Wordpress On ZC [Support Thread]

[DivaVocals]

i know! i spoke to this client at length about both performance and screen res, all to no avail. if only i had time to rant away here, but unfortunately they suggested the screen res of 1280 wide, and they also insisted on the visuals after we spent months working on numerous mockups. did the best i could with a stubborn customer, however perhaps i will be less tolerant next time as it reflects poorly on me!

At the risk of being blunt here, your client is more than stubborn, they are foolish .. It is preposterous to suggest to people that a 1280 wide resolution is the solution to THEIR site display problem.. The solution to their site display issue is to fix the sitee.. You are much better than me.. I would have let the client go before putting out a site that cannot be viewed across all browsers and resolutions.. Between the site performance and the screen resolution, they will LOSE customers.. Too bad they don't get that..

i had thought about doing the same, i just don't know if sideboxes and the discrepancy between styles does it any justice. i had so much trouble dealing with conflicts in the stylesheets that i simply figured WP wasn't that hard to learn from the ground up and it was probably going to suit the customer better with the implementation we finished up with. i also think many people would like to see less of WP in their WOZ implementation and more of ZC in their WP implementation, as the money maker is ZC, while the traffic maker is WP, so looks aint necessarily that important with WP for a "seamless" integration.

will keep a track of this thread if you're going to post updates as i believe what you are trying to do would be EXTREMELY beneficial for many users, and i am now wondering about whether i should give it a crack.

I found that it was WAAAAAY easier making my WordPress site look like my Zen Cart store than it was trying to get the embedding features of WOZ working.. So between the WOZ sidebox only implementation, and the addition of Zen Cart product links and navigational elements to my WordPress blog, I believe that I have been able to achieve a seemless transition between Zen Cart and WordPress. I'll share what I learn with the community as I make new discoveries..

[DivaVocals]

Wanted to share this for anyone who is thinking about trying this themselves. Using the Word Press Theme Generator, I created this theme: http://tinyurl.com/y8o95lo. I think this template will serve well for this embedding method. This template is fairly generic, and is configured so that the widgets are positioned below the main content section versus to the right or left of it. This is means that once the sidebar code is removed (as per the instructions below), you won't have to resize the center content to fill the page. (Since this template already does that..)

Also it should be noted that for the same reasons, this template (with the sidebar code removed) might be useful for those who are using WOZ to embed their blog.

FYI,

Your site loads VERY slow, and though my screen resolution is set to 1152 X 864, the left and right side of your site extends OFF my screen without even a scrollbar to see the far left and far right of the layout..


I don't think what you're doing is lazy.. I too gave up on full integration using WOZ because it was far too aggravating for me trying to work through all these hiccups for every site I tried using this module with.

I posted this earlier in the WOZ support thread: http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showpost.php?p=693495&postcount=655. These are my down and dirty instructions I came up with for using only the sideboxes from the WOZ module. I have since tweaked this process to include removing quite a bit of the code from the wp-configure.php file which interferes with other Zen Cart mods (Google feeds and SEO mods in particular). The code I removed was not needed for the WOZ sideboxes to work standalone.. I’ve also removed any files that were only used for the WOZ blog embedding, and were also not needed for the WOZ sideboxes to work standalone.

I'm also gonna create a 'wp_posts' sidebox which displays the same content as your WordPress latest posts widget (I'll be creating this sidebox based on these two links: http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags/get_posts & http://www.dezinashop.com/demo/?p=4) Hira has code in the language files that implies that this sidebox exists, but it is not included in the WOZ files..

I have been giving some thought to packaging this up as an alternate add-on, or as an alternate install option in the WOZ app.. (Giving all credit to Hira of course..) It's another option that folks might wanna give a try..

