Mult-user blog for OSC

[ssnb]

Hi

 

I am seeking a multi-author blog tool that will integrate into my OSC site.

 

I want to create a blog page for each author (there will be 10 authors handling different subjects), contained within the OSC site.

 

It should support comments and moderation, RSS and all the usual extras.

 

I have looked at blogger, blogspot and drupal, but none of these really offer the above, so I was hoping someone might suggest something?

 

Cheers people

[FIMBLE]

How about World Press?

[ssnb]

How about World Press?

 

Thanks for the suggestion. Are you using it? I found this contrib: http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/3886 but it seems this is all geared towards an older version - I am using rc2.2a and of course the latest Wordpress version.

 

Have you any idea how to integrate the two? I googled it and once again, everything seems geared to older versions (with instructions that are not relevent to recent versions).

 

Thanks for your suggestion!

Sol

[ssnb]

OK - I have done the research and got this working.

 

For anyone interested, I have done all the hard work! Here is the solution:

 

1) There are two types of wordpress blogs:

 

 

A. web based (restricted functionality, but easier to deal with)

the web based wordpress can be found here:

www.wordpress.com

 

B. server based - ie you download this programme, then configure, then upload to your webhost and configure to match your website

the downloadable version is here:

www.wordpress.org

 

You can read about the differences here:

http://faq.wordpress.com/2006/05/07/wordpr...s-wordpressorg/

 

 

2) I chose to download and integrate the wordpress feed into my site

http://michaelwender.com/2006/10/06/embedd...mmerce-part-ii/

 

In case the above link doesn't work, here's the info

1. First, you will need to install OSC MS2.2 on your web server. This tutorial will assume that your OSC install is located in the default location for a typical OSC install: http://yourdomain.com/catalog/.

2. Next, install WordPress in the /catalog/ directory (i.e. http://yourdomain.com/catalog/wordpress/). Once you’ve installed WordPress, login to your WordPress admin and set Options > General > Blog address (URI) to “http://yourdomain.com/catalog/blog.php” (Note: If you would prefer to have your blog file named something other than blog.php, be sure to set this value accordingly and rename the file that you upload in step 4).

3. Now, just after the opening comments of the /catalog/includes/application_top.php file, add the following PHP code:

 

// turn off WordPress themes and include the WordPress core:

define('WP_USE_THEMES', false);

require('./wordpress/wp-blog-header.php');

 

4. Next, download these two files (blog.php and stylesheet.blog.css) and place them in the root of your OSC install.

 

Additional Refinement: Displaying Blog Headlines on your Catalog Homepage

For added functionality, here are instructions for including a WordPress static page and blog headlines on the homepage of your OSC store:

 

1. Before making this edit, you’ll want to make a backup of your default OSC homepage by renaming the file /catalog/index.php to index.ORIGINAL.php

2. Now, download this new index.php file and upload it to your /catalog/ directory. This new index file will display your last 4 blog headlines in a column on the right of the page body. Plus, the value for TEXT_MAIN found in /catalog/includes/languages/english/index.php will display in the left column of the page body.

3. In addition, starting on line 292 of this new index file, I have a switch inserted that will check for the presence of Vito Tardia’s Improved Include Page WordPress Plugin. If you install Vito’s plugin in WordPress, you can edit the iinclude_page() function call on line 294 to include the contents of any WordPress static page by simply editing the page ID in the function’s arguments.

 

FYI, I am using OSC RC2.2a, Wordpress 2.6.1, STS, HTC and a number of other contribs

www.boomskateboarding.com/store2/mobbblog.php

 

I'm still working on the actual use of the blog, so don't expect too much in the way of instruction on how to use it, or content on the above!

 

I will upload all of this as a contribution when I have chance, but for now the instructions above should be enough.

 

Regards

Sol

[Guest]

OK - I have done the research and got this working.

 

For anyone interested, I have done all the hard work! Here is the solution:

 

1) There are two types of wordpress blogs:

 

 

A. web based (restricted functionality, but easier to deal with)

the web based wordpress can be found here:

www.wordpress.com

 

B. server based - ie you download this programme, then configure, then upload to your webhost and configure to match your website

the downloadable version is here:

www.wordpress.org

 

You can read about the differences here:

http://faq.wordpress.com/2006/05/07/wordpr...s-wordpressorg/

 

 

2) I chose to download and integrate the wordpress feed into my site

http://michaelwender.com/2006/10/06/embedd...mmerce-part-ii/

 

In case the above link doesn't work, here's the info

1. First, you will need to install OSC MS2.2 on your web server. This tutorial will assume that your OSC install is located in the default location for a typical OSC install: http://yourdomain.com/catalog/.

2. Next, install WordPress in the /catalog/ directory (i.e. http://yourdomain.com/catalog/wordpress/). Once you’ve installed WordPress, login to your WordPress admin and set Options > General > Blog address (URI) to “http://yourdomain.com/catalog/blog.php” (Note: If you would prefer to have your blog file named something other than blog.php, be sure to set this value accordingly and rename the file that you upload in step 4).

3. Now, just after the opening comments of the /catalog/includes/application_top.php file, add the following PHP code:

 

// turn off WordPress themes and include the WordPress core:

define('WP_USE_THEMES', false);

require('./wordpress/wp-blog-header.php');

 

4. Next, download these two files (blog.php and stylesheet.blog.css) and place them in the root of your OSC install.

 

Additional Refinement: Displaying Blog Headlines on your Catalog Homepage

For added functionality, here are instructions for including a WordPress static page and blog headlines on the homepage of your OSC store:

 

1. Before making this edit, you’ll want to make a backup of your default OSC homepage by renaming the file /catalog/index.php to index.ORIGINAL.php

2. Now, download this new index.php file and upload it to your /catalog/ directory. This new index file will display your last 4 blog headlines in a column on the right of the page body. Plus, the value for TEXT_MAIN found in /catalog/includes/languages/english/index.php will display in the left column of the page body.

