Integrate Zen into Joomla

There are things that I need for my site that I'm not finding any Zen plug ins for, but are covered adequately-to-superbly by Joomla. Admittedly, I'm new to Zen, and I only came this way because Virtuemart choked on my country's tax system.

Can you install a PM system, blogs, forums, newsfeeds, content-by-user, calendars, with events and their details, in Zen? Is there a way to manage massive amounts of information, some public, some registered and some for specific member groups, including start time and expiry? Is there a way to incorporate workflows (submission, processing, completion) on a per user or group basis?

I would love for there to be a bridge between Joomla and Zen. I have over 4000 users and I'm at a loss on how to get all of those users into Zen, under the "wholesale" group, right away. And, there are more non-member "retail" users who will shop as well... The idea of having two log-ins is a nuissance and may end up reducing conversions slightly.

ryanp:

My background is more from the CMS side so I'll try to highlight some things that most CMS offer that Zen-Cart doesn't.

Templating - Specific types of content are designed to be displayed only with specific layouts and designs. Examples might be a news article, recipe, book review, upcoming event among others. A user would not have any formatting options, only fields to add text (headline, sub-headline, story text, date, ...,). In this way each item looks exactly the same and a user doesn't need to know any html at all.

Link management - in most CMS you can link from any point to any page or anchor in any page. I can select the page or anchor from a searcable list in the CMS when I create a link. I don't need to know the published path of the page. Any changes in the page will result automatically in changes in the link, e.g. the page is moved to an achive section, the page expires, the page is no longer front page news. Variations of link mangement can include automatically created lists of links to pages with selected key words or within certain date ranges.

File / Media Management - most CMS I have used have basic to fairly advanced media mangement. Files can be uploaded, categorized, often they can also be cropped as necessary. File or graphic selection is possible via a search. Often it is possible to identify which pages use a specific file or graphic.

Add-Ons - common add-ons or standard functions include calendars, photo galleries, rss feeds, navigation management, site map creation, forums, ...

These are just a few of the functions I could think of off the top of my head.

Zen-Cart is a great shop but it is definitely not able to replace the functionality of a CMS in the same way that shop add-ons for most CMSs are not a replacement for the functionality of Zen-Cart.

Hi David!
So just how do you deal with the admin aspect of two logins between Joomla and Zen or Virtue Mart currently? Im tying to figure the whole thing out. I love Joomla and how it handles Content and the templates that are available to handle the content. I need a cart also and have played with Zen but im struggling with it. The thought of two admin panels to deal with and product uploads etc is a bit daunting. I guess the smoother and simpler it is set up the better. I would love to hear any more you want to share about using a cart with Joomla. Have you tried or looked at any other cart systems?

We have successfully been able to implement the two platforms, albeit with alot of development work.

We were able to pull in zencart via a Joomla component which allowed management of zencart as easy as any other joomla component.
The time integrating was spent on user authentications, URL and Session Management.

We have utilised this on a large government website in the UK and I apologise I cannot send a link through due to privacy and login protection.

We are looking at possibly fully packaging this up and releasing as a component for Joomla, although have not had the interest or demand yet to justify this.

Regards, Al

Borat, what component in Joomla was that? can you just provide a url to site to see visual of integration?

Hello, sorry I was not clear,
The component is Zencart integrated into a component made for Joomla (custom built for this project).

As mentioned, we may package this up so it can be utilised in the future but it still requires alot of work to be a self contained component and not require manual installs etc.

Sorry for the lack of URL, I cannot provide this as the access to zencart is restricted to logged in users only and we need to adhere to privacy issues with this contract.

I will keep you updated if we ever find the time to package this up as a stand alone Joomla component.

Regards, Al

Borat.. I can tell you that if you have successfully created a ZenCart component, not only is there interest out there in this, I will PERSONALLY cheerlead the crowd..

There are only two e-commerce components available for Joomla which have any decent e-commerce features.. Neither one is a great solution, they are the best of the two evils available.. So for those of us looking to have a seemless e-commerce integration with Joomla versus using links, VirtueMart and EJoom Commerce are pretty much the only games in town. Very few folks use 'em becasue they love 'em.. They use 'em 'cause there ain't nothing else out there..