Not to take anything away from Hira, but IMO a better method for blog embedding can be found here:
http://www.numinix.com/blog/2009/09/...n-cart-1-3-8a/

As of this writing, I have taken a quick glance at the instructions and supporting files provided by Numinix. Numinix's embedding/integration method would appear to work with my WOZ sidebox only method. However, in order to make this look aesthetically pleasing, I probably should disable the display of the blog sidebar on most of the blog pages while still being able to enable/display the WP widgets elsewhere. I believe some variation of this would work:

I will be editing the following files within my blog’s theme:

• index.php
• page.php
• single.php
• archive.php
• search.php

Within these files I’ll find and delete the following line:

 
<?php get_sidebar(); ?>

The sidebar will no longer display, while the WOZ sideboxes will continue to display. I could then continue to activate and use my WP widgets, but they will only display within the WOZ sideboxes.

I’ll be testing this over the weekend of course, but IMO this is a better solution for those who must embed WP content.. Best of both worlds IMO.. Again no disrespect to Hira, but I have never had good success getting the embedding portion of this module to work trouble free..

[DivaVocals]

So after a little trial and error I managed to create a "Recent Posts" sidebox for WOZ. Hira's code has always eluded to this sidebox being there. (there were definitions in the language files for a "Recent Posts" sidebox). Seemed logical that this should be one of the included sideboxes.

I have attached the "Recent Posts" sidebox I created in case anyone else finds this useful. I may update the latest WOZ install files to include it and upload it to the downloads section..

At first I tried using the WordPress "get_posts" tag (http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags/get_posts). Turns out that this code didn't work:

 
get_posts('arguments');

I ended up with a blank sidebox. So after a quick Google search I found these two sites:
The Easy Way To Display Recent Posts in WordPress
How to Display Recent Posts in WordPress

Both of these sites included instructions for two essentially idential methods to display recent posts. I often see folks asking about how to display recent posts on their store main pages.. So I thought these links might also be useful for this purpose.

However, for the "Recent Posts" sidebox, these posts were the hint I was looking for.. I chose the first method because.. well because I found it 1st.. However, I have tested both methods, and they both work. I included code for both in the "Recent Posts" sidebox code (one is active the other commented out) just in case someone (for whatever reason) decided they liked the other method better..

Hope someone else finds this WOZ sidebox useful..

[DivaVocals]

So I bundled up my WOZ "sidebox only" solution. I've submitted it to the downloads section (as a seperate mod) and hopefully it will be approved and made available as an add-on. In the meantime, I'm uploading it here in case anyone else wants to use this WOZ "sidebox only" solution instead of the embedded WOZ solution.

I take no credit for the code.. This is Hira's code with a few tweaks (as outlined below), and any files/code that are only needed for embedding stripped out.

I found that using this WOZ "sidebox only" method eliminates the compatibility issues with WOZ and a number of other plugins (particularly SEO mods, XML sitemap mods, and the Google Merchant mods). Using the WOZ sideboxes alone resolved these compatibility issues for me.

Hope there are others who will find this useful..

A few updates to my previous post.. I wanted to include a few more details, plus there's one tweak I thought might be useful in general to folks using this mod.. (changes highlighted in blue below)

Update: (for those who care..)

I confirmed that I can indeed use the sideboxes from this mod if I run the blog as a seperate entity.. Wasn't a fluke at all.. Here's how (in BRIEF)

1. Install WordPress (v2.7.x) in it's OWN directory -- you can use the same database where you have your Zen tables installed; just make sure that you use a table pre-fix to distinguish your WordPress tables from your Zen Cart tables
2. Follow all of the install instructions for this mod with the exception of "Step 2" in the WOZ instructions. -- you may skip this step in it's entirety.. since you won't be embedding the blog, this step will cause problems later on. If you want, you can also choose to skip using Kiddo's change for v2.7.x since you won't be embedding the blog
   
   Also since you will be running the blog as a seperate entity, you do not HAVE to use the default Word Press template that comes with WOZ. Therefore, you will not need the modified default template files included in this mod. So you can also skip the 2nd step of Step 3 in the WOZ instructions
3. Go to "includes/templates/template_default/sideboxes". Open all of the WOZ sidebox files and look for this line $content .= '<ul>'.$out.'</ul>';
   
   Just above this line add this: $content .= '<div id="' . str_replace('_', '-', $box_id . 'Content') . '" class="sideBoxContent">';
   
   This will format the WOZ sideboxes to look like your store's other sideboxes
4. Go to includes/modules/sideboxes. Modify the "wp_sidebar.php" sidebox as follows: Comment out this line "$title_link = 'wordpress';" (should be line 27, this is the code that creates the sidebox header link to the main blog page) -- again since you are not embedding the blog you won't need this link.
5. Activate which ever WOZ sideboxes you want to use.

