ALL – Xhtmljunkies

How to Debug Magento Step by Step?

Harshal Shah — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 12:08:16 +0000

[clearboth] The following debugging tips can be applied towards any LAMP/XAMPP application we wanted to give a more brief focused step by step debugging checklist for Magento Developer.

Get XDebug or ZendDebugger Working

When all else fails, putting a break-point in the beginning of your back trace and stepping line by line is the best way to debug and/or learn what Magento is doing.

Articles about setting up XDebug with PDT

Articles about setting up ZendDebugger with PDT

Clear the Cache

If you are using caching at all within Magento, one of the first steps to answering the question – “Why is this not working?” – is to clear the Magento cache. There are two ways to clear the cache:

System > Cache Management > Select All > “Refresh” Massaction > Submit

Delete the “cache” directory under BASE_MAGENTO_DIR/var

Clear the Browser Cache

More than once, I have wasted 10 minutes trying to figure out why something wasn’t rendering to the browser correctly, only to find that my browser was caching old responses. If you don’t know how to clear your browser cache, see the following links:

Make Sure Your Configurations Are Set For the Proper Scope

Because the System > Configurations can be set for specific scopes (Default / Website / Store View), we have to make sure that we have set the configurations for the proper scope. To check this, use the Magento Admin Panel –

System > Configuration > Upper Left Corner (Change to the scope/store view you are working with)

Turn On Logging

This one is a big one. Almost EVERY time, if there is a problem in Magento, something will appear in either the system.log or the exception.log. Checking these logs should become second nature to you. To turn on logging, use the Magento Admin Panel –

System > Configuration > Advanced > Developer > Log Settings > Enable

Check the magento exception.log under BASE_MAGENTO_DIR/var

Check the magento system.log under BASE_MAGENTO_DIR/var

Use Template Path Hints

Template Hints are pretty amazing. When you want to figure out which Block or phtml file a problem is occurring in, you can turn on template hints and see the information right on the browser. It’s awesome, so if you haven’t tried it, try it right now.

To turn on template path hints, use the Magento Admin Panel –

First, you NEED to select the store view you want to show the hints on. If you don’t, the configuration option won’t appear.

System > Configuration > Advanced > Developer > Debug > Template Path Hints and/or Add Block Names to Hints

By default, there is no way to turn on hints for the Admin Panel, so take a look at this article for help: Enable Template/Block Hints in Admin Panel

Tracing

If you have implemented a home-grown tracing mechanism, turn it on and look at the log. A common tracing mechanism consists of coding tracing statements within the code that log ENTRY into a function, important information within the function, and EXIT from the function. This information can be crucial in debugging problems in a production environment.

XDebug Tracing

XDebug provides some pretty kick-butt tracing ability. If you turn it on, get ready for a lot of data, but it can be very helpful when trying to pinpoint a problem.

Check the Apache error_log

When all else fails, take a look at the apache error_log. It could be a problem with the setup of your webserver.

Google It

It may come as a surprise, but there are still people that don’t turn to Google as a “troubleshooting option”. They should. When you want to ask a developer something, first ask it to Google. For instance, if you want to know how to do a rewrite of a model, just Google: How do I rewrite a model in Magento. If you want to know why you are getting an error like “HEADERS ALREADY SENT”, Google: headers already sent magento. Chances are, another developer will give you a response like THIS if you ask them the question anyway.

Search Or Ask The Magento Forums

One of the big pros to Magento is the active community members. Many are willing to help answer your questions for free, and quickly. Before you ask your question, search the forums. If you don’t find your answer, ask your question.

vietsn can be also a useful tool for this.

Use the Varien_Profiler

If you are having performance issues, turn on and use the Varien_Profiler. Do this in the Admin Panel –

System > Configuration > Advanced > Developer > Debug > Profiler

Then, if you still can’t figure it out, start all over again.

A Technical Overview for Magento 2.0

Harshal Shah — Fri, 21 Jun 2013 06:16:50 +0000

Magento is a growing eCommerce platform and is proved successful for 80% of online businesses. Magento have vast eCommerce features and coming up with new Solutions every time with better versions. After successful career of Magento Version 1, Now Magento eCommerce is coming up with new and fresh version i.e. Magento 2 which have lots of new changes compare to previous versions.