EJoom Commerce is a component based on OS Commerce. Virtuemart is a component that started it's life as PHPShop for Mambo.

Neither solution is wholly adequate as an e-commerce solution for Joomla. I will not spend too much time posting my own experiences with both components. ECJC IMO appears to only work SLIGHLY better than Virtuemart.

The biggest issue with both projects IMO is the lack of support by the development community. This difference is the BIG reason why Joomla and ZenCart SHINE far above these open source projects. The communities on this and the Joomla forum is helpful and responsive.. I find that most of the time I need only search to find my answers on both forums.. That is a testiment to the developers and the community..

I WISH I could say the same about VirtueMart. The number of REPEAT questions regarding broken or half working features which goes unanswered on the Virtuemart forum is STAGGERING!! Some questions have not been answered in over ONE YEAR or MORE.. The lead developer gets VERY defensive when you point this out which is equally aggravating..

So again Borat.. Do the Joomla community a BIG favor.. RELEASE your ZenCart component.. Show them what e-commerce is SUPPOSED to look like.. It ain't Virtuemart.. and sadly as I have discovered in my testing, it ain't ECJC either..

Hello DivaVocals,
I appreciate your reply and comments.

Our biggest challenge here is not putting the two together to get working alongside and with zencart incorporated into Joomla. It is packaging it up so that an end user can install easily and bug free.

We have been working on this project now for over a year and have the two platforms working well together. This is however with a handy team of developers always at hand to further invest time into additional enhancements.

I am sure you can appreciate that there will be a considerable amount of time to package this up as an "easy install" and then there is licensing of both products that might make it hard to re-coop costs.

So, thats why we are at where we are. For anyone wanting to use this on a large commercial site, we know how to do it and it can developed for any client, but to get it to a download and drop in stage is something else again which is the glitch in the equation.

This topic has evoked quite an interest from both sides of the fence. Having been around both applications since their inception, and seen both applications work alongside each other, I can assure it is only a wonderful package together.

Regards, Al

Ditto to DivaVocals.

Borat,
I am not suggesting that a commercial entity invest itself into a product that would be a giveaway. What would be helpful though, is if your organization could at least provide a starting point for the community to move along by itself. I am and I'm sure others in the community are willing to work on this. An important part of the open source community is sharing work and ideas. We don't want to re-invent the wheel starting from scratch if we could learn from someone else's mistakes and accomplishments.

I am not asking for a handout, but a contribution of your experiences to the community would be greatly appreciated.

Borat,

I agree with surlyjake, I'm not looking for a handout either.. I have one client with a Virtuemart site.. (my first and LAST Virtuemart site BTW) It was running fine until 3 months ago.. Now there is a benign but annoying PayPal issue for which the Virtuemart developers seems unwilling to admit actually exists. (despite the MANY forum posts which would seem to indicate otherwise:frusty:) So I need to go to "Plan B" for my client.. I'm looking for the best solution I can provide my client.. For me that would be to ditch Virtuemart and replace it with ZenCart.

You say that packaging the solution is the issue.. How difficult is the manual install?? I'm up for a challenge..:flex: If it's a matter of manually creating directories, & tables, etc, I personally don't mind taking the "long road" so to speak as long as it gets me to nirvana.:smile:. Also I assume that you are not going to want to accept just my eternal gratitude and good looks in exchange for your hard work.. What would be the cost of your solution for those of us interested in it?? (dunno if there will be an objection by the forum admins in you posting that data here.. so if you want to, PM me with that last tidbit of information)

Hey Borat- I will be a beta tester!!!!!!!!!!!!! Im sure others will as well.
Maybe we can figure it out together.:clap:

Just to clarify what were talking about here is a BRIDGE correct, so that Joomla and Zen cart share seamless admin resposiblities?

Can you specify more clearly what you have working together?
Are you providing management and users databases synchronisation, so two systems have the same set of customers and log into one system automatically leads to log into another one, thus an user does not have to log into two systems. Have you avoided the wrapper all together in Joomla? Are you able to show as a result of the integration zen cart data on Joomla pages (for example, show featured products on main zen cart page or Joomla? Do you guarantees sessions continuity and accounts synchronization?

