > Online Customers

HOWTO: Remove Advanced Search Links

Edit the following files... 

app/design/frontend/packagename/default/layout/catalogsearch.xml
app/design/frontend/packagename/default/template/catalogsearch/form.mini.phtml

HOWTO: Add Extra Things To The Layered Navigation

app/design/frontend/packagename/default/template/catalog/layer/filter.phtml

HOWTO: How To Remove The "Position" Sort Option

http://prattski.com/2009/11/30/magento-how-to-remove-the-position-sort-option/

HOWTO: Fix: Missing HTML Title On Advanced Search Page Result

File: app/design/frontend/package/theme/layout/catalogsearch.xml

In the section... 

<!--
 Advanced search results
 -->

Just before... 

       <reference name="content">

Add the following block of code... 

       <reference name="head">
           <action method="setTitle" translate="title" module="catalogsearch"><title>Advanced Search Results</title></action>
       </reference>

To think this is such a fundamental thing which has been gloseed over is just so typical of the genius of Magento :)

HOWTO: Fix: Weird Tax Pricing Prices

The shipping origin country (System > Configuration > Sales > Shipping Settings > Origin) affects the the way the price is displayed in the cart.

HOWTO: Fix: Index process is working now. Please try run this process later

rm -rf /path/to/magento/var/locks/index*.lock

http://www.smarterasp.net/support/KB/a1438/how-to-rebuild-magento-index-while-getting-index-process.aspx

HOWTO: Move The Configuration Menu Item Up To The Top

nano /path/to/magento/app/code/core/Mage/Adminhtml/etc/adminhtml.xml

               <config translate="title">
                   <title>Configuration</title>
                   <action>adminhtml/system_config</action>
                   <sort_order>5</sort_order>
               </config>

HOWTO: Install Extensions Via The Command Line

cd /path/to/magento
chmod +x mage
./mage
./mage mage-setup
./mage channel-add connect20.magentocommerce.com/community
./mage sync
./mage list-channels
./mage list-available
./mage install http://connect20.magentocommerce.com/community/ Ebizmarts_SagePaySuite
./mage list-installed
./mage list-files community Ebizmarts_SagePaySuite
chmod -x mage

Thanks - http://www.pixlpitch.com/install-magento-extensions-from-command-line/

HOWTO: Change The Admin URL

https://www.properhost.com/members/knowledgebase/15/How-to-change-the-Magento-Admin-URL-or-Path.html

HOWTO: Remove The Coupon Code Box From The Shopping Basket

Edit your default/layout/local.xml and add the following... 

<checkout_cart_index>
   <reference name="content">
      <remove name="checkout.cart.coupon"/>
   </reference>
</checkout_cart_index>

HOWTO: Add Stock Quantity Level To Category Pages

Edit template/catalog/product/list.phtml and add the following... 

<?php echo (int) Mage::getModel('cataloginventory/stock_item')->loadByProduct($_product)->getQty(); ?>

HOWTO: Fix: Destination folder is not writable or does not exists

find /path/to/media -type d -exec chmod g+w {} \;

HOWTO: Fix: An error occurred while saving the URL rewrite

Truncate table core_url_rewrite and re-run the indexing for Catalog URL Rwrites in the Admin Panel.

HOWTO: Fix Incorrect Pages Or Not Loading When Moving Server IP Address

Update the magento.core_config_data rows... 

update magento.core_config_data set value = 'http://192.168.0.103/magento/' where config_id = '4';
update magento.core_config_data set value = 'http://192.168.0.103/magento/' where config_id = '5';

Delete the Magento Cache files... 

sudo rm -rf /var/www/magento/var/cache/*

HOWTO: Move To Another Server

http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/groups/227/moving_magento_to_another_server

HOWTO: Fix Error: pdo_mysql missing

sudo aptitude install -y php5-mysql

HOWTO: Fix Possible Error: pdo + mysql

To anyone having problems with this ensure that the following library is installed:

libmysqlclient15-dev

via: 

sudo apt-get install libmysqlclient15-dev

Then use: 

sudo apt-get install pdo_mysql

Without the 'libmysqlclient15-dev' library you'll have problems with pdo.

