Asia Connect Technology JSC » Magento Installation

Installing Magento on GoDaddy Hosting

admin — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 10:18:42 +0000

Around November last year, Sizzle Manchester looked into some of the free and upcoming open source platforms available for e-commerce websites as cheaper, off-the-shelf alternatives to bespoke websites for our clients. One that stood out as a forerunner and possible osCommerce/Zen Cart competitor was the very new, very shiny, and very impressive Magento.

Magento is written in PHP and built upon the Zend framework. For those of you who still don’t know what Magento is or what it can do, go here now… It’s ok… We’ll wait. Back?

Magento supports tons of payment options (Protx, Google Checkout, and Paypal), and the Magento community provides tonnes of new additions, modules, and proprietary add-ons every day.

We originally looked at GoDaddy for a temporary test hosting solution, as they had recently added PHP 5.2 support and they support .ht access files to override certain hosting features. However, we still had some problems getting it to work straight from the box, although a quick search of the internet and Magento forums brought the majority of answers we needed, so we’ve decided to put together a quick start guide to getting Magento up and running on GoDaddy!

We have used both the economy and deluxe Linux packages available on GoDaddy successfully, including the free hosting provided with a domain (although you should beaware that GoDaddy puts rather intrusive advertisements on the free hosting). Step by step:

1. To start with we downloaded the Magento 1.2.0.2 package.

2. In the root folder we opened the .ht access file and added the following line under the CGI options section:

AddHandler x-httpd-php5 .php

3. At this point we were able to get to the install screen, however some users have reported that the php.ini file needs to be renamed php5.ini and the following line changed from:

#cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1

to cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1

3. Update the follow line, change:

#RewriteBase /magento/

to RewriteBase /

5. Once installed and running, we hit one more snag – The administration panel didn’t work in any browser! Again, a quick search of brought us the solution and we have provided the package from the Magento Forums here for you to download and use. You should unzip this and place this over the head.php file in “app\code\core\Mage\Adminhtml\Block\Page” Hopefully later versions of Magento will address this.

Using this technique we were able to get Magento installed on three separate test accounts (Free Hosting, Economy and Deluxe), although the website performance did vary dependent on which account we were on, the deluxe package obviously fared slightly better.

Hopefully this is all you’ll need in order to get Magento up and running on GoDaddy Linux hosting. We have also provided the pre-modified 1.2.0.2 solution we used to install it here. Once installed you should be able to update to the latest version without any problems.

So there we go. Hopefully, in the very near future, and once we’ve got our head around the design and skinning aspects, Sizzle Manchester will be able to offer Magento solutions, and despite our success and more importantly the community’s success, they will be hosted on our own dedicated servers, not GoDaddy’s.

How to install magento themes?

admin — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 09:25:16 +0000

Its not difficult to install new magento themes, but many of the people confused about setting default magento theme.

First – Let me explain, How to set any new theme as default theme.

e.g The directory structure for magento templates and layout is “app/design/frontend/” then there is package name “default” or “blank” or “anything you have as package ”

You can set this package from admin panel

System -> Configuration -> Design -> Package.

(In magento there is “default” so leave it as it is if your package is “default”)

Now in our product we provide theme for default package so you do not have to change package, you just have to set theme.

In our product we have “Magento Files” in it There are two directories “app” and “skin” and the full path are

“app/design/frontend/default/YOUR THEME NAME” and “skin/frontend/default/YOUR THEME NAME”

And, you have to put this theme name in admin panel to Activate it.

System -> Configuration -> Design -> Themes. and set the following

Translations = “YOUR THEME NAME”

Templates = “YOUR THEME NAME”

Skin (Images / CSS) = “YOUR THEME NAME”

Layout = “YOUR THEME NAME”

Default = “YOUR THEME NAME”

AND YOU HAVE DONE !

Sometimes it’s difficult to see updated theme when the CACHE is enable. So You have to clear your magento chache from Admin Panel

System -> Cache Management -> Cache Control

Disable cache, uncheck all checkbox and Save.

How to install magento free themes?

admin — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 09:18:10 +0000

Well you’ve finally decided you’re going to switch to Magento for building ecommerce website. While new versions of Magento coming up regularly make the learning curve easier to climb, be prepared for at least a few days before you can use magento’s features to its best. This article explains the few tricks and tips that will start you off with variations on the basic design of magento’s default installation.

