Messages

Hello. I'd like to suggest the inclusion of a category fix in the next upgrade. The issue is described in details in this post:
http://forum.abantecart.com/index.php/topic,4887.0.html Thank you.

[vision]

but for better search engine parsing this url can contain category seo key like assistech.com/store/vision/fc1204
so even if category moved/renamed/removed your product is accessible for customers and search engines, is it problem?

Thank you for clarifying. In my view, it can be a problem in that it's accepting a non-existing category or a category to which the product doesn't belong. There is always a chance that someone might create a "goofy" link (by mistake, for example) and Google Search would index it. Google is big on linking and if the link exists, the will most likely crawl and index it. At least, this has been my experience.

Very nice overview. Thank you. 

Well put.
I think PERFECT shopping cart, or in AbanteCart case eCommerce platform, is something different for everyone.

You're welcome, eCommerece Core. I hadn't thought about what "perfect" means to different users, and I totally agree with you! Thank you for sharing.

[Ollie]

Thank you, Ollie

We really appreciate the effort you made for the AbanteCart project

You're welcome, Basara. You guys gave us so much. Thank YOU!!

Make sure that the favicon file a "real" .ico file

It has an .ico extension: https://assistech.com/store/resources/image/18/73/4.ico

If this subdomain is just for testing purposes, I would suggest cloning your current store. You have the option to clone site only, database only or both. This is easily done in the cPanel via Softaculous.

Google can not index goofy stuff because it doesnot put "whatever" to your urls. Google parse links found on your site. Anyway if you want to make sure Google read your site correctly you need to create and post XML sitemap of your site to the Google Webmaster panel https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/183668?hl=en

Good to know. I wasn't sure. How about the problem I described? Did you see it happen in version 1.2.7?

How can i check I am trying to login in to the correct URL for the site admin ?

Go to your store folder and look for System/config.php
The login path is defined under:
define('ADMIN_PATH', '');

The login URL should be http://your_store_url/index.php?s=your_admin_path

As far as people not being able to access Admin, there could be for other reasons. For example, my store was upgraded to 1.2.7 and cloned recently. In the process, Admin was not accessible because a file was outdated. The file in question was core/lib/config.php: http://forum.abantecart.com/index.php?topic=4780.msg20814#msg20814

Hello.
System e-mail, such as order update, e-mail confirmation etc. go to spam folder.
I'm using SMTP, any idea how to fix this issue?

I would try to create a filter to have those emails routed to an appropriate folder. What email application do you use?

In this article, I will explain how and why to add an intra-site search engine to your AbanteCart store.

If you have a barebones website with products only, this article does not apply to you as AbanteCart's built-in search engine is most likely meeting your search needs.

Now, if you have a website with lots of information pages such as a library or a resources section pointing to pages within your website, please read on.

As is, AbatenCart's search engine only picks up products and category pages; it does not crawl and index additional information pages you may have added to your store. In my website, for example, I have a library with loads of articles and other resources, both inbound and outbound. Of course, I made these resources available for my customers so there would be no point in having them unless they can be found.

When I decided to add an intra-site search engine to my website, I searched for several options on the market, including Google Search. Finally, I decided to settle with Zoom Search Engine since it's the one that best meets my needs. Zoom is simple, powerful, and flexible. It has no recurring fees and if you have a small website, it's totally free!

An intra-site search engine is easy to set up. In the case of Zoom, I downloaded it to my desktop, configured the settings to my needs, then put the crawler in auto mode. Depending on the size of your website, it may take over 24 hours to crawl the entire site. This is pretty normal. Once you are done with crawling, you simply upload the data files, search.php, settings.php and search_template.html to your server.

As you go about looking for an intra-site search engine, check to make sure the developer offers tech support and what kinds of features it includes.

For those of us who love AbanteCart and all the features that it comes with, we may have settled on a particular design or look and may be satisfied with it. But the crucial questions are, "Are we listening to our customers and online visitors?", "What kind of feedback have they volunteered (if any)?", "Do we read their silence as a sign of approval?", "Do we normally ask for their input, comments and/or suggestions?", or "Do we assume we reached the pinnacle of web development and there's no more room for change?"