Found these pages to be quite helpful:

http://pecl.php.net/bugs/bug.php?id=12141 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=474152

HOWTO: Fix: Cannot initialize the indexer process

http://dltr.org/blog/magento/114/magento-index-management-Cannot-initialize-the-indexer-process

HOWTO: Fix: Warning: Your Magento folder does not have sufficient write permissions

chown -R ftpuser:www-data www/

root@server:/var/www# ll
drwxrwxr-x  5 ftpuser www-data 4.0K Sep 12 12:54 .
drwxr-xr-x 15 root    root     4.0K Sep 12 12:07 ..
drwxrwxr-x 13 ftpuser www-data 4.0K Aug 12 10:33 magento
-rw-r--r--  1 ftpuser www-data   23 Jul 19 12:24 phpinfo.php

root@server:/var/www# grep 'www-data' /etc/apache2/envvars
export APACHE_RUN_USER=www-data
export APACHE_RUN_GROUP=www-data

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16097724/warning-your-magento-folder-does-not-have-sufficient-write-permissions

Web Site Links

http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/1_-_installation_and_configuration/installing_magento_ubuntu_9.04_server

http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/1_-_installation_and_configuration/installing_magento_via_shell_ssh

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1973005

http://davidtsadler.com/archives/2012/06/03/how-to-install-magento-on-ubuntu/

NEW: Installation Via PEAR

Version 1.8.0

October 2013

http://bit.ly/169sJqz

Final Security / File and Folder Permissions

NEW

https://blog.nexcess.net/2010/12/06/securing-magento-file-directory-permissions/

http://devdocs.magento.com/guides/m1x/install/installer-privileges_after.html

OLD

The PEAR Installer makes all folders 777 which is nuts.

Change this to make certain folders GROUP only writeable to the group APACHE runs as.

In this example, we have magento installed in our 'public_html' folder and Apache runs as group nobody. 

cd /home/username/public_html
find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;
find . -type d -exec chmod 775 {} \;
chown -R user *
chgrp -R user *
chgrp -R nobody media/ var/
chmod g+w app/etc media var var/.htaccess
chmod -R g+w var/cache
chmod 550 mage

Pre Installation

Magento requires quite a few things from the server that it is loaded onto. To check that the server that you are going to us has the correct features installed follow this link (http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base/entry/how-do-i-know-if-my-server-is-compatible-with-magento), download the file to your desktop, then upload it to your webserver and navigate to the file. It will then return a page that shows what you have and what you need.

Once you have all of the correct features installed then move on....

Installation Via SSH

I used a program called Putty (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/) to log into my sever via SSH

There is a very good installation guide on the Magento website that is updated every time they make a new release (http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/groups/227/installing_magento_via_shell_ssh)

  1. Create MySQL Database and add Database User
  2. Download files (core and sample data)
  3. Unzip to Web Server folder
  4. Change permissions to Apache
  5. Load install page in browser and finish

Installation Via FTP / Web Interface

Here is the official guide to setting Magento up via FTP. Has worked for me when i have used it )http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base/entry/magento-installation-guide) When prompted to put in the BASE URL make sure you put http://www.yourdomain.com where yourdomain is your domain name

Configuration

The first thing to do is to do into the backend and get your settings correct. These setting will be for your default config ( shown in the top left) as and when you add more sites on this installation you can make changes to the settings in individual sites rather than all sites. It also means that new sites will take the default config settings until you change them to new settings.

So click on System | Configuration. Below you will see what values i suggest using.

General

User Guide

Community Edition 1.7 - http://info.magento.com/rs/magentocommerce/images/Magento_Community_1-7_User_Guide.pdf

General

  • Countries Options

Default Country - Select the country that you business is in Allow Countries - Here select all of the countries that you will ship to. To select more than one click and hold CTRL

  • Locale Options

Timezone - Select your timezone Locale - Select your Language First Day of the Week - Select your first day of the week. Normally Monday Weekend Days - Sunday and Saturday should already be selected

Web

I have changed nothing in this section to date.

Design

  • Package

Current Package Name - Here i have just left default

  • Themes

These are all blank for now but as you will ready further down this is where you can change the look of the site.

  • HTML Head

Change all the details to fit your company.

  • Header

Logo - Leave this as is for now, we can change this to your logo later. Logo Image Alt - Change to your company name Welcome Text - This will appear above the links to My Account | My Wishlist | My Cart | Checkout | Login on your hompage.

  • Footer

Copyright - Change for your own websites copyright infomation Miscellaneous HTML - Im yet to use this so do not know what it is.

  • Product Image Watermark

Again this all looks pretty straight forward but is not something that i have wanted to use yet.


Currency Set Up

  • Currency Options

Base Currency - Chose your local currency Default Display Currency - Choose what you would like to show on your site, should be same as above Allowed Currencies - Not something that i have used yet.

  • Webservicex

This relates to the section below - Scheduled Import Settings

  • Scheduled Import Settings

This is if you are going to be using multiple currencies. It will automatically update the prices on your website based on the exchange rate. Not something i have used yet but very interesting.

Store E-mail Addresses

This is all pretty self explanatory.

