CS-Cart "Blog" add-on gives a possibility to present up-to-date information such as company events, offers, new products announcements, etc. to your visitors in the form of Blog. As a result, customers will be able to keep track of your events and spend more time at your website. Besides, CS-Cart "Blog" add-on allows creating relevant SEO-friendly text links that help to attract not only regular customers but also new visitors who just search for something on the Internet. Therefore, it is a great assistant in building sales strategy.
Features:
- Add-on settings allow the admin to add the Blog item to the top menu automatically;
- Ability to present standard pages with different articles in terms of Blog entries on a Blog page
- Ability to click the "Read more” link below the article summary to read the whole article;
- Date of the article creation is shown on the Blog page;
- Author name is shown on the Blog page;
- Ability to create Blog categories and place a block with the Blog categories on all Blog pages;
- All article summaries are displayed in reverse chronological order;
- Separate section for Blog categories in a Sitemap;
- In a multi-store cart, you can set a Blog for each storefront separately;
- SEO URL for Blog articles (standard SEO add-on must be enabled);
- New (for CS-Cart 4.* only) SEO URL for blog categories (standard SEO add-on must be enabled).
Compatibility:
This add-on works correctly in Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, and Opera latest browser versions.
The add-on is currently compatible with CS-Cart 2.2., CS-Cart 3.0.x., CS-Cart 4.*. The add-on "Blog" works accurately with responsive skins.
Notes:
1. We offer free installation of this add-on only for the default CS-Cart versions (that don't have any file changes and additional modules). Otherwise, the installation may require an additional charge.
2. In CS-Cart Multi-Vendor only the root administrator can add pages for the blog, not vendors.
3. After the payment is confirmed, you will be able to download the add-on from the order details page.
4. Please remember that we can make any changes in this add-on due to your demands.
Please, contact us if any questions arise.
Documentation for CS-Cart 3.0.х - 4.1.х
How to create and organize the Blog page
- After the Blog add-on installation please go to Design → Blocks (in CS-Cart 3) or Layouts (in CS-Cart 4) → Add Location.
- Fill out the fields in a New location form.
- Choose Custom from the Dispatch select box and write blog.view in the next entry field.
- Enter the location name, Page title, Meta description and Meta keywords for your Blog page.
3. See the example screenshot below:
4. Click the Save button.
5. The location Blog appears on the Blocks/Layouts page.
6. Click on the Blog location tab, then click the Add grid button and specify the necessary settings.
7. In the Grid click the Add Block, on the appeared page click the Use Existing Block or Create New Block tab and choose the Main Content block.
8. Go to the Main Content block options, write the Name (for example, Blog) and choose the necessary wrapper from the Wrapper select box.
9. If you want to add the Breadcrumbs to the Blog page you should add the grid with the Breadcrumbs block.
See the example screenshot below:
How to create the Blog categories
Please notice, if you have a multi store, choose the store first to create categories and pages for a certain store.
1.Go to Website → Blog → Blog categories.
2. Click the Add Blog category button.
3. You will see a page below:
Name – enter the category name which will be shown in the storefront.
Status – click Active to display the category in the storefront, click Disabled – not to display.
4. Press the Create button
5. On the Blog categories page (Website → Blog → Blog categories) you can Edit and Delete the created categories.
Also, you can change the categories positions by the mouse dragging.
How to add a new page to Blog
1. Go to Website → Blog→ Blog pages.
2. Click the Add page button in the top right corner.
3. Fill out the form below (it is a standard page form optimized for the blog pages):
Parent page – Choose the parent page (We recommend creating a special parent page for Blog in Website → Content and keep it disabled).
Name – enter the title for your article.
Category – choose the necessary Blog category from the selectbox.
Author – enter the name of the article author.
Short description – enter the short description of your article. It is usually the first paragraph of your article which will be displayed on the Blog page.
Description – enter the text of the article here.
Status – choose the necessary status for this page. Enter the SEO/Meta data, etc as for a standard page.
4. In the Add-ons tab the checkbox For blog is automatically clicked. Also, in the Add-ons tab you can enable Comments and reviews for this page (make sure that the standard Comments and Reviews add-on is active for pages).
5. Press the Create button.
The Blog add-on settings
1. Go to Website → Blog → Blog settings.
2. On the appeared page there are the following settings:
SEO name - enter the SEO name for your Blog page (e.g. My-store-blog).
Add Blog to top menu - tick this checkbox and "Blog" item appears in the Top menu automatically (We call Top menu a standard Categories block).
How to add the block with Blog categories
The block with the Blog categories can be added to the Blog location page and to the blog pages.
- How to add the Blog categories block to the Blog location page
1. Go to Design → Blocks (in CS-Cart 3) or Layouts (in CS-Cart 4) → click the created Blog location tab.
2. Create the necessary Grid.
3. In the Grid click the Add Block button, on the appeared page click the Create New Block tab and choose the Blog block.
4. Go to the Blog block options, write the Name (for example, Blog categories) and choose the wrapper from the Wrapper select box.
5. Save.
- How to add the Blog categories block to the Pages location
1. Go to Design → Blocks (in CS-Cart 3) or Layouts (in CS-Cart 4) → click the Pages location tab.
2. Create the necessary Grid.
3. In the created Grid click the Add Block button. On the appeared page click the Use Existing Block and choose the Blog block.
4. Go to the Block blog options, write the Name (for example, Blog categories) and choose the wrapper from the Wrapper select box.
5. Save.
Please notice! This block with blog categories can be displayed only on the pages with the enabled Blog add-on (where the For blog checkbox is checked) and on the Blog location page. This block can not be displayed anywhere else (on products, regular pages, etc).
Installation instruction (for CS-Cart 3.0.x)
1. Download the archive with the Blog add-on.
2. Unpack the archive's content and upload files to your server in the root directory with the installed CS-Cart.
3. Open the following file with any text editor:
skins/YOUR_SKIN/customer/views/sitemap/view.tpl
Find the following line (line 25 approximately)
<div class="clear"></div>
and before this line put as follows:
{hook name="sitemap:blog"}{/hook}
This hook adds the Blog section in the Sitemap.
4. Log into the administration panel of your store, go to the Administration -> Add-ons page.
5. In the list of add-ons find the Blog add-on and click Install opposite to its name.
6. That's all, the add-on is installed. Make sure that the status is Active.
Installation instruction (for CS-Cart 4.0.x)
1. Download the archive with the Blog add-on.
2. Unpack the archive's content and upload files to your server in the root directory with the installed CS-Cart. Please, allow to overwrite files in order to add the hook into Sitemap template automatically.
3. Log into the administration panel of your store, go to the Add-ons -> Manage add-ons page.
4. In the list of add-ons find the Blog add-on and click Install opposite to its name.
5. That's all, the add-on is installed. Make sure that the status is Active.
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