OpenCart has introduced not just a design configuration functionality but also an easy way to customize your store content. The new language editor will let you change any text on the website.
Navigate to the Design tab and choose the Language Editor option in your site admin panel in order to use the language editor.
You can add new entries and customize your website content in the following fields:
In order to edit the item, you need to choose its Route and a Key. There will be a default Value specified, and you will be able to define a new one in the corresponding field.
OpenCart is a multifunctional, quick and understandable solution for the users that would like to start online business. It is a great solution for your online store. The default engine package contains all modules necessary for successful sales. Open source allows you to offer really outstanding merchant possibilities for your customers.
Open catalog\view\theme\themeXXX\css\styles\styleX.css file.
Locate the code: color: #[---web_color---]
Replace it with the following: color: #[---your_color---]
Validation
Both HTML markup and CSS styles used in our templates are semantically correct and valid. However, some W3C errors can still take place. Making code 100% W3C valid eliminates the usage of modern website technologies as CSS3 features and HTML5 markup. Our goal is to deliver rich user experience with high quality templates and sometimes we have to break some rules.
Banners are pictures containing linkable images displayed in the store’s store front. Banners can be utilized to catch the customer’s eye and direct them to special products in the store. The Banners page under System>Design>Banners lets you customize the images and links displayed on the banners.
Using banners in modules
The Modules section uses banners for two modules: Carousel and Banners. The Banners section lets you customize what page layout the banner will be included, and its position. The Carousel module acts like a slideshow, or carousel. The customer can click an arrow to look through a range of product images.
If you want to create a new carousel banner displaying all the manufacturer logos, you need to go to System>Design>Banners, and click “Insert”. After coming up with a banner name for later reference, you would to click “Add Banner” to add a new icon to the banner. The following fields are needed to add a new icon to the banner:
Title: when the customer hovers their mouse over the icon, the title will be displayed.
Link: the address of the page that the customer will be directed to when clicking on the icon in the banner. In this case, you would want to link the image to a banner page. The link doesn’t need the “www.store.com” portion of the link.
You may add as many banners to the banner as necessary. Under Modules, you can edit the Carousel to display the “Manufacturers Banner”. The image below is the screenshot of the home page after the Carousel was assigned the Manufacturers banner. All the manufacturer logos that were added to the Manufacturers banner in the administration can be scrolled through in the store front.
It its a advised that you test the links by clicking on the images on the banner. If the clicks do not direct the user to the manufacturer location, double check to see if the page address was typed in correctly in the administration.
You remember the Extension Installer from the previous OpenCart versions. In 3.x, it’s interface is improved and there is a new addition:
Install History
This will be the log where you will be able to track all of the modules and themes you install in your OpenCart store.
To install an extension using the Installer, simply:
Click the Upload button
Find, select and upload the extension.ocmod.zip file you would like to install
Almost done!
You can now find your new module in your Extensions > Extensions section.
To finish the installation, find the new module in your Extension list and click the green Install button.
To uninstall a theme or module in OpenCart, simply go back to the Extension Installer, find the extension in the Install History and click the red Uninstall button.
No more deleting files manually, it’s all done with a single click.
OpenCart introduced a new “Extension Installer” feature. By means of the Extension Installer you can upload zip-packed extensions as well as single modification files by just a few clicks.
Once the template has been downloaded to your computer, you are now ready to install it to Opencart via the admin dashboard.
In order to upload a template of us, navigate to Extensions -> Extension Installer. Then click the blue Upload button and provide the route to the template’s “template_name_###.ocmod.zip” archive.
On success, you should get a green “Success: You have installed your extension!” message.
You should always make sure all temporary files are cleared before uploading a template because at the very least, they will be taking up space on your server.
Activating themes in Opencart
1. Enable the theme
After upload the file successfully, go to Extension select Themes on the dropdown list.
You can click the Edit button to access the settings of your store.
In the General settings, click the Theme Directory dropdown and select the theme name. Next, click the Status dropdown and select Enabled to enable the theme.
Done? Don’t forget to click Save.
2. Enable the module for the theme
You can now find new module in your Extensions > Extensions section and select Modules on the dropdown list.
To finish the installation, find the “BestAddon Settings” module in your Extension list and click the green Install button.
This is how you install our themes in OpenCart 3.x. We hope this tutorial has been helpful. Feel free to share it if you think it’s useful!
With a new database freshly created, we are now ready to install OpenCart directly onto a website. You should open up a web browser and enter in the web address of where they uploaded OpenCart.
Step 1. License
You may read through the license, check “I agree to the license”, and press “Continue”.
Step 2. Pre-Installation
This step checks to see if the web server has the technical requirements and correct permissions to setup OpenCart properly. If red marks are visible on #1 or #2, you need to make sure that these components are properly installed onto the web server. You should contact your hosting service if there are any issues with this. If there are red marks on #3 or #4, there might have been an issue with uploading the files using the FTP client. If everything is configured correctly and green marks are visible (as seen below), you may press “Continue”.
As of version 2.3.0.2, the following files need to be renamed to continue to Step 3:
config-dist.php to config.php
admin/config-dist.php to config.php
Step 3. Configuration
You need to fill in the spaces below #1 by adding the database connection details (username/password, database name) established when you created the store’s database using MySQL Databases. Under #2, you should create a new username and password for administration access to the OpenCart shop. When finished, you may press “Continue”.
