MageBridge administration
API permissions with MageBridge
Within Magento, you need to create an API-user for usage with MageBridge. This API-user is connected to an API-role, and this API-role implies a set of permissions (Role Resources) to certain parts of Magento. To make it easy to configure, we recommend to select just all permissions for the API-user. But if you want to increase security, you need to know which resources are needed to run MageBridge. Here's a listing.
Read more...Authentication guide for MageBridge
When working with two applications which both contain user-records, it is important to know how these applications interact with each other when dealing with users. For instance if an user logs into Joomla! and that user does not exist yet in Magento, should this user-record be automatically created in Magento? This whitepaper explains more about how MageBridge deals with users.
Read more...Bypassing the MageBridge component-pages
The core feature of MageBridge is to integrate Magento into Joomla!, but because of its user syncing abilities, it is also possible to use the Magento application and Joomla! application seperately. In this case, the visual integration is disabled (mostly). This guide explains you how to do this.
Read more...Configuring payment methods in MageBridge
Configuring payment methods in MageBridge is nothing more than just configuring the payment method as you would in Magento, except that the URLs you might need to configure point to Joomla! instead of MageBridge. Let's walk through all the steps.
Read more...Configuring the MageBridge Root Menu-Item
Within the Joomla! Menu Manager it is possible to create numerous Menu-Items pointing to various pages. With a MageBridge-based webshop, we advise you to create one special Menu-Item pointing to the MageBridge Root - this is the so-called MageBridge Root Menu-Item. This tutorial explains why and how to create this Menu-Item.
Read more...Disabling user synchronization in MageBridge
While one of the key features that MageBridge offers is user synchronization, there are cases in which you want to disable user synchronization. This takes some work - documented in this tutorial - but the end result is that the Magento users are kept separate from Joomla! users.
Read more...Handling Downloadable Products in MageBridge
MageBridge is able to integrate many things of Magento into Joomla! - the entire Magento frontend is integrated neatly into the Joomla! template and various other integrations make setting up a Magento site a breeze. One of the areas where the MageBridge functionality becomes a bit hard is the area of Downloadable Products. This tutorial gives you insight in the ups and downs.
Read more...Handling file uploads in MageBridge
Magento adds the ability to let customers upload their own files when adding a specific Magento product to their cart. MageBridge is able to bridge this functionality to Joomla!, but it is important to make sure your hosting environment meets up to the requirements. This tutorial guides you through all of the steps.
Read more...How Joomla! works with MageBridge URLs
When setting up a MageBridge/Joomla! shop, enabling Joomla! SEF in the Global Configuration is a must. The reason is simple: Magento uses SEF URLs by default, and for MageBridge to succesfully integrate Magento into Joomla!, Joomla! needs to use SEF URLs as well. But because Joomla! and Magento create SEF URLs in different ways, there could be instances where the two mechanisms are conflicting - resulting in Magento 404-errors. This tutorial explains why and how to prevent this.
Read more...How to use URL-suffices with MageBridge?
While MageBridge is first of all a Joomla! extension, that supports Joomla! SEF, it also brings content from Magento to Joomla!. When dealing with URL-suffixes, this complicates things. Joomla! is unaware of the logic that Magento uses and vice versa. If you want to implement URL-suffixes, please follow the steps below.
Read more...Importing and exporting users
With MageBridge, new users are automatically synchronized: If a new customer has been created in Magento, MageBridge will automatically create a corresponding user in Joomla! - as soon as the user logs in, or as soon as the user-record is edited in the backend. But if you have an existing userbase that you want to migrate at once, you need to follow a procedure which is a bit more complex. This tutorial helps you out.
Read more...Integrating MageBridge in ZOO
MageBridge offers a basic integration with ZOO through a ZOO App. Through this app, you are able to build ZOO content-item but using various fields derived from Magento. This guide contains the basic steps to get this working.
Read more...MageBridge SEO Guide
MageBridge offers a clean way to integrate Magento in Joomla! without reinventing the wheel. By copying the Magento theme output into the component area and module areas of Joomla!, in most cases the output is still 100% W3C-compliant. If it's not, you need to solve this by modifying the theme - either the Joomla! template or the Magento theme. This guide sums up most of the common practices to optimize your MageBridge-site.
Read more...Managing MageBridge extensions
While MageBridge offers its main functionality in the form of a Joomla! component and several Joomla! plugins, there are various extra extensions (modules and plugins) that allow you to configure specific things for your Joomla! site. MageBridge also introduces its own type of extension - a connector.
Read more...Migrating MageBridge from Joomla! 1.5 to Joomla! 2.5
Upgrading a Joomla! site with MageBridge from Joomla! 1.5 to Joomla! 2.5 is a task that involves many steps. However, because the codebase of MageBridge is the same under Joomla! 1.5 as under Joomla! 2.5, migrating the MageBridge extensions itself is a piece of cake. This tutorial gives some tips and tricks on this migration.
