Use MageBridge with Advanced Module Manager - Yireo

Using Layered Navigation Pro with MageBridge

The Layered Navigation Pro extension by Adjustware is a popular commercial extension for Magento. It can be used together with MageBridge, but there are a couple of caveats which are described in this whitepaper.

Using Layered Navigation Pro with MageBridge

After completing the installation steps provided by Adjustware, the Layered Navigation Pro block needs to be transferred to MageBridge. The extension does not remove the original layered navigation, but instead uses XML-layouts to enable a different block at the same theming-location.

Within MageBridge, you would use the MageBridge Custom Block module to display the block somewhere on your Joomla! page. However, the original block-name "catalog.leftnav" is still pointing back to the original Layered Navigation block. Because of this, you need to enter a Custom Block name "catalog.adjnav".

catalog.adjnav

Disable JavaScript

The Layered Navigation Pro extension makes use of JavaScript to navigate through categories and product attributes. This JavaScript is based on the Prototype framework, which is incompatible with MooTools used by most Joomla! extensions.

To make sure the Layered Navigation Pro code is working, you will need to configure MageBridge to disable the conflicting scripts used in Joomla!. The easiest option is to set the option "Disable all Joomla! scripts" to "Yes".

Repairing URLs

When MageBridge fetches content from Magento, it needs to configure Magento temporarily with the current Joomla! URL. This can be either a System URL (starting with index.php?option=com_magebridge) or a SEF URL (for instance starting with /shop). By default, MageBridge uses a System URL which makes things compatible for the sh404SEF extension for Joomla!.

However, this System URL is incorrectly parsed by Layered Navigation Pro (because of the question-mark used in the URL). This causes URLs to be wrongly constructed by Layered Navigation Pro, resulting in a loading image which just keeps rotating on the screen.

You can fix this problem by configuring all of the following options in the MageBridge Configuration under the Other Settings tab:

• Set the option "Spoof Headers" to "No"
• Set the option "Forward SEF" to "Yes"

Be warned that this makes MageBridge incompatible with sh404SEF. In short: The combination of MageBridge, sh404SEF and Layered Navigation Pro does NOT work.