Contacts

  • Contact Us

I have set this to yes

  • E-mail Options

Send E-mail To - Input here where you would like the e-mail to go when people fill in the contact us form on the website E-mail Sender - Your customer will also receive a copy of the e-mail, input here where you would like it to show as coming from E-mail Template - Leave as Default

Catalog

HOWTO: Import Products

http://www.siteground.com/tutorials/magento/import-products.htm

http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base/entry/tutorial-using-magentos-import-export-profiles

http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/3_-_store_setup_and_management/import_export/export_tool

HOWTO: Change Label for SKU Variable

admin > catalogue > attributes > manage attributes

http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/5779/

HOWTO: Show Stock Level Quantity

http://www.woolleydesign.net/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2012/06/default.txt

http://www.woolleydesign.net/2012/06/magento-show-inventory-levels-on-product-pages/

Catalog

  • Product Reviews

I have not changed anything in this section to date as it all seems sensible so far.

Inventory

Again these are all self explanatory options so i have not changed any of them. Some you might like to change if you accept back order or if you do not want the stock to decrease if somebody places and order.

Google Sitemap

These options will affect how your google sitemap is generated later in the piece, i have left them all as is for now.

RSS Feeds

Not something that we have used yet, but something that i will get into sometime.

E-mail to a Friend

The only setting i have changed here is the Allow for Guests Setting which i have changed to Yes so that guests can sent e-mails to friends as well.

Customers

Newsletter

The only value i have changed it the e-mail address where the unsubscribe e-mail goes to. This is the top drop down box.

Customer Config

Nothing to change here for me

Wishlist

Leave all as is

Sales

Sales

  • Checkout Total Sort Order

Here you can select which values will appear higher up on the bottom of your invoices. The small the number in the boxes shown here the higher it will appear.

  • Invoice and Packing Slip Design

Here upload your logo using the specified sizes to appear on your invoices. Also input your address for the invoices.

Sales E-mails

This section details where different pieces of paper work will be e-mailed to. I have left them all as they are apart from the Order section where i have added a BCC to my Imap account that is synced to my iPhone so i know when we received orders.

PDF Printouts

I have left all 3 as yes as it seems a bit silly to change them to no.

Tax

  • Calculation

Catalog Prices include tax - here i have changed to yes as our prices on the site will be VAT inclusive.

  • Default Tax Origin

Country - Change to your country Post Code - Enter your postcode

  • Display

Display Cart / Order Prices - I have selected invluding tax otherwise it gets complicated for the consumers Dispaly full tax summary - This i have not tested yet. Display Shipping Prices - Again including tax to save confusing Display Product Prices - Again including tax to save confusing Display Zero Tax Subtotal - No

Checkout

  • Checkout Options

Disable Onepage Checkout - I have left at no for now Allow Guest Checkouts - If people do not need to register to buy things from you then leave this as yes Enable Terms and Conditions - Left as no, need to experiment with this one.

  • Shopping Cart

Left all as is

  • My Cart Link

Left all as is

  • Shopping Cart Sidebar

If you want the shopping cart to show in the sidebar so that customers can see what they have bought then leave as yet. I have set it to they see the last 5 products placed in the basket.

  • Payment Failed E-mails

Left all as is


Shipping Settings

  • Origin

Change details to your own

  • Options

If you can ship to multiple address's then select yes, if not then no

Shipping Methods

  • Flat Rate

Use this if you offer a flat rate shipping charge on all orders.

Enabled - Yes Title - You can change this if you want to something like standard shipping Method Name - fixed Type - Select if it is per order or per item. Price - enter the cost for shipping Calculate Handling fee - if you have a handling fee enter here how it is worked out handling fee - relates to the above drop down box. Display error Message - Change error message to your own Ship to applicable coutries - select which countries this option should be allowed to. Sort Order - If you are using more than one shipping method then put a number here. The lowest will appear at the top, largest at the bottom

  • Free Shipping

Enabled - Yes, only if you offer free shipping Title - Free shipping Method - Free Min Order Amount - Enter the minimum order amount that a customer has to order to get free shipping Countries - Select the countries that this applies to.

We do not use any of the other couriers so we have not played with this.


Google API

  • Google Analytics

Enable - Select yes if you have got an account with google. If not then http://www.google.com/analytics Account No. - here enter your google analytics code.

  • Google Base

Account login - google account login account password - google account password target country - your country update google base items when product is updated- yes


I have not yet tried any of the other Google bits, but checkout is something that i need to try.

PayPal Accounts

If you are going to be using paypal for payments then this is where you need to enter your details. Again we are not using this yet, but will try it soon.

Payment Methods

  • Saved CC

You can fill this lot in if you are happy with saving peoples data on your server. I have opted not to do this.

  • Zero Subtotal Checkout

Enabled - no

No need for this option in our business

  • Check / Money Order

Enabled - yes Title - Cheque New order status - left as pending so that we can change when we received the cheque. Payment allowed - all countries Make cheque payable to - your business name Address - your business address minimum order total - if you wont accept cheques below a certain value then change this.

If you want to use any of the other payment options then fill the details in for the relevant option.

You can also install other payment extensions. I will install SagePay later.

Services

Magento Core API

left alone

Advanced

Admin

Left all as is. If you want to show a different page than the dashboard when you log into Magento then you can select it here.