More is not known about Magento 2.0 platform since it is totally new in market. It is for sure that the features and files architecture of this new platform will be entirely different from the Magento 1.x series. One major change that is noticed with Magento 2.0 version is that the development version is available on github. This enables the Magento community users to contribute in the development process. They can request to add a feature or remove one accessing the main github repository files.

Another major and interesting feature or change of Magento 2.0 is the” Visual Design Editor”, which enables to simply drag-and-drop blocks of texts or images on pages. If it is implemented in a proper way, a developer can design layouts much more faster compared to writing XML codes which reduces stress on developer’s mind. In addition to this new introduction, there are changes in core functionalities that will support modern web development to a greater extent.

Modification in file structure
The file structure is modified considerably in Magento 2.0. The base theme no longer exists in this version. All base views are shifted inside the module structure and the purpose behind such a modification is to provide a better and clear structure and at the same time encourage developers to rule out views that they need for their personalized or customized Magento themes.
Functionality changes
Magento 2.0 allows user to manage design packages and themes through the database. It is also become easier for developers and users to control and edit email content as email templates are no longer related to locale.
Removal of some modules and components
The old payments methods are now replaced with new and advanced payment options. The new release reduces 20% of the config.xml file. It becomes much simpler for developers to provide a customized solution to their clients and that too within a short span of time!!! The new structure of module directory will enable faster and logical development of the infrastructure.
New concept of containers
A developer can add the “container” to layout option. These containers are part of the visual design editor and will allow moving blocks around. A container can contain other containers and blocks.
Elimination of skin folder
The skin directory is removed from Magento 2.0, instead of skin it uses themes. It results in file systems that are conceptually simple and clear to understand for normal users. Developers can better control these themes easily.
Migration to jQuery from Javascript
jQuery is most popular and are widely used today. Since this technology has become an industry standard such an addition will help developers to be innovative with their web development approach.

What is Ecommerce

Harshal Shah — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 13:55:02 +0000

E-commerce is an industry where we can buy and sell the products/goods through online. Internet has brought a drastic change in the increment of no. of merchants & customers. Electronic commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, processing, electronic (EDI), inventory management, and automated data collection sys tem.

It consists of the exchange of data to facilitate the financing and payment in business transactions. This is an effective and efficient way of communicating within an organization and it also encourages in conducting the business in the most efficient way.

Applications of electronic commerce
• Domestic and international Payment systems
• Group buying
• Automated online assistants
• Instant messaging
• Newsgroups
• Online shopping and order tracking
• Online banking
• Electronic tickets
• Social-Networking
E-commerce empowers the customers to have a right choice in the selection of goods at right time & right place. It not only bring benefits to organizations & also helps in fulfilling the customer’s needs .The main advantage of E-commerce is that it SAVES THE TIME of consumers & mainly beneficial to those who are overloaded with their business works. In 2010, the United Kingdom had the biggest e-commerce market in the world when measured by the amount spent
E-commerce has grown in importance as companies have adopted Pure-Click and Brick and Click channel systems. We can distinguish between pure-click and brick and click channel system adopted by companies.
• Pure-Click or Pureplay companies are those that have launched a website without any previous existence as a firm.
• Bricks-and-Clicks companies are those existing companies that have added an online site for e-commerce.
Research by four economists at the University of Chicago has found that the growth of online shopping has also affected industry structure in two areas that have seen significant growth in e-commerce, bookshops and travel agencies.
The mobile commerce was originally coined in 1997 to mean “the delivery of electronic commerce capabilities directly into the consumer’s hand, anywhere, via wireless technology

Magento Vs Shopify

Harshal Shah — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 05:24:45 +0000

Years ago, if you were looking for an e-commerce website for your company, you’d be faced with assembling an team of web developers to build you something from scratch.