Step 4. Finished
Now that installation is complete, the “install” folder is no longer required. You should delete the “install” folder in the Remote Site section of Filezilla for security reasons. You now have the option to browse the frontend of your shop or choose to log into the administration side.
After the install, you should make the necessary steps towards improving the security of your server and OpenCart store directory. These steps are detailed in Basic security practices.
If you don’t have a OpenCart website and want to install OpenCart from scratch, this guide is for you.
You will need to complete two tasks before you can install OpenCart on your server. First, you will need to download the OpenCart package files. Next, you will need to have a database for OpenCart use.
Creating a database
Once you’ve completed uploading the files to a hosting-server, you should prepare an empty database for your OpenCart website. It should be created with the help of the database management tool in Hosting CPanel [the PhpMyAdmin typically].
Follow the simple instructions to create a new database through the phpMyAdmin [check the slides below]:
In order to access the list of databases, press the “Database” button in the top navigation menu.
Input the database name in the “Create new database” field.
Press the “Create” button.
You will see the new database in the listing. Click on the database name link in order to get access to the one.
Check the instruction accompanied by the illustrations [click on switches to move on]:
1. Open the “Database” tab in order to access the database listing:
2. Enter the database name:
3. Press the “Create” button:
4. You will see the database in the list. Click on the database name link to access the one:
Feel free to check the detailed guide How to create a database. Should there be any issues when database creating, please contact your hosting provider to assist.
Move the downloaded OpenCart installation package to the server. Use a FTP Client to transfer the OpenCart 3.x files to your server. There are several available for use, here is a detailed list of FTP Clients. Please make sure you are using a FTP client’s official release.
Hint – This can be accomplished by simply moving the downloaded package to your server, then unpacking it. Or you can unpack the files on your local computer, then move the OpenCart installation over to your server. Either way, the OpenCart installation needs to be unpacked in the root of your site.
The “root” of your site is the public folder where all web page files are stored so that a user can view the site examples include public_html and htdocs. What your Host uses depends on them.
Before setting up your OpenCart website, make sure you are fully prepared. Please complete the following preparation steps:
Software required
To feel comfortable working with the OpenCart template, we recommend downloading all the applications required. You can see the list of required software at the template Live Demo page. Requirements can vary significantly depending upon the template, the common ones will be defined only:
To edit template source code files you need some code editor such as Adobe Dreamweaver, Notepad++ or Sublime Text, etc.
To upload files to the hosting server, you may need an FTP Manager like Total Commander, FileZilla, CuteFTP, etc.
Proceed with the following guide to unzip the archives, using WinZip(PC) and StuffitExpander(MAC)
Hosting
As OpenCart engine is a PHP/MySQL based application, you need to prepare a hosting environment.
If you have live hosting, please make sure it matches OpenCart system requirements and is ready to be used for OpenCart websites.
You can run OpenCart locally (on your computer) using the local server. To create a local hosting server, please use localhost applications, such as WAMP, AppServ, MAMP, etc. Any of those can be easily installed as any other software and be used to run OpenCart.
System Requirements
OpenCart needs certain technical requirements to be met for the store to operate properly. First, a web server must be created to make the OpenCart store publicly available on the web. Domain names and hosting services can easily be purchased for an affordable price.
These extensions must be enabled for OpenCart to install properly on the web server.
Web Server (Apache suggested)
PHP 5.4+(1.5.x at least 5.2+)
Database (MySQLi suggested)
Required PHP libraries/modules
Curl
ZIP
Zlib
GD Library
Mcrypt
Mbstrings
Xml
The above PHP extensions should be available by almost all the hosting providers, during the installation process it will check if you have them all enabled. You should contact your hosting provider if some are missing.
Congratulations on your purchase of an OpenCart template! This documentation consists of several parts and describes the installation, creation and setting up an OpenCart website process.
We did our best to make this manual information to be presented in a simple, straightforward manner. For ease of reference, the text the manual provides has been restructured in different chapters, you can see in the left-side menu. You are able to navigate to any part of the documentation using the active content headers’ links.
We recommend that you start reading the documentation at the first section.
What is OpenCart?
OpenCart — is an Open Source e-commerce application. OpenCart provides easy customization of your online store. OpenCart community includes a number of users starting from the experienced web developers looking for the user-friendly interface, ending with shopkeepers that start their online business for the first time. OpenCart provides a great amount of features that allow you to control your store. Using OpenCart tools you can easily uncover the store potential. Go here for More details.
Usually there is vast of different settings that available with a new Template, and because this is an open source software, it isn’t always the same for each developer. Make sure to read through this documentation available for the Template that you are installing so that you know what features are available for you.
Template structure
The theme package you have downloaded consists of several folders. Let’s see what each folder contains:
Documentation – Includes detailed guidance on the engine and template installation;
readme-en.pdf
This is the main documentation file you are reading at the moment;
Theme – Contains the following folders/files:
theme_name_###.ocmod.zip
Theme archive. Contains all template files and It includes the modules for the template. It is installed using standard Opencart installation method