I have an active running shopify store, I need to upgrade it to a new theme.
First need to add pages and products in the new theme in development phase which should only go into the new theme that I am working on to develop and should not disturb the existing store. When all the product and pages for the new development theme are done I would expect to publish it.
What would be the best approach to go with this?
As currently when I go to customize the other theme it doesn't let me add specific products/ pages for that theme only.
Long story short, you can't.
If you like products to be visible to a specific theme only you will need to create a separate dev store or create hidden product ( not visible to the Online Store channel ).
For the pages is not a big problem since if you don't link ( and your search don't look for pages as well ) to them it will be hard to someone to enter then.
This is a common issue - youre doing an overhaul but don't want to disturb current business. Sure on Plus this is made easy ( If you are on plus, ask your MSM for a new dev shop and use the Transporter app ) but for non-plus stores, it can be a headache.
There's no cut and dry answer but here are some ways to get the job done.
Create your dev theme and start doing your work there, as you're doing.
For pages, as mentioned by drip's answer, don't link them and you should be fine. If you don't want search engines to index these while you're working on them, you can also add some liquid logic to your layout/theme.liquid and add the pages you don't want and have it add a meta no-index tag.
If your products are being completely reformatted, i.e. new description formats and such, create one product that has the new formatting, then export your CSV and add the new formatting in there. If you do this, be sure to export again and update your inventory values in your newly formatted sheet since they have likely changed since your export and when your new product formatting is done.
If you have new products you want to hide - give them a special product type, lets say hidden. In your smart collection rules - Type allows a 'not equal to' so set that there and also use the same no-index meta so google isn't indexing them until your ready.
Main things are - your new content can be 'live' in Shopify but if there's no where on site to link to it, its pretty safe unless someone guesses the url. then just make sure you add a band-aid so Google doesn't index them. This can also be extended to your sites search, a bit more work there but 100% doable.
The last bits that are 'always on' like your navigation - that you map all out and hustle on. Or make a new nav with a new handle and use that.
Best of luck! Have done many massive overhauls of sites and product data all while the site is live, just need to use a little finesse to work around some of the things specific to Shopify.
Related
I just want to ask the community if you have any idea, how to create a unique header for a specific page on shopify.
Theme is Venture(Free Version)
I want to have UK page and US page on my shopify store. My index page is UK based or international clients. While the US page is for US customers only. I want to have a different header and navigation for US page since there are products that are not available for US customers. I just want to post US only products.
Anyone can help me with this? Thank you!
This will require more than just a header change, but it is possible to have two separate headers.
However, the localization may be tricky.
According to Shopify docs:
Your theme's primary language cannot be a regional variant when using
Shopify Markets. For example, you should not change your primary
language to English (United States). It should be English.
This can be done by assigning an array of IP addresses to an variable that is placed in several conditionals.
This process is far too advanced for laymen. If you are not comfortable with liquid and javscript, You can use Nosto or the app Geo-targeting.
If you are looking to do this yourself, please refer to the docs regarding the ‘browsing_context_suggestions.json’ endpoint.
This will then need to be compared to an array of some sort that will assign your customers to a region.
Then, assign that endpoint to a variable and use that variable as a conditional to display your menu with:
{% assign menu = [british menu] %}
I know how to do this, so if you need help I can set it up. It just won't be free, and I recommend trying the apps before you hire unless you are scaled properly for development.
You will then need to lock your products by region, which is done in ruby. You have limited access to ruby through liquid, and backend editing of this sort requires an app. You cannot region lock products in front end without a ton of work and it will be extremely unstable, expensive, and will not lock search results regionally.
So try Locksmith to region lock products. I haven't used it, so my suggestion is blind there, and some experimentation may be required.
I am doing some work for a client who uses BigCommerce Stencil Theme and I am pretty new to BC. Until now most of my work with them has been basic theme formatting and styling.
They are asking if I can add checkboxes next to items in cart to indicate an alternative delivery system, and then add a field to address for a hotel room. It seems like built into BC checkout customization you can add fields to addresses so that doesn't seem like an issue, but I'm not so sure about the checkboxes. I would imagine I would need access to the underlying PHP to make this happen which doesn't seem possible. Is this accurate? If not, how might I go about doing this?
I see that I can add the checkboxes themselves to the template files, but as far as sending any data with the checkout I don't know how I'd go about doing this.
For the hotel room address field, you are correct that the simplest solution would be to use the built-in custom address field feature.
