Numinix Blog Embedding Issues/Questions

[DivaVocals]

The import statement in the blog.css stylesheet is a result of the Numinix instructions. Numinix links to instructions saying to create a WP child theme and create a new style.css file in that theme's folder with the following content.


/blog-backend/wp-content/themes/zencart/style.css

/*
 Theme Name:     Twenty Thirteen Child
 Theme URI:      http://example.com/twenty-thirteen-child/
 Description:    Twenty Thirteen Child Theme
 Author:         John Doe
 Author URI:     http://example.com
 Template:       twentythirteen
 Version:        1.0.0
*/

/* =Imports styles from the parent theme
-------------------------------------------------------------- */
@import url('../twentythirteen/style.css');


/* =Theme customization starts here
-------------------------------------------------------------- */

And then make a copy of the child theme style.css to blog.css, edit it to change any image URL paths (I didn't make edits for that because I didn't see any such thing), then copy it to my zencart template's css folder.

That wasn't working well for me because of the vast number of unneeded styles it was importing from the 'twentythirteen' theme that were screwing up the display of the blog page within zencart, like the way it changed the default table style and all kinds of other tags. So I removed the @import line of /blog-backend/wp-content/themes/zencart/style.css and instead just copied most of the styles from /blog-backend/wp-content/themes/twentythirteen/style.css that didn't seem to screw things up, and changed some the styles to look more uniform in my site. So my /blog-backend/wp-content/themes/zencart/style.css file is still pretty large, and I could post it if needed, but I assume the styles content isn't important as far as my problem goes.

I don't understand why it didn't just have me copy a file with all the WP styles I want into the .css file in the zc template directory. That would fix this wacky importing problem at least, although it wouldn't fix the broken links problem.

The instructions for creating a child theme are correct (they are from the WordPress site) However, you don't make a copy of the CHILD THEME stylesheet to blog.css, you copy the PARENT THEME stylesheet to the blog.css.. (the one with the actual style declarations) Then follow the last part of the installation instructions:

Now is the part where you will need some experience with CSS and HTML as you have just imported your entire blog into the main page area of your Zen Cart template… chances are it isn’t going to fit and all of the CSS is ruined by the global style sheet of your Zen Cart. Or, global styles within the blog.css file will have an effect on the look of your store.

Once you get everything configured EXACTLY like the Numinix instructions and the .htaccess changes, and the right stylesheet code in your blog.css, see if it works..

[fakeDecoy]

Ok, I went ahead and changed things so the child theme has the small style.css file that imports styles from the parent theme, and the blog.css in zc has all the styles I've edited to my liking. The styles work, and the links on the blog appear to be working, although I just have one post so far so I'm not sure.

I get a 403 Forbidden when browsing to http://www.adamantbarbell.com/blog-backend/wp-admin .

The image in the blog post is also not displaying. I get a 403 Forbidden on it too. http://www.adamantbarbell.com/blog-b...b_01-Small.jpg

I could try making another test post and upload another image, but I'm unable to do that until I can access wp-admin.

Same htaccess file as last post.

RewriteEngine On

# Don't rewrite any URIs ending with a file extension (ending with .[xxxxx])
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.[a-z]{2,5}$ [NC]
# Don't rewrite admin directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/sysop [NC]
# Don't rewrite editors directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/editors [NC]
# Don't rewrite cPanel directories
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/cpanel [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/frontend [NC]


# Don't rewrite blog directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/blog.* [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/blog-backend.* [NC]

# Handle all other URIs using Zen Cart (index.php)
RewriteRule .* index.php?%{QUERY_STRING} [L]

# Do rewrite blog directory
RewriteRule ^blog(.*)$ /index.php?main_page=blog&$1 [E=VAR1:$1,QSA,L]

[fakeDecoy]

I remembered I had added a line to the database table for Ceon URI Mapping trying to fix this yesterday, and that was causing a problem with weirdly rewritten URLs that I neglected to mention. So at least that part is fixed (sorry!), the blog links are definitely working (and I have some more styling adjustments to make), but the errors I'm getting are new -

Now I get a 404 Not Found when trying to access /blog-backend or anything in it including the image in the blog post.

Same htaccess as above.

[DivaVocals]

Ok, I went ahead and changed things so the child theme has the small style.css file that imports styles from the parent theme, and the blog.css in zc has all the styles I've edited to my liking. The styles work, and the links on the blog appear to be working, although I just have one post so far so I'm not sure.

I get a 403 Forbidden when browsing to http://www.adamantbarbell.com/blog-backend/wp-admin .

The image in the blog post is also not displaying. I get a 403 Forbidden on it too. http://www.adamantbarbell.com/blog-b...b_01-Small.jpg

I could try making another test post and upload another image, but I'm unable to do that until I can access wp-admin.

Same htaccess file as last post.

RewriteEngine On

# Don't rewrite any URIs ending with a file extension (ending with .[xxxxx])
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.[a-z]{2,5}$ [NC]
# Don't rewrite admin directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/sysop [NC]
# Don't rewrite editors directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/editors [NC]
# Don't rewrite cPanel directories
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/cpanel [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/frontend [NC]


# Don't rewrite blog directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/blog.* [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/blog-backend.* [NC]

# Handle all other URIs using Zen Cart (index.php)
RewriteRule .* index.php?%{QUERY_STRING} [L]

# Do rewrite blog directory
RewriteRule ^blog(.*)$ /index.php?main_page=blog&$1 [E=VAR1:$1,QSA,L]

Now that you've rolled back all the "thorw everything at the wall to see what sticks" kind of changes, you've narrowed this down to only one issue to resolve.. So at this point it's really a matter of finding the correct directive to prevent rewriting the blog's actual physical directory (in your case, "blog-backend"). The directive to NOT re-write the virtual directory appears to be working since your blog is displaying as expected in the center content area..