A good webmaster takes into account his/her audience's feedback, just like companies conduct satisfaction surveys to determine how customers like their products and/or services, and whether their needs are being met.

An area that's often neglected in web design (even by large corporations) is accessibility. Far too many websites are not accessible for those who are blind, deaf, or with other types of physical disabilities. There are plenty of resources online on this subject and, if this is something you never thought about, I strongly recommend you start doing. An accessible website makes it more inclusive and therefore more attractive. Nobody likes to be left out and people with disabilities are no exception! Recently, my company added a free extension to the Marketplace called "Accessible Cart". Check it out: http://marketplace.abantecart.com/accessible_cart

With that said, I would go a bit further to say that some of us may be stuck at some aspect of our website. Maybe we fell in love with the color scheme or the graphic elements or an image slider or whatever. It doesn't really matter what, there is always room for improvement. In 15 years in the assistive technology business (and close to 20 as a webmaster), I can't tell you how many times I changed my website and now with AbanteCart, I'm finally reaching a point of satisfaction. But this satisfaction came at a price (and a lot of time spent).

Every once in a while I read comments from fleeting visitors who come to this forum in hopes of finding the perfect shopping cart for free. Some are very demanding, others are plain rude. How can we expect a team of volunteers working on this wonderful project to give us a PERFECT shopping cart? There is no such thing. A sensible person would take what they were given for FREE, be thankful for the GIFT and help make it better. For me, this is the beauty of AbanteCart: the level of dedication of those involved. Of course, there are times we wait for an answer to a question that never comes, but hey this is a part of life. People are busy. Maybe we can dig in further and find the answer ourselves.

The Marketplace has wonderful extensions designed to enhance and extend the capabilities of AbanteCart stores. If you haven't bought an extension for a while (or never bought one), maybe it's about time to do so. When you buy an extension, you are encouraging its developer to create more extensions. If nobody buys, what's the point of making them anyway? To me, lauding OpenCart for the x number of extensions they have in comparison to AbanteCart (as I read in a post today) is totally unproductive. We can have as many extensions as they do - and as good as they are. It's entirely up to us, the AbanteCart community.

Finally, here's some food for thought on the issue of web design: Why would you settle with French fries when you can have gourmet food?

PS: I don't mean to be offensive to anyone with my French fries comment. I like FF but I love GF.

Did you know the Marketplace has several extensions that allow you to integrate live chat into your online store? Here are the links to some of them:

http://marketplace.abantecart.com/marketing/zopim_live_chat
http://marketplace.abantecart.com/marketing/live_chat_integration
http://marketplace.abantecart.com/marketing/olark_integration
http://marketplace.abantecart.com/live_tex_integration
http://marketplace.abantecart.com/red_helper_integration
http://marketplace.abantecart.com/jivo_chat
http://marketplace.abantecart.com/floating_chatbox
http://marketplace.abantecart.com/tawkto_integration

In this article, Patrick Sexton explains how to defer certain images without JQuery for faster page loading. I applied this technique to my category/subcategory images and I'm very happy with the result. I noticed my website loads much faster.

https://varvy.com/pagespeed/defer-images.html

These were the two files I have used:

/storefront/view/default/javascript/common.js
/storefront/view/default/template/blocks/category-top.tpl

NOTE: Along with image deferment, I also used image compression.

Edited the password here for one user.
Still cannot login, and the email resest is still failing to send .

Did you try to log with the edited password. If you have the password, why do you need email reset?

I suggest checking your email settings via phpMyAdmin in the cPanel to make sure you got them right:

1. Log in to your cPanel
2. Open phpMyAdmin.
3. Find and open your database.
4. Find and open the Setting table. (It may have a prefix before "Settings".)
5. Under group "mail" check your email settings for:
- config_smtp_host (Mine is set to ssl://mail.mydomainname
- config_smpt_password
- config_smtp_username

I'm assuming you're using SMTP but maybe not.

Another possibility might be to FTP your store, but I don't know which file (if any) will have this data.