Magento

An all new community translation tool is now available to make translating Magento to different languages as easy as possible.

This powerful in-line tool allows to work on a live interface and create translations, or suggest alternatives to existing translations. Translations can now be voted on as well and the moderators will be able to select the most appropriate suggestion.

There are now 3 ways to translate your language:

1. Translate strings broken down by module via our Full String List tool
2. Use the in-line translation live interface (much like the in-line translation tool on a local installation of Magento), to add and vote for suggestions.
3. Download the complete package.

We will soon add the ability for moderators to make the translations available through Magento Connect.

If you’d like to get involved or don’t see your locale listed or if you have any problems or suggestions for the new tool, please contact us.

In version 1.0 we added a new way of adding simple products to configurable products. The new method is a quick and easy way of creating new simple products with only minimal data entry.

We have created a video that demonstrates this and which can be seen here.

(Of course you can always use Magento’s import product tool to enter the simple products and then associate them to a configurable product with a few clicks.)

We hope you enjoy this new feature.

In a blog post from earlier this week, we covered how to create a completely separate website to be managed from one Magento installation.  In this video we focus on the creation of multiple stores within the same website.  The actions performed in this second video can be carried out completely within the Magento admin, without the need to create folders or modify any physical files.  A second store is added to the main website sharing the catalog structure.  A third store is added to the main website with a different category structure.  We show how to add or modify store views, as well as changing the logo.

These steps were carried out and recorded on the 0.9.17740 version of Magento:

• Step 1:  Creating a new store in the Magento store manager
• Step 2:  Setting the root category of the new store
• Step 3:  Creating store views for this new store
• Step 4:  Updating the logo

We also show you the category structure, and product relationships between the stores sharing a root category, and the third store (which has a separate root category).  Enjoy!

In this video we showcase one of the more powerful Magento features, the ability to manage multiple Online storefronts from a single administration panel. This functionality allows an online merchant to centrally manage all facets of a business from one location, while selling through multiple online stores.

The first video goes through the basics of creating a completely separate website within the Magento installation, to be controlled from the same admin.  Below are the necessary steps to do this, carried out and recorded on the 0.9.17740 version of Magento:

• Step 1:  Creating a new folder for second website, copying index.php and .htaccess, necessary change of code to index.php
• Step 2:  Creating a new root category for the second website
• Step 3:  Creating the website in the admin, along with a store and store view
• Step 4:  Configuring the URL structure of the new site
• Step 5:  Adding categories and products
• Step 6:  Associating products with the new website

At the end of the video, the logo of the new website is updated and the homepage is set to a different admin-created CMS page.

Please note:  This demonstration uses example.com and some symlinks to make the URLs more readable.  You may notice the url of the second website switching between http://www.example.com/magento/mainstore/shoestore and http://www.example.com/magento/shoestore - this is why.  In a live environment each site will most likely have its own IP, so different domain names could be configured accordingly.

This is Part 1 of 2 videos showing Multiple Websites/Stores.  Part 2 will go into more detail about store views and multiple stores under the same website.

The latest release of Magento (0.8.17240) features the full-blown sales module, complete with invoicing, shipments, and credit memos. In this video, we’ll show you how these features work and interact with the orders.  We review creating Invoices, Shipments, and Credit Memos, starting from a 4-product order:

• Two of the products are initially invoiced
• The same two products are shipped
• The remaining two products are then invoiced
• A credit memo is created for one of the invoiced products
• The final product is shipped
• A printable invoice (PDF) is navigated to and presented
• A printable PDF packing slip (from shipments) is navigated to and presented
• Finally, the “My Account” section in the front-end is shown.  Within the order record, the customer can see Invoices, Shipments and Credit Memos that pertain to this order.

Magento’s next release will feature an updated image management tool. In this video, we go through the process of uploading multiple images at once. Below is a breakdown of the fields in the page:

• Small - Used in category listing / wishlist, etc.
• Thumbnail - Used in shopping cart and related items.
• Main - Large product image (zoomed in).
• Custom Image - Currently not used in the default interface but may be used in customizations and future interfaces.
• Exclude - Excludes the image from the slideshow / more views functionality.
• Remove - Deletes the image from the collection.
• Label - Alt value for the image tag.
• Sort Order - The order in which the images are displayed in the slideshow / more views functionality.
  

The image sizes will be based on values that are set in the template tags and additional image locations may be set through a configuration file (more info on that later). Image resizing will be automated through the use of GD library.

It is important to note that image type and data should be specified for each store view.

Hope you like it!

Magento’s next release will include integration with Google Checkout (level 2). In the first video, we go through the process from a customers perspective, completing the purchase using Google Checkout. The second video shows the invoicing process once an order has been received in the Google Checkout merchant account.

Video - Google Checkout, Customer Process

Video - Google Checkout, Admin Process

There are a few new features in the next preview release of Magento (expected later this week), and we are especially excited about the Order Management functionality in the Magento Backend.

In short, this allows orders to be made from the backend, both for existing customers and for new customers. In future releases the Order Management functionality will be extended to a full-fledged Order Management tool with more advanced functionality, but let's take a look at how the Create Order feature works now.

Order Management Highlights

1. Currency can be selected per order.
2. The customers shopping cart is visible in the create order screen. The admin can move items from the shopping cart to the order (and vice versa).
3. The customers wish list is visible in the create order screen as well. The admin can move items from the wish list to the order (and vice versa).
4. The items in the customers compare box are visible. The admin can move items from the compare box to the order.
5. Products can be searched/filtered and added to the order.
6. Customer can be assigned to a different customer group (if needed).

Click image to enlarge

Magento’s static blocks are fully customized sections of HTML that can be added to catalog pages in different ways.  In this screencast, we’ll walk you through how to create a static block and show you a few ways it can be implemented into your store.

Creating customized transactional e-mails like new account alerts and order confirmations is made easy with Magento’s Transactional E-mail templates. In this screencast, learn how to create transactional e-mails and assign them to different actions within your store.

A huge benefit of Magento will be the ease with which upgrades and customizations can be made. We know that no eCommerce system can include the functionality needed for every business application right out of the box (although we’re sure trying) and this is why we have made Magento so customizable. Not only is it customizable, but after customizing you will still be able to upgrade to new versions of the system.

Have you ever had the experience with an open source product where you customize it to your needs, spending nights going through the code, only to have a new version of the system come out a week after you finish? You’re not able to enjoy the benefits of this upgrade, because you wanted to add a field to your registration form, or change a coupon module.

I know I’ve had this experience while working on projects for Varien. Once you customize the code to your needs you’re not able to upgrade the system without sacrificing these customizations. We knew this was the first thing we needed to address when developing an enterprise-level open source eCommerce platform.

Imagine you spend the time and/or money to customize the coupon module to your particular needs and an updated version of Magento is released a week later. Relax, you don’t need to rearrange your social calendar. You can upgrade Magento with the click of a button or through our auto update while still retaining your custom changes to the coupon module.

This will cut down on development costs and time, allowing you to concentrate on growing your online business.