Read more...Migrating users between Joomla! and Magento
When you add MageBridge to an existing configuration (an existing Joomla! site or an existing Magento site), you'll want to make sure that existing customers can still use their login. This tutorial discusses the details of migrating users from Joomla! to Magento, or vice versa.
Read more...Removing MageBridge
When you want to deinstall MageBridge, things are easy in Joomla!, but more complicated in Magento. Here's the procedure to follow.
Read more...Setting Joomla! ACL-rules for the MageBridge backend
Within the Joomla! backend you can set various ACL-rules that restricts users in both the frontend as the backend. When integrating Magento into Joomla! using MageBridge, frontend-permissions on Magento pages are still handled by Magento. However, MageBridge offers a few ways to limit the usage of the MageBridge backend-component, which is discussed here.
Read more...Setting MageBridge offline through the database
The MageBridge extensions offer you a lot of different solutions, but sometimes you might make a mistake that renders your entire Joomla! site offline. You might be locked out of your Joomla! Administrator, or the entire Joomla! Administrator might be even unavailable. By setting MageBridge offline through the database, you might be able to restore your access to the Joomla! Administrator.
Read more...Setting the MageBridge URLs in Magento
In some situations, it is needed to set a hard definition of the MageBridge URLs in Magento. Normally, MageBridge is able to set the right URLs dynamically. But if something is generated in Magento stand-alone, the URL is set to the default Magento URL and not the Joomla! URL - for instance when you send mails from the Magento Admin Panel. This tutorial helps you to reconfigure Magento to solve this.
Read more...Step-by-step: Activating MageBridge plugins
Within Joomla!, MageBridge uses a lot of plugins to handle various things. For instance, authentication and user synchronization are handled through plugins. By default, after installing MageBridge through its installer, all plugins are disabled. Here you can find the steps to activate these plugins.
Read more...Step-by-step: Adding a custom Magento block
Adding a new Magento block to Joomla! is easy: You can use the MageBridge Custom Block module to easily insert an existing Magento block as a Joomla! module on your page. This guide gives you all the information you need.
Read more...Step-by-step: Create a Magento API user
To use MageBridge, you need to create an API user in Magento. This API user is also related to a so-called API role. By default, there is neither API user nor API role, so you need to configure both.
Read more...Step-by-step: Creating a MageBridge Menu-Item
While Magento also has menus and links, with MageBridge you don't need to worry about those. You can create regular Joomla! Menu-Items pointing to specific Magento pages. This allows you to build a menu with regular Joomla! links but also links to products, categories and other Magento pages. This tutorial shows how to create a Menu-Item step-by-step.
Read more...Using MageBridge modules
The MageBridge suite installs a lot of different modules within Joomla!. Here's an overview of which modules are available with a brief description of what they do.
Read more...Using MageBridge Product Connectors
Within MageBridge, connectors are used to do all kinds of things: With Product Connectors you can do something in Joomla! when a Magento product is being sold. This opens up for tons of opportunities, like selling access to DOCman downloads or adding a customer to a certain JomSocial group. Here are some general guidelines for Product Connectors.
Read more...Using MageBridge stores to load a different Magento theme
The Magento multi-site concept is flexible but a little complex. It uses three levels which can be used in various ways: Websites, Stores and Store Views. Within the MageBridge Configuration the entire Joomla!-side of the bridge is configured as a Website. But within this Joomla! site you can still use Stores and Store Views for various purposes. For instance: To load a different theme.
Read more...Using the MageBridge Content Plugin
Within the Joomla! architecture, Content Plugins allow you to modify articles or other types of content just before the content is sent back to the browser. The MageBridge Content Plugin uses this functionality but instead of changing the content itself, it makes Magento responsible for changing the content.
Read more...Using the MageBridge System Plugin
The MageBridge System Plugin enables various core features, and should never be disabled for a MageBridge-based site. But it includes features and options worth describing. This whitepaper covers the basic workings of this plugin, and also discusses the parameters it ships with.
Read more...Using the MageBridgeLinks/JCE-plugin
The JCE-editor is the most popular editor for Joomla!, and allows you to easily add images and links to your content. With the MageBridgeLinks/JCE plugin you can also easily add MageBridge product-links or category-links to your content. This document explains the installation and usage.
Read more...Working with MageBridge URL Replacements
The feature URL Replacements allows you to replace Magento URLs with Joomla! URLs. This can be useful for replacing Magento product-pages with your own CCK-built catalog, but perhaps also for replacing pieces of functionality of Magento with Joomla! extensions (for instance the wishlist). URL Replacements uses a simple concept but it has some side notes, when you want to use it in practice.This tutorial explains the bits and pieces.
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