For the checkbox/alternate delivery system, we're close to releasing a new Checkout JS SDK that will give you the ability to create a completely custom checkout experience. The SDK is basically a Javascript wrapper for our Storefront Checkout API and it includes operations for checkout actions (like creating a new shipping consignment for an alternate delivery method).
The Checkout SDK doesn't give you access to the underlying PHP; instead, it allows you to create your own frontend using React or whatever framework you prefer. The logic for custom checkout steps would exist in your frontend, and you would send your data to the checkout via the BC Checkout API.
https://stencil.bigcommerce.com/docs/customizing-checkout
I want to add new field in prestashop product backoffice . This tab is same description tab.Please find attached screenshot what I need .
Thanks
Prestashop overrides their core (all their code files) every time you use the one-click-update in order to prevent developers to mess with their core.
Any modification on this page will be overridden on your next update unless you are willing to update the files manually with FTP and the database via PHPMyAdmin (or with MySQL workbench via remote connection) without overriding anything related to this interface.
I strongly advise you against this as you'll most certainly face incompatibility between your version and Prestashop core pretty quickly.
If you think your request is good for the whole community, you might try to pull a suggestion here: http://forge.prestashop.com/secure/Dashboard.jspa
Do not put to much hope on this as Prestashop team is quite busy.
If it's something specific to your shop, you'll need to hire a freelancer to as suggested by Raghubendra Singh in his comment. I'll add to his comment that it will need to be in a custom module. You might try to pull a proposal on this website: https://www.upwork.com/
If you do so, make sure that the developer you hire have a good experience both with PHP/MySQL and Prestashop itself (as it is a complex system). Even if you hire a developer from Filipino or India, you'll probably need to invest at least a thousand US dollars in order to have something sharp.
Also, please note that you'll need to hire the developer once more at least for every major update (by example 1.7.X => 1.8.X) to fix the incompatibility with Prestashop core.
the simplest way is to use an addon. For instance, this one.
It allows adding an unlimited number of tabs, some of them have a predefined structure (contact form or attachments). Others are changeable. So it's possible to add any content you need: additional pictures, video, text, etc.
I have to integrate my webshop with an external system. This system provides several functionalities, described in their API. This is what I want to do:
Import/sync products (this is available as CSV via request)
Update stock of products (also available as webrequest)
So I have to hook into the Magento stock check and I want some script which updates the products like everyday.
Where should I implement my changes? What is the best way to do this? I can imagine Magento already have some API stock functionalities, but can`t seem to find the right documentation.
Thanks in advance!
Firstly you could use the Magento web service via either SOAP and XML-RPC:
http://www.magentocommerce.com/api/soap/introduction.html#Introduction-SOAP
There's an API for updating stock levels:
http://www.magentocommerce.com/api/soap/catalogInventory/cataloginventory_stock_item.update.html
However, this is usually quite slow and can take some time to update large collections of products, in which case you are better going for a solution which uses the Magento object model directly, or something custom.
Depending upon your level of development expertise there's a few options available. One library to checkout is Magmi:
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/magmi/index.php?title=Magmi_Wiki
this is useful for updating lots of product data / stock levels quite quickly.
If you do no require an automated solution, you could always use the standard Magento import/export profiles to import stock levels from a CSV file, a quick search for 'Magento Import Export Profiles' should give you a good starting place:
http://www.seenbest-web-design.com/techclub/importing-a-csv-of-products-to-magento/
http://www.woolleydesign.net/2011/02/updating-store-inventory-in-magento/
I am fully functionally using Magmi now. I have written a plugin to automatically create configurable products, so if anyone is ever interested let me know.
There is already a plugin to process configurable products, my plugin is dependent on that plugin.
Basically, you will only be able to create configurable products if you especially have added this to your CSV, with a column named 'type'. In the column type you can set simple or configurable. With my module that won`t be nessecary. By some logic I automatically recognize the simple products and create a new configurable containing those products.
A little explanation on why I need this:
The stock system of our client updates a list of product (CSV) every few hours, containing entries of products. They sell clothing, and every size, and every color is a new entry. So one product can have 10 entries, entry 1: t-shirt green, size 12; entry 2: t-shirt green, size 13, etc.
I explain this, just in case anybody would ever need something like this, my plugin will probably help you. It will although need a few modification for your situation, since this is very specific to how your list of products is composed.
Anyway, thanks for your help!