The first thing to do after you’ve installed Magento is to check out the files in skin/frontend/default : you won’t find much here except the stylesheet and a few images. This is the directory of your frontend but you should read carefully the concepts behind Magento’s implementation of design and layout. Much more complex than the usual single folder theme system one can find in wordpress for instance, Magento’s design process works with four types of instances :

Layout ( app/design/frontend/your_interface/your_theme/layout/)
These are basic XML files that define block structure for different pages as well as control META information and page encoding.For in-depth look into layouts, read Intro to Layouts)
Templates (located in app/design/frontend/your_interface/your_theme/template/)
These are PHTML files that contain (X)HTML markups and any necessary PHP tags to create logic for visual presentation.
Locale (located in app/design/frontend/your_interface/your_theme/locale/)
Theses are simple text documents organized on a per language basis that contain translations for store copy.
Skins (located in skin/frontend/your_interface/your_theme/)
These are block-specific Javascript and CSS and image files that compliment your (X)HTML.

This article covers only the installation of a free theme, that can be found under the community section of the Magento Connect pages. Get the extension key (an url) of the thme you’like to try and type that in your own extension manager that Magento provides in the backend ( admin / system / Magento Connect / Magento Connect Manager). The first installation of any extension might look frightening because the manager will perform all sorts of necessary upgrades and dependencies to your installation or extension (in that case, a theme). Version 1.1.8 on xampp did the job right but I remember being put off on previous versions after a failed extension download. Once you’ve see the green screen messages rolling down like a Unix console you’ll be delighted to be greeted by a nice success message “Procedure completed. Please check the output frame for useful information and refresh the page to see changes.”

Once you’ve passed the 2 minutes that the procedure above requires, go back to the admin and follow the simple instructions to change your theme, as described in Magento’s design guide. Go to System/ Configuration / Design and type the name of your theme under the theme section : save, job done.

Be naughty : try another extension ! This nice and quick experience took me to other extensions such as the french language pack : I was happily suprised to find out that the installation of this extension automatically turns the whole shop to french. Reversing to english was then as easy as going back to the admin / system / configuration / general / local options / locale setting. Of course that only impacts magento ’s front end setting : the back end language can be switched any time from the language select in the admin footer.

How To Install Magento?

admin — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 09:14:52 +0000

What is Magento? Magento is an open source ecommerce platform designed to empower online businessmen and to remove barriers in business process and flow.

Magento is an online shop cart solution that offers a wide range of out of the box features that allows online stores to be setup fairly, quickly and efficiency with ease, and is available as an open source based solution.

Because it has been downloaded more than 600,000 times, perhaps it’s the fastest growing ecommerce solution in the market today. Magento looks and acts like the best of commercial solution, yet it is free to download.

It depends on a theme based structure that separates layouts, templates and skins. Once one gets familiar with Magento’s themes works, creating a store or even several stores becomes easy.

The platform includes features such as, built in product image zoom capability, advanced pricing rules to support special promotions, a landing tool to help with marketing campaigns, inventory management, side by side product comparison tools and more.

As mentioned, Magento is relatively easy to use but to take full advantage of it, developers need knowledge of Apache web servers, MySQL, SOAP, PHP, XML, XHTML, and CSS. Magento is a new product, but already growing very quickly in users and features.

Some of the general features of Magento include;

An excellent backend (see demo site)
SEO and keyword options
Checkout and shipping
Analytics and reporting
Customer accounts
Order management
Shipping
Coupons
Catalog and product browsing
Newsletter and email management
Offers Multi-lingual Support and Features
Localization Support
Multiple Currency
Tax Rate Support

Let’s start with the installation of magento. How do we do this?
Here’s a simple step by step guide in installing Magento.

First:

Download the latest stable Magento package form from this site:
http://www.magentocommerce.com/download
Take note that Magento is not compatible with MySQL 4; it needs MySQL 5 to run properly.
There are 2 versions: standard and full installation is much larger and includes sample data like stores, categories, products, image and others.

Second:

Upload the package on your hosting account through your cPanel file? Manager or using FTP client

You can either put Magento file under the public_html folder. Your website then will be accessible directly through your domain.
Or you can put it under a sub folder.

Once it is uploaded you can extract it through your cPanel? File Manager.

Third:

Set file permissions

You will need to set the following folders and file to writable mode by the server:

*magento/app/etc
*magento/media
*magento/var
*magento/var/htaccess

If you downloaded the “full version” of Magento you will need to set all of the directories in the folder media to writable as well.
*magento/media/catalog
*magento/media upload

To do so, login to the cPanel for your domain and click on the File Manager icon under the Files Selection.