System

  • Currency - Select the currencies that you want to use.

Advanced

Left as is

Developer

Left all as is.


Right....now that the main settings are all done in the back end we can look at the more interesting bits.

Home Page

If you navigate to your home page as it is at the moment you will see that you have 4 boxes on the right, My Cart, Compare Products, back to School Image and a Poll.

Default Message

How to get rid of the default message above the links My Cart ect on the home page.

Navigate to System | Configuration then to General | Design and then to Hears. Here you can change the Welcom Text which is what shows up in your header. I have chosen just to delete this text.

Polls

The poll is not something that i want on my site so i need to remove it, easy.

Go into the backend and click on CMS | Poll manager here you will see the poll that is showing up on the website. Simply double click on the poll and then click delete in the top right and it will disappear. On the flip side if you would like to add a poll then here is where you can add a customized poll.

Home Page Look

It might be that you want these boxes on the right on your front page. I don't so i am going to get rid of them and then create my own front page in Dreamweaver. So in the backend select CMS | Manage Pages then select Home Page. Here we can do what we like with the home page between the header and the footer.

General Info

  • Page Title

Change this to whatever you want it to be for your site, this will show in the very top bar of your browser.

  • SEF URL Identifier

I have left this as home as this seems quite sensible

  • Status

Here you can enable and disable pages, for the home page i would not need this but as you will see later on we will use it for other pages.

  • Contact

here you can add whatever html you want to make the page look the way you want it to. Take a look around the web to see what other people have done to get some ideas on what to do here.

Custom Design

  • Custom Theme

Left this as please select. Later on this could be used to change the home page look but no other page look if you were looking for a christmasy theme or so on.

  • Custom Theme From and To

You can automatically set the custom theme to work between certain dates which is very handy. It means you can plan for special season events months in advance and not forget to implement them. It also means you can test new pages online and then change back to default if there is a problem.

  • Layout

Now this is where we get rid of the boxes on the right of the home page.

2 columns with right bar - this means your html will appear on the left and the boxes stay on the right
2 columns with left bar - this means your html will appear on the right and on the left you will get a picture link box and a newsletter subscription box
3 columns - your html appears in the middle and then you get all the boxes either side.
1 column - your html takes up the full width of the site - THIS IS THE OPTION I HAVE GONE WITH SO I CAN FULLY CUSTOMIZE MY HOME PAGE.

You can of course control what appears in the right and left boxes if you want to, you will find the files you need to change in app/design/frontend/default/default/template/page

Meta Data

Self explanatory. Fill in keywords that you would use for your site and also a description.

Page View Optimization

Not something i have yet played with

About Us

To edit the about us page click CMS | Manage Pages and then it is the same as the home page above to configure.

If you do change the identifier for the about us page then you will need to go into CMS | Static Blocks and change the link in the footer so that it works rather than sending you to a 404 Not Found Page.

404

Here you can alter the look of your 404 page the same as about us and home page.

Customer Service

Here you can alter the look of your customer service page the same as about us and home page.

Finding the right file to edit im magento can be a bit of an ass with so may folders and so many files to go through, but there is a nifty little button to help....

Backend

System | Confirguration

In the top left select Default Store View then clock developer at the bottom of the page then debug then untick the boxes that say template hints and add block names to hints and change to say yes. Then save. Now look at your front page and it will show you were every file is!!.


Magento Connect

Personally this is one of the things that i think makes Magento so much better than any other E commerce platform out there at the moment that i have seen. There is so much functionality with Magento before you even look at extensions.

I did have some trouble getting the Downloader working to start with because of a permissions issue. If you are going to use the web based Magento Connect then all folders need to have write permissions. These 2 links will tell you all you need to know about installing extensions:

http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base/entry/magento-installation-guide

http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/magento_filesystem_permissions

Recommended Extensions

There are a few extensions that i find very very useful, i have not as yet bought any extensions so these are all FREE extensions. Please follow the links below for full descriptions and download keys.

Delete Orders

http://www.magentocommerce.com/extension/873/delete-orders

This is fantastic because it means you can make all the test orders you like and then just get rid of them when you are finished ready for a fresh start.

SagePay

http://www.magentocommerce.com/extension/163/protx-direct-payment-module

SagePay used to be called Protx and are the payment solution that we have chosen (along with PayPal and hopefully google checkout) I believe there is some config work to do to get this working but i will update this wiki with how i get on when the time comes.

Blue Skin

http://www.magentocommerce.com/extension/519/blue-skin

A lovely looking Skin. I have tinkered with our a lot to make it look different, but still a very good base to work from.

Auto Cross Sell

http://www.magentocommerce.com/extension/524/auto-crosssell-products

I have just install this on our test server. This could save hours!!!!


Company Details

Tax

Term and Conditions

Telephone Numbers

Your address

Setting Up Products

It took rather a while to figure our how this all worked to be quite honest. It was rather frustrating, but when i had found the right wiki to look at it all made sense.

