OpenCart Community

Hi!

I have been waiting for `multi-store' and am glad it is here in v1.4.x

My query is dumb as I have searched but can't find how to set multi store up!

I have set up a second store under Admin and when I go to add products it asks me which stores do I want to add products too etc, but if I go to view the second store all I get is the directory listing.

I know it's probably simple and I missed something very obvious, but it's driving me mad that even if it were obvious I wouldn't notice it now anyways!!!

Thanks
Ernie

hi guys,

i got the same problem.. i cant seem to work thru the multistore thing... please help

Thanks

I got the same problem too..!

It must be something you are doing wrong. This is a stable release.

Sorry, I wish I could help, but it seems no one actually understands the entire multi-store concept, except the developer.

Hi Ernie!

You need to select the new store with every individual product, category and subcategory you want to see in the new store... otherwise, they will not be dispayed.

peteVA wrote:It must be something you are doing wrong. This is a stable release.

I hope so too, perhaps there is something lacking in the documentation that we missed out on.

RonA wrote:Hi Ernie!

You need to select the new store with every individual product, category and subcategory you want to see in the new store... otherwise, they will not be dispayed.

Hi!

Here's what I've done:

In the Admin > Settings > Manage Stores:
Setup an additional store (as the original was there on install) and said it was in http://www......com/store02/

In the Catalog section:
I made several of the products available to both stores (checked the Store 01 and Store 02) boxes.

Do I need to edit htaccess or do anything apart from create the new directory (store02)?

Ernie

The only way I know of to get stores of the mystore.com/books/ type working is with virtual directories which isn't going to be an option for anyone on a shared host (subdomains like books.mystore.com might be worth testing since they're usually available on shared hosts).

I don't believe .htaccess will work because rewriting to the actual OpenCart directory will cause the URL store check to fail. Someone with more experience with mod_rewrite could provide more insight (work around maybe?) than I can.

If questions aren't getting answered right away it's because multi-store is a brand new (and significant) feature. Everyone's still learning it.

yeah, i think books.mystore.com is better. Also, i hope that the user will be able to add and view products depending on the store.

rph wrote:The only way I know of to get stores of the mystore.com/books/ type working is with virtual directories which isn't going to be an option for anyone on a shared host (subdomains like books.mystore.com might be worth testing since they're usually available on shared hosts).

I don't believe .htaccess will work because rewriting to the actual OpenCart directory will cause the URL store check to fail. Someone with more experience with mod_rewrite could provide more insight (work around maybe?) than I can.

If questions aren't getting answered right away it's because multi-store is a brand new (and significant) feature. Everyone's still learning it.

Hi rph,

Do you know where any of this is documented? I do find it quite hard to believe that so much effort went into a feature that no one knows how to use.

Thanks!

Nothing official. I put up some really rough info on the wiki.

http://wiki.opencart.com/index.php?title=Multi-store

If your webhost's cpanel doesn't allow you to specify the directory to use for a subdomain, try using a symlink. It works as well too.

Can you please provide the code for how to set up a symlink?

Whjat is the code in the PHP file in the subdirectory to get this to work? anyone?

I guess this is the thing we all are asking for.

Check with your host.

The multi-store is great, but would any of you know if I can share customer accounts, cart and checkout between the stores? I just downloaded OpenCart last night and have two stores up and running, but I need these features for my particular situation in order to continue with it.

river wrote:The multi-store is great, but would any of you know if I can share customer accounts, cart and checkout between the stores? I just downloaded OpenCart last night and have two stores up and running, but I need these features for my particular situation in order to continue with it.

Currently, yes, the customer accounts are common across all stores. Carts and checkouts are not mainly because products are not. Tho technically, I think because of the way the sessions work,
store.com/one
and
store.com/two will have the same domain session so you will likely be able to achieve a shared cart, but its more of a bug than a feature. But maybe I'm wrong. I've never tried it

Qphoria, thank you for your reply. I love everything about OpenCart, except I need to have one cart and checkout across the multi-stores. The reason being is my "categories" are so abstract, that they need to be separated into stores with separate branding and menuing. This is a cart that works pretty well within my skill set, but I am a little hung up on trying to "hack" it to get it to what I need. My other option is Magento, but it is over my head... I think. I downloaded it and it is s. l. o. w. !!! So, really that is not an option. Any further help is appreciated, even if it involves $$. Thanks.

This is what i do, i do not it's wrong or not.

http://bit.ly/opencart_multistore

I think there is a way in php to set a cookie across multiple domains. i think its www.domain1.com;www.domain2.com

Thanks Screenager8, I was able to set-up the stores with no problems at all, but the issue was carrying the same cart contents across the multiple stores.

Daniel, Thanks for the reply. Rather than setting up multiple domains, I decided I will use sub-domains instead because there is only one vendor for products.

The solution appears to very simple with this approach by changing the startup.php file.

I just changed:
session_set_cookie_params(0, '/');
to
session_set_cookie_params(0, '/', '.mydomain.com');

So far it is working like a charm. I don't see any security issues with this method, but if someone else sees any issues, please post back because I know just enough php to be dangerous.