How to Create Multi-Stores in Magento

Need help with “multi-stores” in Magento?

To start off, create the new website in Magento admin under “System>Manage Stores. Create a Website, a Store and a Store View. This is fairly straightforward and can be found easily on the Magento website as well as other sites. The difficult part follows below. If you don’t understand the following steps, you may want to contact someone to do the setup for you, especially if you’re not familiar with SSH.

Your “virtual store” or additional store in Magento will need an index.php file. This file will include all the information that your additional store in Magento will need to function. Basically, this index file will point the web browser to the necessary Magento core files. Modify the Magento index file by doing the following:

Find the line that reads:

/**

* Error reporting

*/

error_reporting(E_ALL | E_STRICT);

/**

* Compilation includes configuration file

*/

$compilerConfig = ‘includes/config.php’;

if (file_exists($compilerConfig)) {

include($compilerConfig);

}

$mageFilename = ‘app/Mage.php’;

And Change that line to:
$mageFilename = ‘/var/www/vhosts/parentwebsite.com/httpdocs/app/Mage.php’;
Next find the line that reads:
Mage::run();
And change it to read:
Mage::run(’newwebsite_name’,'website’);
Of course, you would put the name of your new site in the above line that reads newwebsite_name, this is the name you assigned in Magento admin under “Website Name”.
Next create a vhost.conf file and place it in the /conf/ directory of the new website.

The vhost.conf file in the new website looks like this:
<Directory /var/www/vhosts/domain2.com/httpdocs> php_admin_flag engine on php_admin_value open_basedir “/var/www/vhosts/maindomain.com/httpdocs:/var/www/vhosts/domain2.com/httpdocs:/tmp” </Directory>

You will also need a vhost_ssl.conf file in your conf directory. It is the same as the above.

You will need symlinks from the domain2 site to the maindomain for the following directories:

app

js

media

skin

var

The symlink code looks like this:

ln -s /var/www/vhosts/maindomain.com/httpdocs/app/ /var/www/vhosts/domain2.com/httpdocs/

To update the server, you will need to run this command:

/usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/websrvmng -v -a
You will also need to do a “reboot”

/usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/websrvmng -v -a

Doing multiple stores in Magento is an extremely complicated procedure, but it can be achieved by following these above outlined steps.
One other item:
You must add the following in your .htaccess file:
Options +FollowSymLinks
Hope this helps you understand How To Create Multiple Stores in Magento. If it seems too confusing, feel free to contact us.
August 31st, 2009 | Category: Magento E-Commerce Help | Leave a comment

How to add a bulleted list to products in Magento

How do you add a bulleted list to products in Magento? With the current architecture of Magento, the regular <li> tags do not function properly. Here’s the trick for making bulleted lists in product descriptions in Magento.

First, add the following to your css file:

.std  ul li {
list-style-type: disc;
list-style-position: inside;
text-transform: none;
}

Then, to add you bullet, place this at the beginning of you bulleted list:

<std.ul>

Then, instead of the closing </li> tag, leave them off, like this:

<ul class=”disc” style=”margin-bottom:15px;”>

<li>put your text here

<li>put more text here

<li>and so on

</ul>

That’s it! Sample below.

  • put your text here
  • put more text here
  • and so on
August 26th, 2009 | Category: Magento E-Commerce Help | Leave a comment