First of all lets go into System | Confirguration and then manage stores.

Here we need to change a few things.

Under website name click on the link and change the name of your site.

Under Store Name do the same thing. You can leave the default category as is if you want but i have had some problems with this. So it is best to follow the steps below to create a Root Category and then change the drop down in the box to YOUR NEW ROOT CATEGORY.

Categories

Click Catalog in the backend and then Manage Categories.

Root Categories

Click on New Root Category in the top left and then fill in all of the details on the right. Once you have done this i would go back into System | Managed Store and click on the middle link and change the drop down box to your new ROOT CATEGORY.

Product Category

To great a product category under your root category simply click on your root category and then click new sub category in the top left, again fill in the details. Change enable to yes and then look at your home page and you will see your first product category appear at the top. Now add more and you will see them appear. You can also add sub categories to these to break down the products in that section.

Products

So setting up a product can take ages to start with because you need to make sure that you have all the right information in your first product and then from this we can import products via a spreadsheet.


Tax

This is quite tricky to get set up right. To be honest im not sure how i have managed it but i have. The following links might give you some help.

I will work out how i did it and then put pen to paper so to speak.

http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base/entry/what-are-tax-rules-and-how-do-i-use-them http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base/entry/how-do-i-define-tax-rates-per-product-tax-rules/


Right just found one thing which had me baffled for a while. I had set up the tax rules and then tried a test order but when i put the product in and then a shipping adress inside the UK it did not like it, it would take the tax off. The reason why....in the tax rule i had filled in the Postcode box which meant that only delivers to that postcode would be taxed. make sure you leave this as a * so that it works for all postcodes in your chosen country!


Exporting Products

Importing Products

Special Offers

Cart Based Special Offers

Code Based Special Offers

Dealing with Orders

Invoicing

Changing the Text on Inovices, Credit Notes and E-mails

Taking the Dosh

Dispatching

Newsletters

SEO

Google Analytics

Google Sitemap

Meta Data

Keywords

Page Titles

Google Base

Reports

Backing Up

Users

Creating a New User

To create a new user you click System | Permissions | Users

here you can add the details about new users, on the left the second tab says User Roles. This is addressed below

User Permissions

To set the user permissions you now need to click System | Permissions | Roles

Here you can create new role classes. So somebody you only want to allow to input order all you would lick would be the sales boxes so that they cannot do anything else. This way they cannot corrupt the data in other parts of the system.

Once you have selected the roles that you want go back to System | Permissions | Users and set each users permissions profile.

Forgot Passwords

http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/40405/

Log In Issues

After creating permissions and users I managed to get rid of the admin role, which meant that i could log in with the limited accounts but not as an admin so I couldn't do any config work. So to get round this your have to log into your MySql database and change some files.

The first you need to change is the admin_user file. Here you need to add a new user.

These are the details that you need:

The fist number is automatically assigned. Then First Name, Surname, E-mail ,Username, Password, Date of Creating of Account.

4 Paul Smith paul@yourdomain.co.uk paully password 2009-05-12 09:52:50 2009-05-12 09:52:50 2009-05-12 08:56:00 1 0 1 NULL

Now you need to access the table admin_role

Insert a new line with the following details.

The first number is role_id, this is automatically generated. Parent ID is reference to the group that you want that user to be a member of. So in this case the role_ide for Administrator is 1. So the parent_id for Paul will need to be 1. Tree level i have found that 2 works. Sort order leave as 0. role_type is set to U = user ( G = group ) then the role_name is the first name of the person in the admin_user file above, in this case Paul.

role_id parent_id tree_level sort_order role_type user_id role_name
1 0 1 1 G 0 Administrators
4 1 2 0 U 4 Paul

SagePay

http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/ebizmarts-sage-pay-suite-ce-sage-pay-approved.html

Installer Key 

http://connect20.magentocommerce.com/community/Ebizmarts_SagePaySuite

or 

connect20.magentocommerce.com/community/ Ebizmarts_SagePaySuite

Customer Order Comments

http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/magemaven-ordercomment.html

Installer Key 

http://connect20.magentocommerce.com/community/Magemaven_OrderComment

or 

connect20.magentocommerce.com/community Magemaven_OrderComment

Templates

http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base/entry/magentos-theme-hierarchy

http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/modules_reference/english/mage_adminhtml/system_config/edit/design

http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/4_-_themes_and_template_customization/0_-_theming_in_magento/package

http://www.magentocommerce.com/design_guide/articles/working-with-magento-themes

http://www.magentocommerce.com/design_guide/articles/how-magento-builds-content

Magento Community Edition 1.8 Custom Package Template NEW 2013-10-15

Downloadable Products

http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/3_-_store_setup_and_management/catalog/how_to_create_a_downloadable_product