You'll of course need to skin your blog to match your ZenCart template. Some other suggestions for tying your WordPress blog to ZenCart include: (these are only a FEW suggestions, with a little imagination you can do a lot more)

• Using the WordPress "Links" widget and create links back to specific products or product categories
• Add links to your "Contact Us" forms, policies, & other Zen content.
• Create a menu identical to your EZ Pages menu in the header or footer of your Blog

Hope someone else finds any of my ramblings helpful.. Here's a link to a real working version of this in case anyone wants to see an example of this in action.. http://www.lanikshair.com

[ALiepinieks]

...they will LOSE customers.. Too bad they don't get that..

they already are. they're starting to field calls from angry consumers, and now understanding what i tried to explain throughout the scoping phase of the project. their may be some light at the end of the tunnel yet.

...I would have let the client go before putting out a site that cannot be viewed across all browsers and resolutions...

as a startup business, it is unfortunate that i can't pick and choose my clients just yet. this one in particular had plenty of cash to part with, and will be a long-term customer so i believe this problem will eventually be rectified, even if it means they swallow some humble pie and reverse their decision.

...I found that it was WAAAAAY easier making my WordPress site look like my Zen Cart store than it was trying to get the embedding features of WOZ working...

really? perhaps i jumped to a conclusion before giving it enough time. working on 2 wordpress-only projects now so i guess i will learn more as i go and hopefully agree with you at some point down the road on this point : )

cheers
andrejs

[DivaVocals]

as a startup business, it is unfortunate that i can't pick and choose my clients just yet. this one in particular had plenty of cash to part with, and will be a long-term customer

I get this.. but as a startup business myself, my only calling card is the work I have done.. So I want to make sure the work I do is work I can show to potential clients.. Please dont' take this wrong, but this site in it's current form isn't anything I would be able to show to a potential client.

so i believe this problem will eventually be rectified, even if it means they swallow some humble pie and reverse their decision.

Hopefully they are starting to see the err in their decision and will let you do the right thing..

really? perhaps i jumped to a conclusion before giving it enough time. working on 2 wordpress-only projects now so i guess i will learn more as i go and hopefully agree with you at some point down the road on this point : )

Yep.. Styling a WordPress blog is pretty easy peezy..

[ALiepinieks]

you are so right regarding "examples of previous work". guess i hadn't given that side of things much thought (from a consumers point of view - i had thought about it from a developers point of view and was initially more worried about what my peers might say!).

fortunately (or unfortunately) the only clients i've dealt with since have not realised it due to their higher screen res, i guess it's the ones i haven't heard from that might be the silent majority.

anyway, thanks for your input : )
andrejs

[Pink]

I have a problem tho, i dont get any content on the pages when i load them up. The sidebar works great, the titles change, the breadcrumbs change but no content?

I do have the same problem. Any solution found till now?

My PHP-Version: 5.2.6

[busyMom]

Welcome back, Hira!

I hope to try integrating the new WOZ code by year-end 2009. I am especially excited about the new WP template since that will make the frequent WP updates a little simpler!

Thanks for the code update! Karen

[AmandaGero]

ok, i have been at this for about 24 hours straight now, i finally have no errors, but not much is showing up ether.

here is the site

http://extendmydesign.com/zencart-pp/

just a very rough test by the way.

the info in the sideboxes is showing up, but when you click on the links, nothing loads, the same with the blog posts as well, nothing.

im thinking it is a setting or something i missed, could someone take a look at it and let me know?
your time and effort is much appreciated, thank you

Great mod by the way, just hope to get it working.