Sign In
18
We are glad to announce the release of CS-Cart Multi-Store Edition Beta.
First of all, we would like to apologize for the repeated delays. Unfortunately, software development is usually attended by unforeseen circumstances and estimated risks are not always true to facts.
Main features
The major feature of CS-Cart Multi-Store Edition is the ability to create several storefronts and manage them all via a common admin panel. Each store can have its own domain and/or a subdirectory on a domain, but all the storefront URLs must point to the same physical location (server) where CS-Cart Multi-Store is installed (because one software installation serves all the storefronts).
This edition does not allow you to manage stand-alone CS-Cart Community, Professional or Multi-Vendor installations.
The other software features are as follows:
- Share products among your stores and set different product prices/descriptions depending on the store;
- Configure look-n-feel of each storefront (blocks, top menu, sitemap, language variables, etc) individually;
- The ability to act as a main administrator who can manage all the objects in the database or a store owner who can manage only the objects belonging to his store;
- Customer accounts can be common for all stores (once registered, a customer can log in to any store with the same login and password) or unique for each store (a customer needs to register in each store separately if required);
- Create regions for which a store is available;
- Share such objects as pages, languages, currencies, product filters, etc among your stores.
You can obtain a distribution package of CS-Cart Multi-Store Edition Beta on our website.
Please note, that the software is still in beta, so it should be used only for testing purposes and is not intended for production use!
If you find any bugs, please post them in the special bug tracker. Note: This is the same bug tracker used for Multi-Vendor Beta, so if you have created an account earlier, you can use it.
Have an idea about a new nice feature for CS-Cart Multi-Store? Please share it at our UserVoice.
Below you can find some additional information about this new CS-Cart edition.
Terms used in CS-Cart Multi-Store
Root admin means a main administrator who can manage the objects of all stores. An administrator acts as a root admin if "All stores" is selected in the store selector in the admin panel header.
Store means a separate storefront that is managed only from a common admin panel. An administrator can act as a store owner by selecting a store in the store selector.
Shared object means an object that can be used in other stores. A shared object can have properties that can be individual for each store (for example, a product price). A shared object has the "Share" tab on its details pages.
General access rules
Root objects (can be modified only by a root admin and viewed under a selected store):
- Countries
- Order Statuses
- States
- Profile Fields
- User groups
Shared objects (these objects can be shared among stores)
- Products (by assigning to a category belonging to a required store. There is no the "Share" tab on the edit product page)
- Languages
- Currencies
- Pages
- Global options
- Promotions
Separate objects (these objects cannot be shared among stores. You can only copy them when creating a store)
- Categories
When a store is selected, you do not have access to:
- Database
- Upgrade Center
- Localizations
Quick guide
- Installation
- Creating a new store
- Sharing products among stores
- Sharing users
1) Installation
Please refer to the general installation instructions to install CS-Cart Multi-Store Edition.
For testing purposes we recommend to select the "Install demo data" check box during the installation. You will have two configured stores as a result:
- Simbirsk Technologies (located at you-store-domain.com)
- Horns & Hoofs (located at you-store-domain.com/demostore)
The storefront URLs of these demo stores can be changed on the "Stores" page when you act as a root admin:
In order to open a storefront in your browser from the admin panel, select the required store from the stores list [1] and click the View Storefront button [2]:
2) Creating a new store
- Unselect all stores (the "All Stores" value should be selected).
- Go to Stores -> Stores and click the "Add store" button.
- Select the store which settings and objects you want to copy to a new one. This can be done under the "Copy existing store configuration" section.
- Enter a store name and specify its URL under the "Information" section.
- Fill out the Company settings: emails and address.
- In the "Regions" tab, you can enable the entry page. It is for the cases when you have different stores for different regions.
The entry page has three available options:
- None: no entry page will be displayed.
- Home page: the entry page will be displayed when a customer opens the home page of the store.
- All pages: the entry page will be displayed when a customer opens any page of the store for the fist time.
- Configure hosts/dirs for the storefronts. The main idea is that your storefront URL must point to the web directory where CS-Cart Multi-Store is installed. We recommend to do it via your website control panel. Here are the detailed instructions:
http://kb2.cs-cart.com/mse-configure#3
3) Share products among stores
The main point when you share a product among stores is that products are not linked directly to stores, but to categories while each category has its store owner. As you can see, all categories have a store name as a root level.
So the steps are as follows:
Open the edit product page and select categories in which this product must be displayed. You will see an icon that means that the product is shared and you can either edit its properties for all stores [1] or for the store owner only [2].
The following properties of a product can be set individually for each store:
- Product name
- Product price
- Product Description
- Page title
- Meta description
- Meta keywords
- Search words
- Option price modifiers
All the other properties can be changed by the root admin or the product owner only and will take effect in all shared stores.
- To change a product owner, it is required to change the value of the "Store" field on the edit product page.
- You can set a default value for the "Update for all stores" icon on the "Settings -> Stores" page.
4) Share users among stores
You can select one of these possibilities (by changing the "Share users among stores" value on the "Settings" -> "Stores" page):
Yes: Enable customers to use one account to log in to any of your stores
No: Customers have separate accounts in each store
Please note that if you share users among stores, they will not be logged in automatically when going to another store.
When user accounts are not shared, customers can use the same email address for different stores during registration.
5) Settings in the Multi-Store edition
Not all settings are available to a root admin in CS-Cart Multi-Store Edition:
Some settings like Appearance for the customer area are not applicable for a root admin who actually does not have a storefront assigned. So, a root admin can only overwrite all store values on such settings pages. For example, if you want to set the same order department email for all stores, you should do the following:
- Unselect all stores (the "All Stores" value should be selected).
- Go to Company settings. All values are disabled by default.
- Enable the "Update for all stores" icon for the "Order department e-mail address" setting.
- Change its value and click "Save".
In order to change a setting for a particular store, it is required to select it first in the store selector in the page header.
***
We hope you will enjoy this beta release. You can ask your questions about this CS-Cart edition in this thread.
Thank you.