HOWTO: Reset Admin User Password

mysql -uusername -p dbname
mysql> SELECT * FROM admin_user;
mysql> UPDATE admin_user SET password=CONCAT(MD5('qXpassword'), ':qX') WHERE username='admin';
mysql> quit;

http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/recover/resetting-admin-password

HOWTO: Find Out Where Magento Is Installed

find /home/ -type f -name 'Mage.php'

HOWTO: See Which Magento Version

Change to your web site's root folder, and run the following command... 

find . -type f -name 'Mage.php' -print -exec egrep '\<'major'\>.*=>|\<'minor'\>.*=>|\<'revision'\>.*=>|\<'patch'\>.*=>' {} \;

INFO: Magento Security Updates

http://www.magentocommerce.com/blog/category/security-updates/

HOWTO: Magento Update Via Command Line

Take a Code backup as well as DB backup before upgrade. Use SSH to upgrade. Follow below steps to upgrade.

I ran into server timeout issues when performing this upgrade. To fix it, I had to temporarily set the max_execution_time = 600 in my php.ini file and restarted the web server. 

sudo -i
cd /var/www/yourmagento/
chmod -R 777 lib/PEAR
chmod 550 pear
./pear mage-setup
./pear channel-update connect.magentocommerce.com/core
perl -pi -e 's/\r\n/\n/g' pear
./pear upgrade -f magento-core/Mage_All_Latest-stable
chmod 550 ./mage
./mage mage-setup . (* notice the dot after mage-setup command)
./mage sync
./mage config-set preferred_state stable
./mage list-upgrades
./mage upgrade-all --force

Once this is done, I highly recommend restricting access to your site to your own IP address. This is because that the first hit to your page will trigger the database upgrade. You want this process to go uninterrupted. You can do this in the .htaccess file by commenting out the default Access rules and putting in some temporary ones (don’t forget to change this back once you’re done): 

#Order allow,deny

#Allow from all

Order deny,allow

Deny from all

Allow from x.x.x.x   #CHANGE THIS TO YOUR IP ADDRESS

Open config.xml and change the statement SET NAMES utf8; SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0; SET UNIQUE_CHECKS=0;

Empty your cache and sessions.

Fix ownership and permissions.

Visit your site. It will take some time to loading depends on your data. Normally for 2 GB it will take 2 hours.

https://blog.nexcess.net/2011/03/11/upgrading-to-magento-1-5-0-1/

http://magento.stackexchange.com/questions/10651/magento-upgrade-from-1-7-to-1-8

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11662347/how-to-upgrade-magento-1-4-1-1-to-1-7-0-2

HOWTO: Fix: Slow Home Page Load

Admin > System > Cache Management > Flush Magento Cache Storage

HOWTO: Fix: Magento install error - Exception printing is disabled

There has been an error processing your request.
Exception printing is disabled by default for security reasons.
Error log record number: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.

It's permissions on the var/cache folder.

HOWTO: Fix: Product Not Showing

Make sure...

  1. You have inventory option ticked
  2. You have a stock quantity number added
  3. You have 'item in stock' ticked

... :-)

HOWTO: Fix: ”XXX Index process is working now. Please try run this process later.”

sudo chmod o+w var/locks
sudo rm -rf var/locks/*

Log in to Admin and restart the process, or in the shell... 

php -f indexer.php reindexall

Then you should see... 

-rw-rw-rw-  1 nobody nobody   31 Oct 17 13:18 index_process_4.lock
-rw-rw-rw-  1 nobody nobody   31 Oct 17 13:18 index_process_5.lock

HOWTO: Repair a Magento Database

http://www.learnmagento.org/magento-bug-fixes/repair-magento-database/

HOWTO: Importing Product Images via CSV in Magento

http://www.meteorify.com/2012/05/importing-product-images-via-csv-in-magento-1-7-0-0/

HOWTO: Remove Community Poll

System > Configuration > Advanced > Disable Modules Output > Mage_Poll > Disable > Save Config

HOWTO: FIX: Magento Upgrade 1.7 to 1.8 Blank Pages

Check your logs... 

tail /var/log/apache2/error.log
"PHP Fatal error:  Class 'Magento_Db_Adapter_Pdo_Mysql' not found"

tail /path/to/magento/var/log/system.log
Warning: include(): Failed opening 'Magento/Db/Adapter/Pdo/Mysql.php' for inclusion

Fix... 

cd /path/to/magento/
sudo ./mage install http://connect20.magentocommerce.com/community Mage_All_Latest --force
sudo chgrp -R www-data *
sudo chown -R youruser *

HOWTO: FIX: Error When Deleting Sample Data

If you get this error... 

SQLSTATE[22003]: Numeric value out of range: 1690 BIGINT UNSIGNED value is out of range in '(`magento`.`tag_summary`.`products` - 1)'

Then fire up your MySQL or PHPMyAdmin and run this SQL... 