Nowadays, there are many great platforms available for small and medium sized businesses that make them able to better serve their customers. Two of these platforms are Shopify and Magento – and we’ll compare them. Here’s how they measure up:

Price

Both offer Shopify(14 days) and Magento Go(30 days) a free trial so that you can try before you buy. After these periods, both charge monthly fees – Shopify from between £19 and £115 a month and Magento from £9.99 and £79.99. Shopify charges a 1 or 2% transaction fee on all but its most expensive tariff but with unlimited bandwidth, while Magento Go has no transaction fees but a bandwidth limit of 4GB.

Features

We all know that it’s the little things that make a website. And while Magento Go offers a range of slightly more advanced and unique features for reporting and marketing promotions, Shopify is much more simple to use, with a built in blog function that Magento can’t match. So, if you’re looking to lesser loads and want all the backend features, Magento may be best, but if you’re looking for something that gives great results with little effort, Shopify proves to be the best.

Speed

Shopify takes home the Oscar when it comes to the rapidity of the system. And thanks to its unlimited bandwidth, it doesn’t matter how much data you upload or download. When it comes to installation, Magento Go takes longer to install and set up than its adversary, which utilises its web-based shopping cart to start a store immediately.

Design

Shopify starts to come into its own. Designers love Shopify as it’s much more adaptable and easy to design, far than Magento Go and it allows you to alter HTML, CSS and scripts whereas Magento Go only lets you modify just CSS. But while Magento Go offers thousands of more individual themes than Shopify, Shopify has better quality design bases.

Customer service

Unfortunately, things can go wrong with any ecommerce platform and, when they do, you need to speak to experts to solve the problem. Shopify is best for that reason – its customer support teams are quicker and tend to offer more detail services than Magento Go, while its active online community users are an absolutely valuable resource if you have a problem.

Getting hang up with big data transfer???

Harshal Shah — Fri, 03 May 2013 15:41:47 +0000

Database plays a vital role in every application considering from a simple to huge. If it is fatty in size then the complexity of managing and handling that data will become bottle neck to a developer.

Majorly the problem will be raised when you need to transfer database from one server to another that doesn’t has ssh access and which is bulky in size for example magento databases .

Usually the database tools like “phymyadmin” restricts importing files to a specific size even you modified the parameters in php.ini and my.cnf configuration files. To get out from these type problems we would like to provide you a smart solution in a wise and simple procedure.

Before starting have a look on this video which might help you.

Step -1:

Take the sql file that need to be imported

Step-2:

Download the php file from the below link and provide the database login details and sql file name.

bigdump

Step -3:

Place these two files in the same location and the run the php file from the browser.

All the details like size of database and the status of importing will be clearly displayed.

Yup! Your big data transfer is completed….

Conclusion

Now “The ball is in your court”, Just try it to taste the efficiency of this Big Data Transfer procedure.

Is your website Responsive??

Harshal Shah — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:32:52 +0000

Responsive Website Design has become talk of the town these days as the advancement of technology in this trend is increasing day-by-day.

Creating a responsive design goes way beyond arranging things in a way that which doesn’t compromise the look of your website in different layouts and screen sizes. At the present situation, people are using tablets, notebooks and smart-phones instead of using personal computers for browsing the internet.

There are many benefits that one can get with Responsive Web Design. They are as detailed below:

Increasing your reach to mobile device and various accessories:

Developing one single website that fits in all kinds of devices will undoubtedly mean that your site is Responsive. Mobile devices and tablets are expected to have more sales as most of the people prefer to use them rather than going for a PC every time.

In turn increasing sales and conversion rates:

Improved content by updating it frequently is one of the main pillar resulting in building a successful website. It will surely transform a boost in your conversion rates, if your site provides a consistent user experience.

Saving time and cost on mobile development and website management:

Updating one single website is the best option and less time consuming rather than going for different device focused websites.

Increasing visibility on search engines:

Content is a king. Quality content not only increases your ranking in search engines but also grab the extra attention that you will be able to pay to it. With the responsive design, you can manage one website with single set of links to develop a solid SEO strategy.

