WordPress® for Zen Cart® (wp4zen) [Support Thread]

About this Plugin
Zen Cart is a one of the best open source frameworks to build an online shopping cart while WordPress is known as one of the best open source blog content management system (CMS) for creating blogs. Each has its own outstanding features, but the combination of these two systems create a great product which we are calling "WordPress®** for Zen Cart® **** (wp4zen)". Basically, "WordPress®** for Zen Cart® **** (wp4zen)" is a series of Zen Cart sideboxes which displays WordPress content that can be used to integrate WordPress into Zen Cart so that shopowners can display WordPress content in their Zen Cart store.

What it does
These sideboxes are meant to link your WordPress blog to your Zen Cart store without having to implement complicated WordPress blog-embedding solutions/add-ons. These sideboxes pull content links directly from the WordPress blog. All a store owner has to do is to style their WordPress blog to match their store.

Some may find these sideboxes are a lot less work than it would have been to troubleshoot all of the other issues with other blog-embedding solutions.

Basic Features (Free)

• Blog Archive. Sidebox which displays a list of posts grouped by year and month. Admin configuration comes with various options.
• Blog Categories. Sidebox displays the blog posts by category.Admin configuration comes with various options.
• Blog Pages. A configurable sidebox to list blog pages and sub-pages. Admin configuration comes with various options.

Hiiiiiiiii DivaVocals :cool:,
For Clarification.... is this different from "WordPress On ZenCart - Sideboxes Only Edition v1.0" plugin? or will it be more enhanced? Or am I just confused like usual? :blink:

Not in ANY WAY related to WOZ or ANY variations of WOZ.. Here's the difference.. The WP4Zen module WORKS.. WOZ (and it's variants) do not..

ljdream00:

Hiiiiiiiii DivaVocals :cool:,
For Clarification.... is this different from "WordPress On ZenCart - Sideboxes Only Edition v1.0" plugin? or will it be more enhanced? Or am I just confused like usual? :blink:

One of the issues I have discussed with others is that the blog needs to be on the server with your website so that customers do not have to go to wordpress site in order to blog.. This way the customer is not deviated away from your site and gets "lost" to another site. Above it 'hints' that this is not true and the the blogging is on Wordpress site and then the posting appears on my site - Am I confused???

TIA anything to make installation easier is ssoooo appreciated.

I haven't used this mod yet, but I doubt if it matters where the Wordpress installation is.

You would install WP on your server, possibly in a subfolder of your domain where Zen Cart is in the root. The sideboxes would then appear on your Zen Cart site.

It might work fine if you were on the Wordpress server, though that would give your blog a "yourname.wordpress.com" URL (more or less). If you already have hosting for your ZC site I see no reason to install WP elsewhere.

stevesh:

I haven't used this mod yet, but I doubt if it matters where the Wordpress installation is.
From the readme:
Following are the prerequisites for this series of Zen Cart sideboxes to operate properly:

1. A Zen Cart store installed and operable. Tested with Zen Cart v1.5.1.
2. WordPress installed and operable. Tested with WordPress versions v3.5.1 through v3.8.1.
3. The Zen Cart and WordPress installations share a common mySQL database.
4. The Zen Cart and WordPress installations must share the same domain.
5. Update the admin configuration options with the correct filepath to the WordPress installation.

To add to the info lat9 posted, no integration whatsoever with any yourblogname.wordpress.com blogs.

gjh42:

It might work fine if you were on the Wordpress server, though that would give your blog a "yourname.wordpress.com" URL (more or less). If you already have hosting for your ZC site I see no reason to install WP elsewhere.

Available now..
http://www.zen-cart.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1859

Hi DivaVocals,

just one question: why it requires the same database as the zen-cart uses? Could I configure a different database for the blogs? I don't think it's that desirable to mess the product and order data with blog data? Maybe it makes sense to give users the option to use a different database. Just one thought.

DivaVocals:

To add to the info lat9 posted, no integration whatsoever with any yourblogname.wordpress.com blogs.