DELETE FROM sales_flat_quote WHERE customer_is_guest = 0;
  1. Delete Customers
  2. Delete Products (20 at a time)
  3. Delete Categories

Why hasn't someone written a nice bit of SQL code to do this...?

HOWTO: Change Turning On and Off Magento's Default Blocks

  • Common Elements You Can Turn Off Via the Admin Panel
  • Common Elements You Can Turn Off via the Layout Files
  • How to Disable Modules and Blocks in the Layout (xml) Files
  • How to tell Magento to use your custom theme

http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base/entry/turning-on-off-magentos-content-blocks 

<!-- file: app/design/frontend/your_package/your_theme/layout/local.xml -->
 <?xml version="1.0" ?>
 <layout version="0.1.0">
    <default>
       <reference name="header">
          <reference name="top.links">
             <!-- <remove name="checkout_cart_link" /> -->
             <block type="wishlist/links" name="wishlist_link"/>
             <action method="removeLinkBlock"><blockName>wishlist_link</blockName></action>
          </reference>
          <block type="directory/currency" name="custom_currency_selector" template="currency/currency.phtml"/>
          <remove name="top.menu"/>
       </reference>
       <reference name="left">
          <remove name="left.permanent.callout"/>
          <!-- <block type="checkout/cart_sidebar" name="cart_sidebar" template="checkout/cart/sidebar.phtml" before="-"/> -->
          <action method="unsetChild"><name>left.newsletter</name></action>
       </reference>
       <reference name="right">
          <!-- <remove name="catalog.compare.sidebar"/> -->
          <!-- <remove name="right.permanent.callout"/> -->
          <!-- <action method="unsetChild"><name>cart_sidebar</name></action> -->
          <block type="newsletter/subscribe" name="left.newsletter" template="newsletter/subscribe.phtml"/>
       </reference>
    </default>
 </layout>

List of available blocks to remove... 

<default>
   <remove name="left.permanent.callout" />  <!--the dog-->
   <remove name="right.permanent.callout" />  <!--back to school-->
   <remove name="catalog.compare.sidebar" />  <!--product compare-->
   <remove name="paypal.partner.right.logo" />  <!--paypal logo-->
   <remove name="cart_sidebar" /> <!--cart sidebar-->
   <remove name="left.reports.product.viewed" /> <!--recently viewed prod-->
   <remove name="right.reports.product.viewed" /> <!--recently viewed prod-->
   <remove name="right.reports.product.compared" /> <!--recently compared prod-->
   <remove name="catalog.compare.sidebar" />
   <remove name="right.permanent.callout" />
   <remove name="left.permanent.callout" />
   <remove name="left.newsletter" />
   <remove name="right.reports.product.viewed" />
   <remove name="paypal.partner.right.logo" />
   <remove name="right.poll" />
   <remove name="cart_sidebar" />
   <remove name="checkout_cart_link" />
   <remove name="catalog.compare.list" />
 </default>

HOWTO: Change Default "Add to Cart" Quantity from 0 to 1

System > Configuration > Inventory > Product Stock Options > Minimum Qty Allowed in Shopping Cart > Click “Add Minimum Qty” > Select “ALL GROUPS” and enter “1” in “Minimum Qty” > Click “Save Config“.

http://www.magentogoreview.com/change-default-add-to-cart-quantity-from-0-to-1-in-magento~169

HOWTO: Add An Icon To The 'My Cart' Header Top Link

<!-- file: skin/frontend/languageseller/default/css/styles.css -->
.header .links a.top-link-cart { padding-left:20px; background:url(../images/my_basket.png) left center no-repeat; width:10px; height:10px; }

HOWTO: Fix URL Rewrites For SEO

<!-- file: .htaccess -->
RewriteBase /

HOWTO: Fix Service Temporarily Unavailable

Delete the maintenance.flag file. 

rm /path/to/your/magento/root/maintenance.flag

HOWTO: Change The Base URL

Either log directly into the MySQL Shell and change the tables there... 

mysql --user=user_name --password=your_password db_name
mysql> update core_config_data set value = 'http://url.i.want/' where path = 'web/secure/base_url';
mysql> update core_config_data set value = 'http://url.i.want/' where path = 'web/unsecure/base_url';

...or, run these commands without entering the shell... 

 mysql --user=user_name --password=your_password db_name --execute="update core_config_data set value = 'http://url.i.want/' where path = 'web/secure/base_url';"
 mysql --user=user_name --password=your_password db_name --execute="update core_config_data set value = 'http://url.i.want/' where path = 'web/unsecure/base_url';"

HOWTO: Hide Empty Attributes

Edit magento/app/design/frontend/packagename/default/template/catalog/product/view/attributes.phtml

Replace... 

