Integrate Zen into Joomla

[DivaVocals]

Originally Posted by RtX

I'd like to know your solution and would not count it as a hijack.
TIA,
RtX

If no one else minds, I'm happy to share my solution.. First, the road to my solution..

I found that inserting ZenCart into Joomla is near impossible and ultimately does not work well.. (The Joomla wrapper function is inadequate for this) Finding a ZenCart and Joomla template that were similar enough to begin with, and then attempting to synch them, takes an ENORMOUS amount of effort.. I was considering building my Zen Cart template from scratch to match my Joomla main site, when I ran across the Sanguis Easy Embed Template contribution. Here's a link to the Easy Embed Template thread:
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=42105

The Easy Embed template is a ZenCart template that allows you to create an HTML wrapper to insert ZenCart.. It is the ZenCart template for folks who have an existing website, but would like to add ZenCart while still using their existing site design.. Seemed like the way to go if I wanted to use Joomla with ZenCart..

Here's how I implemented this:

1. I created an HTML wrapper with the same header and footer as my Joomla site so that when you go from Joomla to ZenCart it looks seemless.
2. I opted to not use the Joomla contact form and used the ZenCart contact form instead. (Using both was potentially going to be too confusing, and I did not think it was worth the effort to try to make the two forms look the same) Plus truth be told, I liked the ZenCart contact form better..
3. After that all I had to do was a little work to synch the two stylesheets so that both Joomla and ZenCart looked and acted alike. Here's the result: http://clients.overthehillweb.com/phlaunthair

I used plain old HTML to make this happen, but I suppose a real PHP programmer could figure out a way to call the Joomla code from the ZenCart embedded template.. I may one day look into doing just this and having a developer create this code for me.. I'm waiting to see how the Cartage project goes before making this decision. So for now my simple HTML solution works just fine..

Now that I've implemented this solution with one client, I am in the planning phase of migrating my ONLY VirtueMart client using the same technique. I have looked at VirtueMart's newest release, and while it appears to be a little better than previous versions, it is still missing features that IMO should just be a part of any GOOD shopping cart solution.. Plus VM does NOT support PayPal Payments Pro. (There is a VM extension for it, but it doesn't appear to work well or consistently)

ZenCart has been a MUCH better solution for my clients, and I will continue to offer it as an e-commerce solution.. It has a rich feature set which rivals some of the commercial carts available.. HTH

[puggy]

Originally Posted by borat

Hello, sorry for the lack of response, I have been very busy with projects.

Yes we are still going to deliver, although as you know ... we have fallen behind schedule.

It is true, the Connectage website will be the home of the new product.
You can go and sign up there now if you wish to be informed of the release date.

Really sorry for the delay on this, I do understand there is a urgent requirement for some people.. we will get there though..

stay tuned!

A

borat, I know this is in beta testing, but we who have been following this thread would like to see some screen shots or hear from them who are testing it. What are the chances of seeing something? Also are you still looking at a few more beta tester?

[dax702]

I'd love to see some screen shots too..

[puggy]

I hope this is not turning into a dead project like joomzen did.

[dax702]

Me too, I wish they would give us some screenshots or updates of some kind

[puggy]

The site has not been updated, and no post here in the is thread
Wondering what is exactly is going on. Has anyone heard or know if the beta testing nearing the end?

[greyman56]

Judging by the look of the connectage site, they are planning on making the integration a commercial offering. My guess is that they will not be sharing the details of the integration with the OSS community.

Why not get a few good minds together and build a GPL integration of our own. Borat said previously: "The time integrating was spent on user authentications, URL and Session Management", so that gives a good starting point. And these areas make sense from an integration point of view.

I am quite an experienced PHP programmer, but do not have extensive knowledge of either system as yet. With the help of others that have the knowledge of Joomla and/or ZenCart in the authentication, URL handling, and session management areas, I am sure we could get it happening. And I believe this would be a real winner.

We previously were using osCommerce, but have recently migrated to ZenCart due the expected demise of that other project. And we are very glad we did. Much better software and community.

We were previously using Xoops for a CMS and have recently been using Joomla (1.5) due to customer demand. We are also very pleased with that choice too.

I plan to get quite involved in both systems as we have now chosen these applications as our standard CMS and Cart offerings. And the integration of the two would be quite valuable for shop owners. As several of you have previously said, the rich content that Joomla can deliver will feed the e-store with more prospective buyers.

We have a potential customer that may fund some of the development, but they are quite small (husband and wife team) and I do not think that they will be able to cover more then a quarter of the costs of development (at a wild guess).

Even without this client, or community help, we will probably slowly work on this integration anyway, but would then need to commercialise it to recoup our development costs. If it is built as a GPL package, then we can use it for improving our market share as it would be a definite advantage, and charge for our module installation and customisation services.

Even though I do not have fantastic in-depth knowledge of Joomla or ZenCart at this time, I learn very quickly. Having been involved in PHP since the late 1990s, and open source application software selection and customisation for about 6 years or so now, it gets easier to identify "best of breed" applications and to work with them.

So with a chunk of help from the community, we could put it together. After less than two weeks of installing and playing with ZenCart, I am currently working on a modification to ZenCart (for another client) that will do "cities in postcodes" much like it currently does "states (zones) in countries". We will be releasing this modification as GPL later this year once it is reliable. Certainly the override system in Zen makes these things beautiful to do.

If anyone is interested in joining in, then lets discuss it further.

Cheers
Graham

[jgkiefer]

I think this is an excellent idea. My company has been using Joomla and Zen-cart exclusively for our varied clients. I am not a coder but will help out however I can.
Maybe we should start a new thread for this discussion?

[greyman56]

Great to hear.

I think we should wait until more feedback happens before leaving this well titled thread though.

Cheers
Graham

[DivaVocals]

I've always thought that the Connectage component was going to be a commercial offering.. and if it evrr comes to fruition, I'm happy to support it.. So my position now is as it has ALWAYS been.. I will will be happy to support any SERIOUS project which is offering a ZenCart component for Joomla... Dunno what the status of Connectage is (I suspect that time is the issue), but the issue for this particular need seems to be lack of a development "project sponsor" as it were.. So Greyman56 if you are serious about this, I am listening! :)

I personally see no reason to start another thread on the matter until such a time as it's clear that a seperate dev project is truly underway..