You can try this instead:

replace this directive:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/blog-backend.* [NC]

With this one

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/blog-backend($|/) [NC]

if that doesn't work, then try this..

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/blog-backend [NC]

If one of these don't work, then I need to defer to the Zen Cart community for help with this... I copied other solutions that have been posted on the Ceon URI thread (NOT the right thread to ask this question BTW..) In the meantime DO NOT change a bunch of stuff wildly.. We know what the issue is.. we just have to find the RIGHT solution..

I am not an expert on Apache directives, and I no longer use any of the blog embedding solutions.. I prefer to use Zen Cart sideboxes to display specific blog content, and simply styling my blog and store to look alike.. This eliminates these kind of issues for me.. Hopefully someone in the community could help.. If after tryin one of these alternative directives you still can't get to the WordPress admin, would suggest asking lhungil very nicely if he can come over to this thread and take a look.. He's REALLY good with these Apache directives..

[fakeDecoy]

No luck with those two directives, but thanks for the help anyway DivaVocals. Just one step away now!

I just realized the 404 error I'm getting isn't the zencart 404 page, it's the WP 404 page. So that's interesting.

Anyone else have ideas on how to fix the directives?

[fakeDecoy]

Another thing I noticed is if I change

# Do rewrite blog directory
RewriteRule ^blog(.*)$ index.php?main_page=blog&$1 [E=VAR1:$1,QSA,L]

to

# Do rewrite blog directory but not wp directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/blog-backend [NC]
RewriteRule ^blog(.*)$ index.php?main_page=blog&$1 [E=VAR1:$1,QSA,L]

then the blog displays and /blog-backend is also accessible, but the styles the blog uses isn't just from blog.css (that file appears to be loaded too, from the displayed page's source code), it's from the active WP theme css. Maybe that's a good sign, ie: it was able to access the WP directory fine, but for some reason is loading the WP theme css?

[DivaVocals]

Another thing I noticed is if I change

# Do rewrite blog directory
RewriteRule ^blog(.*)$ index.php?main_page=blog&$1 [E=VAR1:$1,QSA,L]

to

# Do rewrite blog directory but not wp directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/blog-backend [NC]
RewriteRule ^blog(.*)$ index.php?main_page=blog&$1 [E=VAR1:$1,QSA,L]

then the blog displays and /blog-backend is also accessible, but the styles the blog uses isn't just from blog.css (that file appears to be loaded too, from the displayed page's source code), it's from the active WP theme css. Maybe that's a good sign, ie: it was able to access the WP directory fine, but for some reason is loading the WP theme css?

Well not for nothing, but it seems like that's the solution.. So change those directives.. Backup (just in case) and DELETE the blog.css stylesheet, and apply your custom changes to the WP theme stylesheet..

What does your FULL .htaccess file look like??

[fakeDecoy]

I did something similar - commented out the @import command from the WP child theme css so it's essentially blank. Everything seems to work!

RewriteEngine On

# Don't rewrite any URIs ending with a file extension (ending with .[xxxxx])
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.[a-z]{2,5}$ [NC]
# Don't rewrite admin directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/myadmindir [NC]
# Don't rewrite editors directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/editors [NC]
# Don't rewrite cPanel directories
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/cpanel [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/frontend [NC]
# Don't rewrite blog directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/blog [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/blog-backend [NC]

# Handle all other URIs using Zen Cart (index.php)
RewriteRule .* index.php?%{QUERY_STRING} [L]

# Do rewrite blog directory but not wp directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/blog-backend [NC]
RewriteRule ^blog(.*)$ index.php?main_page=blog&$1 [E=VAR1:$1,QSA,L]

I feel like I could have done this with one less directive by modifying and moving the last two to before the "all other URIs" directive, but hey, it works.

[DivaVocals]

I did something similar - commented out the @import command from the WP child theme css so it's essentially blank. Everything seems to work!

RewriteEngine On

# Don't rewrite any URIs ending with a file extension (ending with .[xxxxx])
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.[a-z]{2,5}$ [NC]
# Don't rewrite admin directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/myadmindir [NC]
# Don't rewrite editors directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/editors [NC]
# Don't rewrite cPanel directories
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/cpanel [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/frontend [NC]
# Don't rewrite blog directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/blog [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/blog-backend [NC]

# Handle all other URIs using Zen Cart (index.php)
RewriteRule .* index.php?%{QUERY_STRING} [L]

# Do rewrite blog directory but not wp directory
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/blog-backend [NC]
RewriteRule ^blog(.*)$ index.php?main_page=blog&$1 [E=VAR1:$1,QSA,L]

I feel like I could have done this with one less directive by modifying and moving the last two to before the "all other URIs" directive, but hey, it works.

No no no.. You will lose your changes if there is an update to the parent theme.. (that's WHY you create a child theme)

Restore the parent theme stylesheet back to the default.. Yes, remove the @import statement from the child theme stylesheet, but try putting your adjusted stylesheet declarations in the child theme stylesheet..

Also remove out the directive highlighted in red.. you don't need it declared TWICE..

[fakeDecoy]

I haven't touched the parent theme stylesheet. But I'll put my styles into the child theme stylesheet and remove the blog.css from zc if that will help avoid problems in the future.