I have 2 1/2 years experience of VB.Net, mostly self taught, so please bear with me if I seem rather noobish still and do not know some of the basics. I would recommend you grab a cup of tea before starting on this, as it appears to have got quite long...
I currently have a rather large application (VB.Net website) of over 15000 lines of code at the last count. It does not do retail or anything particularly complex like that - it is literally just a wholesale viewing website with admin frontend, catalogue / catalogue management system and pageview system.
I don't really know much about how .Net applications work in the background - whether they are all loaded on the same thread or if each has its own thread... I just know how to code them, or at least like to think I do... :-)
Basically my application is set up as follows:
There are two different areas - the customer area and the administration frontend.
The main part of the customer frontend is the Catalogue. The MasterPage will load a list of products but that's all, and this is common to all the customer frontend pages.
I tend to work on only one or several parts of the application at a time before uploading the changes. So, for example, I may alter the hierarchy of the Catalogue and change the Catalogue page to match the hierarchy change whilst leaving everything else alone.
The pageview database is getting really quite large and so it is getting rather slow when the application is first requested due to the way it works.
The application timeout is set to 5 minutes - don't know how to change it, I have even tried asking this question on here and seem to remember the solution was quite complex and I was recommended not to change it, but if a customer requests the application 5 minutes after the last page view then it will reload the application from scratch. This means there is a very slow page load whenever it exceeds 5 minutes of inactivity.
I am not sure if this needs consideration to determine how best to split the application up, if at all, but each part of the catalogue system is set up as follows:
A Manager class at the top level, which is used by the admin frontend to add, edit and remove items of the specified type and the customer frontend to retrieve a list of items of the specified type. For example the "RangeManager" will contain a list of product "Ranges" and will be used to interact with these from the customer frontend.
An Item class, for example Range, which contains a list of Attributes. For example Name, Description, Visible, Created, CreatedBy and so on. The form for adding / editing loops through these to display relevant controls for the administrator. For example a Checkbox for BooleanAttribute.
An Attribute class, which can be of type StringAttribute, BooleanAttribute, IntegerAttribute and so on. There are also custom Attributes (not just datatypes) such as RangeAttribute, UserAttribute and so on. These are given a data field which is used to get a piece of data specific to the item it is contained in when it is first requested. Basically the Item is given a DataRow which is stored and accessed by Attributes only when they are first requested.
When one item is requested from a specific manager is requested, the manager will loop through all the items in the database and create a new instance of the item class. For example when a Range is requested from the RangeManager, the RangeManager will loop through all of the DataRows in the Ranges table and create a new instance of Range for each one. As stated above it simply creates a new instance with the DataRow, rather than loading all the data into it there and then. The Attributes themselves fetch the relevant data from the DataRow as and when they're first requested.
It just seems a tad stupid, in my mind, to recompile and upload the entire application every time I fix a minor bug or a spelling mistake for a word which is in the code behind (for example if I set the text of a Label dynamically). A fix / change to the Catalogue page, the way it is now, may mean a customer trying to view the Contact page, which is in no way related to the Catalogue page apart from by having the same MasterPage, cannot do so because the DLL is being uploaded.
Basically my question is, given my current situation, how would people suggest I change the architecture of the application by way of splitting it into multiple applications? I mean would it be just customer / admin, or customer / admin and pageviews, or some other way? Or not at all? Are there any other alternatives which I have not mentioned here? Could web services come in handy here? Like split the catalogue itself into a different application and just have the masterpage for all the other pages use a web service to get the names of the products to list on the left hand side? Am I just way WAY over-complicating things? Judging by the length of this question I probably am, and it wouldn't be the first time... I have tried to keep it short, but I always fail... :-)
Many thanks in advance, and sorry if I have just totally confused you!
Regards,
Richard
15000 LOC is not really all that big.
It sounds like you are not pre-compiling your site for publishing. You may want to read this: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/1y1404zt(v=vs.80).aspx
Recompiling and uploading the application is the best way to do it. If all you are changing is your markup, that can be uploaded individually (e.g. changing some html layout in an aspx page).
I don't know what you mean here by application timeout, but if your app domain recycles every 5 minutes, then that doesn't seem right at all. You should look into this.
Also, if you find yourself working on various different parts of the site (i.e. many different changes), but need to deploy only some items in isolation, then you should look into how you are using your source control tools (you are using one, aren't you?). Look into something like GIT and branching/merging.
Start by reading:
Application Architecture Guide