[bholland]

Hi All,

So I have a question into CS support regarding Wordpress Blog integration, but I thought others might be interested in the topic.

Here is what I'd like to have:

1) A primary Nav item that says "Blog"
- Easy enough to do by editing a .tpl file

2) The Wordpress template wrapped in CS wrapper in its own /blog/ directory
- This is where it starts to get weird. I know I can include a different main template in the CS Cart index.tpl (blog.tpl, etc.), but there is lots of PHP code in the Wordpress files. Would just wrapping everything in {PHP} tags work? That doesn't really seem like the best solution.

The other issue is that I want to be able to use wordpress as it was intended in its own directory and not have it be something like index.php?target=pages&pageid=blog

I can't think of a way to not have that type of set up while still using CS and the template engine.

The other option is to duplicate the header and footer outside the CS .tpl files and just build out separate PHP files to include in Wordpress. This doesn't really seem like an ideal solution as I'd be maintaining code in two places.

Any care to weigh in here or better yet has integrated a blog into their CS site??

Thanks,

B

[bpaulette]

You might just try using an inline frame within the content section of a CMS page.

For instance, go to Manage Pages, add a page called "Blog", and then within the full description field, something like this

<IFRAME border=0 name=blog
                                align=center marginWidth=0 marginHeight=0 
                                src="http://yourblog.com/subfolder" 
                                frameBorder=0 width=600 
                                height=400>
												Your browser does not support inline frames or is currently configured not to display inline frames.  To view this page directly, go to http://yourblog.com/subfolder
							  </IFRAME>

[bholland]

After thinking about it more I'll probably just create independent header & footer .php files to use in the wordpress template. Kind of a pain, but it will mostly just be HTML and can share the main site CSS.

[paulesport]

have you implemented wordpress yet? I would like to see how it looks and works

[bholland]

Still haven't, but I will be soon. I'm debating on how much content I want in there and how much I should put into the CS CMS.

[paulesport]

could the News page of Cs-cart act as a blog?

Also, if I were to just put wordpress into a subdomain and link the store on the blog page would that work? Basically I want to use a blog to bring traffic by updating fresh content and having search engines find the site. Would this work?

[bholland]

Yes, you and I have similar ideas then

That will work, but what you have to remember is how much you want your blog to look like your store. If you're not that concerned, the you can just install it wherever and maintain the different design.

B

[paulesport]

Well in my opinion, a blog is a blog so it wouldn't look exactly like the store anyways. I would keep the same color scheme and try to focus on the same theme but i am not really concerned so much on making it fully match my store.

[bholland]

In my case I'm completely tearing apart the exisitng cart design, so I'd like the two to match up closely (same general style, nav, etc.).

I would recomend downlaoding WP and isntalling it in a directory other than your root...It's really quick and easy to do. My personal preference is to have it in /blog/, but it doens't really matter...

B

[paulesport]

I agree, /blog/ is the best place to put it. It would benefit the actual domain location, domain.com in search engines by using /blog/ if it was blog.domain.com it may confuse visitors. At least with /blog/ visitors will know that the actual site is domain.com

Also i too wanted to change the default cs-cart look to look more professional and unique. Check out WishingGifts.com

I've seen other Cs-Cart stores that truly modified but this is as much as I can change with my own skills.

[arlen]

Not a blogger, don't intend to be (I'd let it slip too much to really be what it's intended to be) but I've looked at using WP as a CMS, and it does a great job. Personally, if you went with WP I'd not wrap it w/ CS-Cart, I'd just mod a WP theme to match visually and let the two live in different places. Doing an html export of a category or product page in CS-Cart will give you the html to work with without too much head scratching.

I do get the value of having one tool though. As a compromise, what if you considered creating a new admin template w/ an iframe, so you move WP admin into your CS admin area, but let the two public areas remain independent?

<edit> If you haven't already, look at urbangiraffe.com for a great tutorial on customizing WP themes</edit>

(Real reason I posted was to say I really like your domain name paulesport .. great aquisition!)

[paulesport]

Thanks arlen, unfortunately there is a WishingFish that retails gifts too but different product styles.

I am probably going to just install wordpress into WishingGifts.com/blog and like you said have it live in 2 separate locations rather than trying to truly integrate it into Cs-Cart. It is not a big deal to access two different admins when using tabs in the browser.