Strengthen your analytics and reporting:

Tools such as Google Analytics are optimized for Google reporting. Google have also stated that sites developed using responsive device layout perform more better in search results.

Conclusion:

Now its your turn. Responsive design keeps you ahead in this trend. So after reading all these, if you still don’t think about the responsive design, then you will be definitely regretting in the future.

Achieve new heights with Web Development Company

Harshal Shah — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 07:20:34 +0000

In the today’s scenario, web development companies have come a long way and are in great demand for development of websites. Today, it is essential for every business to develop an effective website because of the growing competition among different companies. Moreover, internet marketing has become an important mode for promoting the business.

Only developing a website is not enough but it is essential to create an effective and a professional site so that the user finds it interesting and stay on it for longer time period. A professional website design is a prerequisite to build your brand and getting more customers online. There are many companies that provide web development services. Here are the reasons why to hire a Web Development company:

• Internet Marketing: Every day, more people are using internet. These people are the potential customers who are looking for you. The internet is a cost effective solution for advertising, as it doesn’t require any sales person for calling. For this you need a well developed and optimized site which will then promote your business 24*7.

• Focus on your business: If you are not a web developer, then it doesn’t make any sense to develop the site as it would be just the wastage of time. Instead wasting the time you can focus on other parts of business and hire a web development company or a web developer for development of website.

• Get professional help and get effective results: It is safe to hire a web development company as it provides professional designs for the website. A web development company also serves as a SEO Company . Even a good website is a waste without SEO. SEO helps in achieving the high ranking for your site which increases the chances of visibility.

• Get results and higher ROI (return on investment): A professional website design will bring effective results for your business. An effective and a professional website design can give large returns and continuous sales for long time.

You can enjoy the benefits of a good website design if you hire a genuine and a professional web development company who also offer SEO services along with web development. Here are some of the points which will assist you in choosing the best web development company. A web development company must possess the following:

• Updated technology
• Regular maintenance
• Impressive portfolio
• Optimized website

If a web development company, which you are hiring works on the above mentioned points, then it is a genuine company which will offer the effective results. If you have a high quality optimized site, then your business will definitely achieve the success.

On Tour of Mount Abu

Harshal Shah — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 06:11:50 +0000

Our SEO Team went to Mount Abu Tour on 24-March-2013
[clearboth]

Our Designing Process

Harshal Shah — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 11:28:29 +0000

Designing process includes several usability-related issues and methods that require careful consideration while designing. Lets have a look at our effective designing process.

Open Cart Vs Magento

Harshal Shah — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 05:10:15 +0000

When any client ask which e-commerce platforms is right for requirement.

Lots of e-commerce platforms are available like opencart, magneto, zencart, Woo Commerce etc. but which you should select it depends on your requirement. So world has large range of solution. We will give brief comparison of magento and opencart which will help to evaluate as per your requirement.

Both has some common features like:

1) Both are open source and has large developer community
2) Both are developed in PHP.
3) Both are provide templates, lots of popular extension so non-technical person can manage easily
4) Both are popular platforms supporting multi language and currencies

Advantages of Opencart

It’s free to download, easy to use, host and set up.
Best develop community is available and information & tutorials are easily available.
It’s not require any expert to manage site because it’s a quite simple.
It provides easy and convenient control panel so user can manage easily and properly.
It supports lots of payment gateways like paypal, sagepay, worldpay etc.

Advantages and features for magento

Too much control over look and feel, CMS, customer interface.
Good control on seo setting with user friendly URL, content wise
It’s provide a best features for customer like order history, product reviews, recently viewed products, product comparison etc
Lots of developers are available for help in online community.
From admin section, you can get report like search report, sales report, inventory report, out of stock and stock availability.
We can manage multiple store from one admin section.
It’s allow to wordpress integration and blog integration which will help in content marketing.

But Opencart has some limitation also mainly for seo purpose it’s not best e-commerce and it’s not allow custom URl structure. Provided templates are not more customizable in compared to magento.

For highest level business, Magento is best because of some key features like seo compatibility, unlimited layout structure, lots of customization in shopping etc.