3. In addition, starting on line 292 of this new index file, I have a switch inserted that will check for the presence of Vito Tardia’s Improved Include Page WordPress Plugin. If you install Vito’s plugin in WordPress, you can edit the iinclude_page() function call on line 294 to include the contents of any WordPress static page by simply editing the page ID in the function’s arguments.

 

FYI, I am using OSC RC2.2a, Wordpress 2.6.1, STS, HTC and a number of other contribs

www.boomskateboarding.com/store2/mobbblog.php

 

I'm still working on the actual use of the blog, so don't expect too much in the way of instruction on how to use it, or content on the above!

 

I will upload all of this as a contribution when I have chance, but for now the instructions above should be enough.

 

Regards

Sol

[Guest]

Wow, that sounds like a lot of extra work I would never had expected.

 

Wordpress comes in two flavors, Regular Wordpress and Wordpress MU (Multi User). When you were describing it, you said multiple authors and multiple subjects. This being the case, you could make an argument for either version.

 

With the regular version of wordpress, you can have multiple authors on the one blog, set up categories, and have each author write blog posts and assign the post to the proper category. The search fuctionality for all posts will be unified.

 

With Wordpress MU, each author gets thier own blog that they can do as they please but the search is not united between blogs.

 

Typically for integration, your OSCommerce site is not your base directory, it is the catalog directory. Your blog should not be an extension of your catalog, but an extension of the base site.

 

yourdomainname.com

yourdomainname.com/catalog

yourdomainname.com/blog

 

install your wordpress - whichever version you use - into the blog directory.

 

Now delve into themes. Copy the default theme over in the themes directory giving it a new name and apply it in the admin console. Now modify the theme to make it look like yourdomainname.com.

 

Happy blogging.

 

Brian Nettles

[ssnb]

Wow, that sounds like a lot of extra work I would never had expected.

 

Wordpress comes in two flavors, Regular Wordpress and Wordpress MU (Multi User). When you were describing it, you said multiple authors and multiple subjects. This being the case, you could make an argument for either version.

 

With the regular version of wordpress, you can have multiple authors on the one blog, set up categories, and have each author write blog posts and assign the post to the proper category. The search fuctionality for all posts will be unified.

 

With Wordpress MU, each author gets thier own blog that they can do as they please but the search is not united between blogs.

 

Typically for integration, your OSCommerce site is not your base directory, it is the catalog directory. Your blog should not be an extension of your catalog, but an extension of the base site.

 

yourdomainname.com

yourdomainname.com/catalog

yourdomainname.com/blog

 

install your wordpress - whichever version you use - into the blog directory.

 

Now delve into themes. Copy the default theme over in the themes directory giving it a new name and apply it in the admin console. Now modify the theme to make it look like yourdomainname.com.

 

Happy blogging.

 

Brian Nettles

http://briannettles.com

 

 

Hi Brian

 

Thanks for your reply, good to know someone out there is listening!

 

I appreciate your comments and it seems clear to me that you have another way of achieving what I want to do. However, I am not clear exactly what you mean by themes - could you please elaborate?

 

Also, why is it a problem to have the blog installed in domain.com/catalog/blog ? This is what I did (following the instructions of http://michaelwender.com/2006/10/06/embedd...mmerce-part-ii/ - again, I would be grateful if you could explain why your method is better?

 

Perhaps it would be helpful to explain what I want to do:

 

10 seperate blog pages that allow the author to write their own weekly journal. Comments enabled in each authors blog.

It would be nice if I could configure a "front page" with a list (and link) of all the 10 authors blogs.

 

Does your method make this easy to achieve?

 

Thanks again

Sol

 

PS here is my blog page: http://www.boomclothing.com/store2/mobbblog.php - as you can see, not very functional at the moment!

[ssnb]

Hi Brian

 

10 seperate blog pages that allow the author to write their own weekly journal. Comments enabled in each authors blog.

It would be nice if I could configure a "front page" with a list (and link) of all the 10 authors blogs.

 

Does your method make this easy to achieve?

 

Bump

 

Anybody else using Wordpress and successfully have it integrated into their OSC store??

 

There seems to be a definite lack of knowledge here.....

 

Sol

[Guest]

Bump

 

Anybody else using Wordpress and successfully have it integrated into their OSC store??

 

There seems to be a definite lack of knowledge here.....

 

Sol

 

Oh my....I apologize for the delay here....last I checked this thread, my posting was the last one and I did not mean to leave you hanging. My email address is [email protected] if you need to contact me.

 

One question you asked was why not place blog directly into the catalog directory. Fact is, you can structure your directories anyway you want. But most implementations would place the blog directory directly off of the root domain name rather than the catalog as it is simply a clean separation. But if you really want to place it in as a subdirectory to the catalog directory, go ahead. It is simply a design issue, not a technical issue.

 

Regarding themes, this really should be discussed in the Wordpress forums. Nevertheless, when you dig into the directory structure of Wordpress, you will see the following:

 

/wp-content/themes/

 

You can download numerous themes off of wordpress and simply drop the theme into the themes directory and activate the theme from the admin panel.

 

You can take any theme and customize it. The contents of the theme are your wordpress template. You can adjust this template however you like and make it look just like the rest of your website. It does require knowlege of html and light php. You don't need to know php...just be able to recognize it so you don't mess up the logic which is embedded into the html.