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Managing MageBridge extensions

While MageBridgeTM offers its main functionality in the form of a Joomla! component and several Joomla! plugins, there are several extra extensions (modules, plugins and connectors) that allow you to configure specific things for your Joomla!TM site. To prevent all these extra add-ons flooding your installation, we have decided to seperate required add-ons from optional add-ons.

As of MageBridge 1.2 this differentiation is being made. If you browse within Joomla! Administrator to the MageBridge Update page, you will find that core extensions can just be updated by hitting the "Update" button, but optional extensions can be easily selected to install them as well. As soon as an optional extension has been installed, it will be updated just like any core extension.

Core plugins

The following plugins are considered to be core plugins and should not be removed from your system. They may be disabled but only under special circumstances.

  • Authentication plugin - needed to authenticate Joomla! users against the MagentoTM database
  • Magento plugin - forwarding Magento events as Joomla! plugin events
  • System plugin - used for various tricky things within Joomla!
  • User plugin - used to synchronize profile changes within Joomla! to Magento
  • XML-RPC plugin - used to transfer events from Magento to Joomla!

Keep the plugins above enabled at all times!

Optional plugins

The following plugins are not required for the proper working of MageBridge, but might still come in handy.

  • Content plugin - parses Joomla! content as if it was Magento CMS-content
  • Tags Content plugin - allows Magento tags to be inserted into Joomla! articles
  • Search plugin - extends the Joomla! search to Magento products

The MageBridge Content Plugin is very powerful and allows for Magento widgets to be included in Joomla! content.

Modules

All of the Joomla! modules available for MageBridge are considered to be optional. They are not required for the functioning of the bridge. However, they are very useful when setting up a good site.

  • Block module - used for displaying custom Magento blocks
  • Cart module - used to display the shopping cart block
  • CMS module - used to display Magento CMS-blocks
  • Menu module - displays a menu of product-categories
  • Products module - displays a list of products in various ways
  • Customers module - displays a list of latest customers in the Joomla! backend
  • Orders module - displays a list of latest orders in the Joomla! backend
  • Newsletter module - A copy

Note that Joomla! modules are in no way similar to Magento modules. Joomla! modules add extra content to the page, while Magento modules are in general Magento extensions.

The MageBridge Block module is capable of adding any Magento block to Joomla! While the other modules offer specific functionality, this MageBridge Block module makes everything else possible.

Removing modules or plugins

Optional modules or plugins may just be removed using the regular Joomla! Installer. After removal, when you update MageBridge these optional extensions will not be installed again (unless you choose to do so). When removing core extensions, these extensions will be just installed again when you update MageBridge.

Connectors

MageBridge connectors offer a very easy way for third party developers to hook into the functionality of MageBridge.

Besides Joomla! modules and plugins, MageBridge also uses its own plugin-like system to alter several things inside the MageBridge logic. As of now, all connectors are shipped by default with the MageBridge core, but in the future we will also offer a way to install them seperately.

Store connectors can be used to determine which Magento Store or Store View should be loaded under which circumstances. The following store connectors currently exist:

  • Special days - allows to load a specific store in a specific timeperiod
  • Nooku - integrates the multilingual extension Nooku
  • Joom!Fish - integrates the multilingual extension Joom!Fish

Product connectos can be used to sell a Magento product and configure something in Joomla! accordingly.

  • User Group - sell access to a Joomla! User Group
  • JomSocial Group - sell access to a JomSocial Group
  • JomSocial User Points - sell JomSocial user points
  • OSE MSC - sell access to a OSE Membership Control group

Profile connectors can be used to synchronize the Magento profile with some third party component in Joomla! (from Magento to Joomla!). The reverse is also possible (from Joomla! to Magento) but this is accomplished through the architecture offered by that third party component.

  • JomSocial - synchronize the Magento customer profile with JomSocial
  • Community Builder - synchronize the Magento customer profile with CB

Tutorials on MageBridge administration

Tutorials on MageBridge integrations

 

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