I think we would all like to hear your progress, regardless if you can bring it to market. Just to know there is hope out there for this integration.
It is needed so badly, i dont get why it is not readily available.:lamo:

DezineJunkie,

I do not think this is a bridge.. I believe what Borat is speaking of is a ZenCart component for Joomla. At least based on the previous posts that's what it sounds like..

I use Zen Cart a lot and have made a number of sites using it. It is a fantastic script, but to suit my needs I have just created a Joomla site and have incorporated ECJC into it.
Other than a few minor hiccups, it seems to be working great, and with the modules that come pre-installed with ECJC, there is almost no need to add anything more.

Please note that I am not promoting either, or bagging Zen Cart. I am just pointing out my experiences.

It would be good to see Zen Cart operating within a Joomla environment.

Been testing ECJC, but I'm not impressed.. Too many unresolved issues with the install and fucntionality to make this component ready for primetime in my book.. Plus the support forum is LESS than useful.. Too many issues go routinely unanswered.. Gimme Zencart any time over ECJC.. I'd rather just style my ZenCart to match my Joomla website..

It is very nice integration. my msn is [email protected]. I hope that I can chat and learn a lot from you.

Cheers,
--Paul

p m:

hey, thanks for the link. i designed the plastique monkey site.

it's a wordpress blog in the root domain, with singapore gallery installed to /gallery/ and zencart installed to /shop/. i fussed around with the CSS until they looked mostly similar and added a tab menu stolen from the mistylook wordpress theme to tie them all together.

unfortunately for what you're trying to do, there's no real integration between the three sub-sites, just a lot of links (see this item on my blog, etc). i tried to use the external sidebox contribution to embed the "new in shop" zen sidebox in the wordpress sidebar, but the PHP involved was over my head. so i used an image rotator that i found on alistapart ("better image rotator", it's called) instead.

the shop is the only part of http://plastiquemonkey.com where people need to register. so i don't know how you'd keep people registered when moving from zen to zoomla, sorry...

Borat,
If you have really done this integration please share with this community. Both Joomla and Zen Cart community will be grateful for this. Joomla + ZC makes the best CMS+Shop. Please share as all others here expressed interest in it.

Regards,

I run Joomla for my main site and ZC for my e-commerce. I would LOVE a way to integrate the users. Not even combine the admin features -- just a way to duplicate the registration/login info for both. I had to go to a non-login format for my Joomla for this reason, too many people complaining about double registration.

I tried a "bridge" between Joomla and SMF and that was a pain. Didn't work right half the time. Or didn't update correctly the other half. Awful.

Would love something I could use that would take Zen Cart login/account info and duplicate it for Joomla.

I'm not a programmer, so I'm not sure where to begin to do that.

Search the forum, there is a way to make zen cart login free. Then you can turn your Joomla login back on.

I don't know of a module that integrates Joomla and ZC. There is one for Wordpress though.

Kim:

We keep asking why, because so far no one has supplied an answer. So I will ask one more time - What does the CMS add that Zen Cart is lacking?

Joomla allows for multiple users in different "levels" to be able to create, edit, and maintain content. It allows for various heirachial (sp?) levels of content, laid out in various ways. It allows easy updating, archiving, blogging features, etc.

In other words, Joomla is designed to be a flexible content management system, easily modified for multi-media interaction as necessary to a variety of different uses.

Zen Cart is designed to be a flexible ecommerce shopping cart. EZ-pages are not sufficient for someone who has to spend a LOT of time updating content, especially if they allow user/editor access. The one-level admin access of ZC is not sufficient.

If you are running an online newspaper/magazine with a lot of content upgrades daily by various people of various access levels, you cannot use ZC for that purpose.

birdoasis:

Search the forum, there is a way to make zen cart login free. Then you can turn your Joomla login back on.

I don't know of a module that integrates Joomla and ZC. There is one for Wordpress though.

I know I can use the "guest purchase" mod, but I really don't want to. I'd rather find a way to have the login info bridged between the two.