<?php foreach ($_additional as $_data): ?>

<?php echo $this->htmlEscape($this->__($_data['label'])) ?> <?php echo $_helper->productAttribute($_product, $_data['value'], $_data['code']) ?> <?php endforeach; ?> With... <?php foreach ($_additional as $_data): ?> <?php $_attribute = $_product->getResource()->getAttribute($_data['code']); if (!is_null($_product->getData($_attribute->getAttributeCode())) && ((string)$_attribute->getFrontend()->getValue($_product) != )) { ?> <?php echo $this->htmlEscape($this->__($_data['label'])) ?> <?php echo $_helper->productAttribute($_product, $_data['value'], $_data['code']) ?> <?php } ?> <?php endforeach; ?>

HOWTO: Fix client denied by server configuration: /var/www/magento/app/etc/local.xml

This is a standard Magento security check on the permissions of the important file app/etc/local/xml, but it can lead to your server logs filling up unnecessarily.

If you are sure the security is up to par on your server, then you can disable it by editing app/design/adminhtml/default/default/layout/local.xml 

<layout>
    <default>
        <remove name="notification_security" />
        <remove name="notification_survey" />
    </default>
</layout>

http://www.yireo.com/tutorials/magento/magento-administration/1322-client-denied-by-server-configuration-appetclocalxml

HOWTO: XML Blocks

Popular Tags

<reference name="left">
  <block type="tag/popular" name="tags_popular" template="tag/popular.phtml" />
</reference>

HOWTO: Stop Search Engines

System > Configuration -> Design -> HTML Head > Default Robots > NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW

HOWTO: Make Community Edition Like Enterprise Edition

http://www.mcnab.co/blog/e-commerce/magento/magento-community-vs-enterprise-editions/

HOWTO: Speed Up / Optimise Your Magento Web Site

http://www.gxjansen.com/101-ways-to-speed-up-your-magento-e-commerce-website/

  1. magento: admin: turn on cache, flush and reindex
  2. mysql: tables: mysqlcheck --analyse and --optimize
  3. php: apc cache
  4. apache: tweaks: disable modules, pagespeed module
  5. varnish: cache accelerator

HOWTO: Disable Magento PHP Compilation Compiler Cache Via SSH

cd /path/to/public_html
rm -rfv var/cache/* var/session/* var/log/* var/locks/*
php -f shell/compiler.php -- disable
php -f shell/compiler.php -- clear

HOWTO: Disable All Modules

nano ~/public_html/app/etc/local.xml
     <disable_local_modules>true</disable_local_modules>

HOWTO: Fix Error: Flex Library Not Loaded

Give full permissions to the following folder... 

js/lib

...but then put back the security when you've finished editing.

HOWTO: Fix Error: Missing Drop Down Menus On Admin Panel

Find out which group your web server software runs as, then... 

cd /path/to/magento/root/folder
chgrp -R nobody media/
chgrp -R nobody var/
rm -rfv var/cache/*

Log out of Admin Panel, then back in again, and then go to Frontend to check.

Thanks - http://www.learnmagento.org/magento-tips-tricks/admin-panel-drop-down-menu-missing-in-magento/

HOWTO: Fix Error: Declaration of Zend_Pdf_FileParserDataSource_File::__construct()

If you get this error... 

Fatal error: Declaration of Zend_Pdf_FileParserDataSource_File::__construct() must be compatible with Zend_Pdf_FileParserDataSource::__construct() in /home/wtc/public_html/lib/Zend/Pdf/FileParserDataSource/File.php on line 41

This error has something to do with inheritance in latest versions of PHP 5.4+

METHOD A

Just edit the following file, and comment out the lines shown in bold... 

nano /path/to/magento/folder/lib/Zend/Pdf/FileParserDataSource.php

//abstract public function __construct();
/**
* Object destructor. Closes the data source.
*
* May also perform cleanup tasks such as deleting temporary files.
*/
//abstract public function __destruct();

Save and exit, then test the orders invoices printing function again.

Thanks - https://www.goivvy.com/blog/magento-zend-pdf-php-5.4

METHOD B

Update your Zend PHP Library.

HOWTO: Test For Shoplift Bug

https://shoplift.byte.nl

HOWTO: Setup For Lighttpd

 # Deny access to hidden files
 $HTTP["url"] =~ "/\." {
   url.access-deny = ("")
 }
 # Deny access to these directories
 $HTTP["url"] =~ "^/(app)/" {
   url.access-deny = ("")
 }

HOWTO: FIX: No Space Left On Device And Clear Magento Session Cache

#!/bin/bash
find /var/www/domain.com/html/var/cache/ -type f -mmin +120 -exec rm {} \;
find /var/www/domain.com/html/var/session/ -type f -mmin +120 -exec rm {} \;
find /var/www/domain.com/html/var/report/ -mtime +7 -exec rm -f {} \;
find /var/www/domain.com/html/var/tmp/ -mtime +1 -exec rm -f {} \;

Thanks - http://haydenjames.io/pruning-magento-cache-sessions-using-cron/

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