Have you created your own module for Zencart? And you would like to add configuration setting for your module, so that your client can configure your module via Admin area? Here is how to do that…

What I do usually is adding new group (with your module name) under Configuration in zencart administrator, then add fields under that group to be setup. Just like if you go to Configuration > My Store, you will find many settings there. All of this fields are declared inside your database, specifically inside zen_configuration_group and zen_configuration table (NB: zen_ is used as table prefix).

So let’s insert new row to your zen_configuration_group to create new group under “Configuration” menu. The following SQL script will add “My New Module” group under “Configuration” menu and position it in the last order. Use this script as template.

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INSERT INTO configuration_group
(configuration_group_id, configuration_group_title, configuration_group_description, sort_order, visible)
VALUES (NULL, 'My New Module', 'My New Module Description....', '1', '1');
 
UPDATE configuration_group SET sort_order = last_insert_id() WHERE configuration_group_id = last_insert_id();

Secondly, to add config items under your new “Configuration > My New Module” use the following SQL

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SET @last_id=0;
SELECT (@last_id:=configuration_group_id) AS last_id 
FROM configuration_group
WHERE configuration_group_title= 'My New Module';
 
INSERT INTO configuration 
(configuration_id, configuration_title, configuration_key, configuration_value, configuration_description, configuration_group_id, sort_order, date_added)
VALUES 
('', 'Small Image Height', 'IMAGE_VIEWER_SMALL_IMAGE_HEIGHT','75','Description of Small Image Height Setting. Default 75.', @last_id, 1, now());

Note that to run this SQL smoothly without bothering with your zencart database table prefix, execute this script from zencart admin area Tools > Install SQL Patches.

Once you executed those SQL, you will find My New Module category under Configuration menu and Small Image Height setting inside that category. You can then access the value of this configuration from your module straight away by using configuration_key which you have set in your SQL (i.e. echo IMAGE_VIEWER_SMALL_IMAGE_HEIGHT). Please leave comment if you find any difficulties or feel grateful with this blog. Cheers.

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In my last project, I designed new newsletter template and created custom newsletter administration area. When I send newsletter to admin to test the email, it does not send HTML email but plain text mail. Scratching my head, I searched Zencart documentation as well as Google for couple hours to find the answer. Now, I will share the solution here, just in case you go through the same pain as me.

First of all, you need to configure your Zencart to use HTML type email. Login to your administrator area and go to configuration > E-mail options.

1. Make sure your “E-Mail Transport Method” is set appropriately
2. Use MIME HTML When Sending Emails = “true”
3. Send E-Mails = true
4. Email Admin Format? = HTML

Now try to send a newsletter to the admin, if it still sends plain text mail, do the following. Backup and open in your text editor includes/functions/functions_email.php. In your functions_email.php try to find these codes

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if (ADMIN_EXTRA_EMAIL_FORMAT == 'TEXT' && substr($module,-6)=='_extra') {
        $email_html='';  // just blank out the html portion if admin has selected text-only
}

Just below that add the following codes

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// if no customer email record found, and admin email format is set to HTML, and sending newsletter, and admin is logged in, use HTML:
if ($customers_email_format_read->RecordCount() == 0 && ADMIN_EXTRA_EMAIL_FORMAT == 'HTML' && in_array($module, array('newsletters', 'product_notification')) && isset($_SESSION['admin_id'])) {
     $customers_email_format = 'HTML';
}

Now, you should send email in HTML format. Leave comment if it does not work for you or if this post has helped you and save your time.

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On my recent project which uses Joomla v1.5, my client asks for banner management with ability to manage banner based on number of impression or date (period of time). Quick search on Joomla extension repositories show that there are many banner management component and module for Joomla 1.0 but not Joomla 1.5. Most of them which run on 1.5 are module to add animation or customize the display of your banner. At the time I write this blog, I found one component which does this, but it’s fairly plain and does not allow me to limit the banner based on number of impression made, categorize my banners, and keep track of clients.

Fortunately, the default Joomla 1.5 comes with com_banners and mod_banners core component and it has everything I need except start and end date setting to publish banner/ads. So let’s modify this core component to add this feature.

There are two files that you need to edit. First, open up \administrator\components\com_banners\views\banner.php with your favourite editor. Then insert the following codes on line 347 (between </tr> and <tr>).