Set file permissions

Make sure that a Show Hidden file (dot files) is selected:

File Manager Directory

Double click on the folder icon to open folder. When you’re ready to change the permissions of a file or folder, select the checkbox next to it. Then, click on Change Permissions icon.

Change Permissions

Fourth:

Create a MySQL database and assign a user to it.
Stay in cPanel and click on the MySQL database wizard icon under Databases:

Create a MySQL database

Fifth:

Run the Set up wizard.
Use your web browser to surf to the Magento installation wizard.
After agreeing to the terms and setting your locale settings, configuration of database connection is next.

Sixth:

Enter the database details: Database Name, User name and user password. You can leave the other options intact. Click on the check box next to “skip base URL validation before next step.

Enter the database details

Click on the continue button.
Enter the personal information and the admin login details you want to use. You can leave the encryption key field empty. The script will generate one for you.

Admin Login Details

Click on the continue button.
That’s the entire configuration you need to do.
And now you’re all set. Well done!

From Pelfusion.com

How to Install Sample Data for Magento?

admin — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:10:30 +0000

1) Download Sample Data zip file from Magento Website

2) Extract the zip file

3) Drop all the tables from your magento database. It would be easy to drop the magento database and then recreate it instead of dropping individual tables.

4) Import sample data sql file into your magento database.

# Remember that, you have to drop all tables from your magento database before importing the sample sql file. You will get error afterward if you import the sample data without dropping tables from your magento database. Therefore, step 3 is important.

5) Go to your magento installation folder and delete local.xml file present inside app/etc folder.

6) Reinstall magento.

# After you installation is complete, you may get error something like this:
Integrity constraint violation: 1062 Duplicate entry ‘1′ for key 1

Clear your browser cache or open your website in another browser and you are done

Configuration error on new Magento installation

admin — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:07:18 +0000

I am installing a fresh magento 1.3.2.1 in my Windows XP computer. I have Xampp installed. While installing magento, I had a problem at the configuration step where I had to fill database host, username, password etc. When I click continue after filling the required fields, the installation process doesn’t move forward. I am redirected to the same page.

Solution:

I googled and was suggested to put 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost in the url; e.g. to put http://127.0.0.1/magento instead of http://localhost/magento . I did the same but then I got the following error displayed:

Database server does not support InnoDB storage engine
Database connection error

This error was solved. I opened my.cnf file present inside mysql/bin/ in notepad and uncommented (removed # sign) from the line skip_innodb.

Change:
#skip-innodb to skip-innodb

But still, my problem was not solved. I could not pass through the configuration page. Then I found a solution which finally helped me. I changed chmod of the following three folders to 777, i.e. making the folders writable. These folders are inside your magento folder. In windows, right click the folder, go to properties, uncheck ‘Read Only’ present under Attributes. The folders to change are as under:

app/etc
var
media

Finally, I am through and I completed Magento installation. Hurray

PHP extension error while installing Magento

admin — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:05:27 +0000

I was installing Magento 1.3.2.1 in my Windows XP computer. I am using Xampp. I encountered the following errors during the installation.

PHP Extension “curl” must be loaded
PHP Extension “mcrypt” must be loaded
PHP Extension “pdo_mysql” must be loaded

I googled and the answer was to load the extension in php.ini file. In xampp, there are two places where php.ini file is found. It is present inside php folder and inside apache/bin folder. You can load extensions mentioned in the above error by changing the php.ini file. Search for curl, mcrypt and pdo_mysql then just uncomment i.e. remove the semi-colon (;) present before the line of the extension. After that, you have to restart (stop and start) apache from your xampp control panel.

Change:

;extension=php_curl.dll to extension=php_curl.dll
;extension=php_mcrypt.dll to extension=php_mcrypt.dll
;extension=php_pdo_mysql.dll to extension=php_pdo_mysql.dll

It’s as simple as that but that didn’t work for me. Why? Because I also had apache and php installed separately in my computer. I had installed PHP and Apache server separately before installing the Xampp. So, xampp had used the php.ini configuration file of the Apache server installed before. And that php.ini file was inside programs file/apache group/apache/bin/php.ini. In this situation, changing php.ini file inside xampp folder will not solve my problem. I found my mistake by looking at phpinfo() of xampp.

Anyways, editing the right php.ini file will solve the above error. If anyone has faced the problem like mine then please see “Configuration File (php.ini) Path” in phpinfo(). There you will find the path of php.ini file. You have to edit that file.