Having Zen Cart look up info in WP tables in a database ZC already has access to is a world of difference from having to establish credentials and communication with a different database. The two table systems can be separated with prefixes if necessary; the capability is built into Zen Cart.

gjh42:

Having Zen Cart look up info in WP tables in a database ZC already has access to is a world of difference from having to establish credentials and communication with a different database. The two table systems can be separated with prefixes if necessary; the capability is built into Zen Cart.
Exactly, Glenn. The database-prefix capability is also built into WordPress!

gjh42:

Having Zen Cart look up info in WP tables in a database ZC already has access to is a world of difference from having to establish credentials and communication with a different database. The two table systems can be separated with prefixes if necessary; the capability is built into Zen Cart. > lat9:

Exactly, Glenn. The database-prefix capability is also built into WordPress! Nods in agreement with ALL of the above.. :yes:
> fireincairo:

Hi DivaVocals, just one question: why it requires the same database as the zen-cart uses? Could I configure a different database for the blogs? I don't think it's that desirable to mess the product and order data with blog data? Maybe it makes sense to give users the option to use a different database. Just one thought.I have NO PLANS to make any such change for the reasons stated above..

How does one set this up for wordpress and Zencart to share a database? Zencart is in my root and wordpress is installed in a subdirectory. Do I need to reinstall wordpress in a different manner?

landron:

How does one set this up for wordpress and Zencart to share a database? Zencart is in my root and wordpress is installed in a subdirectory. Do I need to reinstall wordpress in a different manner?

It's pretty simple.. Doesn't matter which one you install first (Zen Cart or WordPress), but during the installation when you are asked for your database information you use the SAME database information for both. (DB name, DB Password, DB Username) You also need to make sure you are using a DB prefix for BOTH installs. For Zen Cart you can use zen_ and for WordPress you would use wp_.

OK, it sounds like I need to wipe-out and reinstall WP manually as it was installed with simplescripts and I never had the option of selecting or naming a database. My Zencart install is ver 1.51 and was a manual install about a year ago. Will the default database settings for this install conform to these rules? There's no way that I'd want to re-install Zencart now that the site is built and customized.

DivaVocals:

It's pretty simple.. Doesn't matter which one you install first (Zen Cart or WordPress), but during the installation when you are asked for your database information you use the SAME database information for both. (DB name, DB Password, DB Username) You also need to make sure you are using a DB prefix for BOTH installs. For Zen Cart you can use zen_ and for WordPress you would use wp_.

The default Zen Cart database prefix is '' (i.e. none) and the default WordPress prefix is 'wp_'. As long as the prefixes are different, you should be good-to-go!

landron:

OK, it sounds like I need to wipe-out and reinstall WP manually as it was installed with simplescripts and I never had the option of selecting or naming a database. My Zencart install is ver 1.51 and was a manual install about a year ago. Will the default database settings for this install conform to these rules? There's no way that I'd want to re-install Zencart now that the site is built and customized.

During the WordPress install, when you are asked for your database information, you use the SAME database information that you used for Zen Cart (DB name, DB Password, DB Username). Set the table prefix to wp_.

lat9:

The default Zen Cart database prefix is '' (i.e. none) and the default WordPress prefix is 'wp_'. As long as the prefixes are different, you should be good-to-go!

Because there are still a few errant WordPress plugins which do not inheirit/use the wp_ table prefix, I ALWAYS include a table prefix in all of my Zen Cart installs to be SUPER SURE that the two are distinguishable.. I do realize that this is simply me being SUPER PARANOID..:laugh:

Changing the table prefix for the Zen Cart tables is pretty easy, but NOT REQUIRED. For anyone who has already installed Zen Cart without a table prefix, there is a very SIMPLE script you can run to add a table prefix to one's Zen Cart install.

[URL="http://search.oracle.com/search/search?group=MySQL&q=SELECT"]SELECT[/URL] [URL="http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/%35.%31/en/string-functions.html"]Concat[/URL]('ALTER TABLE ', TABLE_NAME, ' RENAME TO my_prefix_', TABLE_NAME, ';') [URL="http://search.oracle.com/search/search?group=MySQL&q=FROM"]FROM[/URL] information_schema.[URL="http://search.oracle.com/search/search?group=MySQL&q=TABLES"]tables[/URL] [URL="http://search.oracle.com/search/search?group=MySQL&q=WHERE"]WHERE[/URL] table_schema = 'my_database'

Your result set will be a bunch of queries that you can copy and paste into your favorite MySQL editor (phpMyAdmin, whatever). Just paste those in and execute, and you're all done.

Once the script its run, an update to the store and admin configure.php files to include the new table prefix is all that's needed..