Multiple stores with one checkout ?

[slipsam]

Testing is going well - I'm trying to add as many features as possible to the first release, so that we don't ahve to re-write chunks of code when an idea comes along that we didn't already consider.

Slipsam - do you have a sample tracking code you would like to include? I currently have the footers being set in templates, so its no problem to add the tracking to the relevant footer.

Keep you all posted.

Absolute

ABSOLUTE

Are you looking for a sample of advertising tracking (like Google Analytics?) or user tracking mod (http://www.hot-rock.com/zen-cart/use...20060114_1.zip) I do both.

[Holgate]

I setup a test 'merchant' store (the one that actually interfaces with payment gateway). This store functions on website with SSL and dedicated IP. The SSL covers 'http://mywebsite.com', but a security warning pops up if you type in 'www.mywebsite.com' - even though it's the same site. So my hosting company recommended a mod_rewrite in public_html .htaccess file (and were kind enough to take care of it all)... ok... So now any variation of the 'mywebsite.com' directs straight into 'https://mywebsite.com' without a security popup. Good.

But now, I setup an addon for an alias store - call it 'alias1.com' - it points to the 'https://mywebsite.com/shop' directory. Unfortunately, when it loads, the address bar reflects the 'https://mywebsite.com/shop' url instead of the addon 'alias1.com' url.

Experimenting, I was able to get the addon 'alias1.com' to find the 'https://mywebsite.com' index page while still cloaked, and I placed a link there '/shop/' to Zen. Successfully it found the shop directory and still had 'alias1.com/shop' in the address bar - but after that, all links in the ZEN shop page were 'https://mywebsite.com/shop/etc.'.

So to summarize; security popups for SSL may be unavoidable when starting the shopping experience in the 'multiple stores with one checkout' concept. Using the mod_rewrite method to control an addon alias isn't an effective solution to this problem (so far as I've tested).

FYI: the code we tested for the mod_rewrite was:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} =80
RewriteRule ^(.*) https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI}

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} .
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^mywebsite\.com
RewriteRule (.*) https://mywebsite.com/$1 [R=301,L]

and

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} !^443$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://mywebsite.com/$1 [L,R]

I'm running a support ticket with my hosting company to see if they have any solutions to making the 'alias1.com' website hold it's url throughout the SSL cloaking.. thought I'd post to see if Absolute or others have tested these waters yet?

[Holgate]

Hosting company provides excellent service ( ), but it seems this one is beyond 'free support':

I'm afraid we don't have a ready-made answer for you. However, it is likely possible to achieve with mod_rewrite still, or use a frames to cloak the URL. I'd recommend you search google on these methods or see other possibilities to acheive this.

[dadnad]

Hi everyone,
I'm a new, and mightily impressed, user of Zen Cart and am interested in potentially hosting multiple sites using the one Zen Cart installation to avoid nastiness with upgrades and such.

I've been reading over a lot of the posts in this thread and others, and it sounds like a lot of what I'm after may be here. I am a newbie so bear with me though...

Since we'll be doing the hosting I want one installation of Zen for multiple people. Each hosted site will have it's own administrative interfaces ( or access to their admin values ), individual templating, domains etc... which all sound like they're possible from the posts I've read. But as the hosting company we won't have a payment gateway and leave that up to the client... Is it possible to have multiple sites, each with their own admin stuff and payment gateways/checkouts running from the one installation of Zen Cart?

Thanks for the help. Zen Cart worked like a charm right out of the box! :)

Adam.

[pilot]

The demo looks very interesting.

great for inviting various customer groups to your store! looking foreward to developements with keen interest.

Thanks

[voltage]

Since we'll be doing the hosting I want one installation of Zen for multiple people. Each hosted site will have it's own administrative interfaces ( or access to their admin values ), individual templating, domains etc... which all sound like they're possible from the posts I've read. But as the hosting company we won't have a payment gateway and leave that up to the client... Is it possible to have multiple sites, each with their own admin stuff and payment gateways/checkouts running from the one installation of Zen Cart?

What you are asking for does not quite make sense. You want multiple stores, on multiple domains, with multiple admins, but one installation? What does that mean? What you have described is simply multiple installations. Are you talking about running them all off of the same SQL? Do you know what kind of nightmare that would create?

[dadnad]

hi voltage
thanks for your reply,
I think maybe I'm not asking in the right way...

I'm keen to avoid any insanity having had to deal with it in the form of maintaining multiple installations of the same software in the past...

Having dealt with forum software before I know there's a concept allowing multiple sites to be handled by the one installation. This is what I'm after, I'm not sure whether this entails using the same database, or multiple ones.

I'd be interested to see a single install handle multiple accounts. I have tried installing Zen into one central place, linking the php to multiple client directories and having local instances for configure.php... this seemed to scratch my itch but am really wondering if there's a nicer way to do that? In this scenario each client has their own database and admin interface, but not sure if it's really the right way to do this? If this is the path I need to go down can anyone offer any advice?

Thanks for the help.

Adam.

[tajul_ashyqin]

interesting thread to follow! thanx for this great efforts, Absolute...

[ECM]

Hi there Absolute,
Any progress on finishing this mod? Are you ready yet to release a beta version so that we can inspect/test it? I'm particularly interested to see what the admin changes are & how usable they might be vis the shop owner.
Thanks for your efforts todate.
Eddie

[Absolute]

Appologises for the delay - a large project kind of swallowed my time over the last month, and I´ve just not had the time available to finish the project.

I´ve taken a few days break, to get a tan and clear my head, and this is definately on the list of things to complete before the end of the month.

Absolute