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<?php // BEGIN EDIT - Enable Start and End Date of Banner
	function formatToShortDate($date) {
		$date = substr($date,0,10);
		if ($date == '0000-00-00') return "";
		return $date;
	}
?>					
	<tr>
		<td class="key">
			<?php echo JText::_( 'Start Date' ); ?>
		</td>		
	  <td>
	  <?php echo JHTML::_('calendar', formatToShortDate($row->publish_up) , 'publish_up', 'publish_up', '%Y-%m-%d', array('class'=>'inputbox', 'size'=>'25',  'maxlength'=>'19')); ?></td>		
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td class="key">
			<?php echo JText::_( 'End Date' ); ?>
		</td>		
	  <td>
	  <?php echo JHTML::_('calendar', formatToShortDate($row->publish_down) , 'publish_down', 'publish_down', '%Y-%m-%d', array('class'=>'inputbox', 'size'=>'25',  'maxlength'=>'19')); ?></td>		
	</tr>
<?php
	// END EDIT - Enable Start and End Date of Banner
?>

Secondly, locate and edit \components\com_banners\models\banner.php.
Try to find this line $wheres[] = ‘(imptotal = 0 OR impmade < imptotal)’;. On my file it’s located on line number 41, and below that add the following code:

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// BEGIN EDIT - Enable Start and End Date of Banner
$wheres[] = "(publish_up = '0000-00-00 00:00:00' OR publish_up <= CURDATE())";
$wheres[] = "(publish_down = '0000-00-00 00:00:00' OR publish_down >= CURDATE())";
// END EDIT - Enable Start and End Date of Banner

It’s done. Now you will have start and end date field when you create new or edit your banners. The mod_banners will only display ads/banners which sit after the start date (if set) and before the end date (if set). You can leave start and end date field empty to ignore them. Please leave comments if you are satisfied or face any problem. Cheers.

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I come across this bug when I tried to edit user profile on my community builder v1.1 and Joomla 1.5. I found out that many people face the same problem at community builder forum, but unfortunately the forum is hard to navigate and finding the solution is like looking for needle in stack of straws. So here is the solution:

You will need to edit com_comprofiler/plugin/user/plug_cbcore/cb.core.php on around line 528 and 529. Do the following edit:

1. Change this line “$params =& $juser->getParameters();“ to “$params =& $juser->getParameters(true);“
2. Then comment out or remove this line “$params->loadSetupFile(JApplicationHelper::getPath( ‘com_xml’, ‘com_users’ ));”

There you are, now it won’t show any error message when you try to edit user profile in your community builder v1.1 and Joomla v1.5. Looking forward for CB v1.2.

This answer is courtesy of Jinx and can be found at http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?t=223385.

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CMS system will help us to quickly have the base system but it will limit our development if we are not familiar with the API. Multistep form is a form which has multiple pages of fields and the user should go through each page until at the end of the step. I will touch on how to turn Drupal 6 form into multistep/flowing form.

If you come across Drupal Form API you will realize that by default, the form is declared as associative arrays which are displayed in one page.
$form[‘field_id’] = array (
‘#type’ => ‘textfield’,
‘#title’ => t(‘The label of the input field’),
‘#size’ => 40,
‘#description’ => t(‘Description of the field which appear below input box’),
‘#required’ => TRUE);
);
For complete reference on Drupal 6 Form API visit this site:  http://api.drupal.org/api/file/developer/topics/forms_api_reference.html/6

The key to get multistep behavior of the form is by putting $form_state['rebuild'] = true; statement inside your form submit function. This statement will call again the function which renders the form when the user clicks submit. By manipulating form function to return different associative arrays we can get multistep form behavior.

The second important step is to store the form state values as we keep redrawing the form so that we do not lost the inputted values from previous step. We can do this inside form submit function and store the value in $form_state['storage'] since this is session based variable. $form_state['storage']['values'] = $form_state['values']; Below is the snippet code example for multistep form in Drupal 6:

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function mymodule_myform($form_state) {
   if (empty($form_state['storage']['values'])) {
      $form['firstname'] = array(
         '#type' => 'textfield',
         '#title' => t('First Name'),
         '#size' => 40,
         '#required' => TRUE
      );
   } else {
      $form['lastname'] = array(
         '#type' => 'textfield',
         '#title' => t('Last Name'),
         '#size' => 40,
         '#required' => TRUE
      );
   }
}
Function mymodule_myform_submit($form, &$form_state) {
   if (empty($form_state['storage']['values'])) {
      // if there is no previous values redraw for second step
      $form_state['storage']['values'] = $form_state['values'];
      $form_state['rebuild'] = true;
   } else {
      // Form is on the second step, process the data here…
      $firstname = $form_state['storage']['values'][‘firstname’];
      $firstname = $form_state['storage']['values'][‘lastname’];
      ….
   }
}

Above example will create two steps form, to create more steps you can create $form_state['storage']['step'] which will be assigned with the current step number. You could also use form alter hook mymodule_form_alter(&$form, $form_state, $form_id) to modify existing form.

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