Watch the screencast

Text Version

Open up Module.php, located in the classes/module/ folder. Reach the display method, and right at the very end, just before the return statement, add the following:

            if($result && _PS_MODE_DEV_ === true)
            {
                $tpl_path = $this->getTemplatePath($template);
                $result = '<!-- START ' . $tpl_path .' -->' . $result . '<!-- END ' . $tpl_path .' -->';    
            }

Save, make sure dev mode is enabled, then refresh the front office. Open up Chrome developer tools (or equivalent) and inspect the section you need of the template, you will see each module’s box wrapped with the corresponding template path

The post PrestaShop Debug tip: display template names and path in the front office appeared first on NemoPS.

An online shop slider is no longer a gimmick, agree? Probably this is the reason you still don’t have it on your PrestaShop website. A slideshow is a traditional attention-grabbing tool, various types of which are constantly improved with new great features. A traditional tool with a lot opportunities, which very often becomes a kind of organic marketing channel for promoting your best or pushing underselling products. Think of it, there are no chances it can have a bad influence on your traffic and sales.

It’s a not a big task to build a catchy slider and track right visitors to the right products, mostly all types of a PrestaShop slider can do that, but still each one has its own features, functions, and, of course, pricing. If you create a slider with a special tone and style, it can have a power of a well-written nifty word helping you engage much more people. And engaging people often lead to sales. Probably it’s hard to make a completely different exclusive slider, but a bit of personalization, attractiveness and your of course quality products are your best weapon.

How to achieve the best results in building a slider with PrestaShop module? Good question. I’d like to give some humble tips, hope they’ll sound fresh for you:

Images. Slider is a gallery of images. Try to make it a kind of art gallery, namely, reduce useless elements. What does that mean? What’s really interesting in product images, they never lie and never say the truth, it’s your chance to be more genuine and open to your customers: risk to show only images or even a slider in a full-screen mode, where the photos are presented in close-up details. They can even go without additional description and compelling calls-to-action, so the visitors are curious to go to the product’s page and find all important info about it. Though it should not be applied to the announcements of deals, offers and sales, where text messages are the most important.

Ads. Don’t advertise too much, people are not interested in ads, they are interested in particular products and want to know more details about it: instead of saying ‘superb belt’ you can better put some useful info about it in short: brand name, material, design, uniqueness, etc. (a quick hint: the best description of your products and services can be found among positive customer feedbacks!).

Quantity. Yes, you want to sell as more products as possible. But that should not mean putting 20 images into one slider – it can load for a long time or even freeze on some devices. Limit it to 5 – 7 slides. You still have a lot of abilities to create several sliders and put it on different pages or simply replace some slides in your main slider from time to time to monitor which ones have higher conversion and product sales.

Hope that helps. Let’s now revises some of the available popular&fresh PrestaShop slider modules that come with some standout features.

Featured Products Slider module

http://addons.prestashop.com/en/8732-featured-products-slider.html

Using this module you can create a stunning slider for featuring your products on Home, Category and Products page. Let’s count the options able to help you maximum personalize the slider:

• Ability to choose a slider position (center, column, none)
• Setting width and height of the slider
• Timing of pauses
• Sorting the products (Random, Top sellers, Most viewed, Recently added)
• Showing/hiding: a product title, description, price, ‘add to cart button’, navigation buttons/arrows
• Customizable colors, background, product limits and count, a number of scrolled products
• Well-documented module.

Layer Slider

http://addons.prestashop.com/en/19062-layer-slider-responsive-slideshow.html

One of the most popular PrestaShop sliders with very good customers’ review. It’s a fully responsive multipurpose tool that comes with 200 presets, 2D and 3D slide transition. Using this module, you are provided with numerous advantages:

• Admin tools with drag-and-drop nature
• Real-time slide preview
• Swipe navigation support
• Lazy-loads for better slider performance
• All types of content layers (text, image, video)
• Compatibility with old browsers
• Multiple sliders on a single page
• full-width, full size or fixed dimensions layouts are available
• Optional auto-start of the slideshow
• Pauses control
• Optional random slideshow
• Opportunity to link any layer to a particular URL.

MotoPress Slider Module

http://addons.prestashop.com/en/21880-motopress-slider.html

This module is 3 in 1 solution: image, video and product slider, so it can become your ultimate tool in building diverse sliders. The admin tools look like ones of the most user-friendly with simple animated layers (text, image, video, etc), visual style builder and many auto-embeds of your content. The main advantages include:

• Fully responsive and retina-ready design
• Supports swipe navigation
• Visually customizable fonts, background, and other slider design elements
• Ability to preview slider in backend
• Saving and reusing your custom styles
• Full-screen slider support plus options for manual slider width/height settings
• Animation effects and ability to preview them before applying
• Safe import/export of your data
• Showing products in the slider using macros (auto-embedded slider elements) like Price, Add to cart button, etc.
• Enabling slideshow on different website widget areas
• Ability to display the products by categories, tags, in-stock products, on-sale items, including/excluding the products by ID.
• Link a slide to URL ability.

Slider and Push Products

http://addons.prestashop.com/en/4780-slider-push-products-2-in-1.html

The slider developed by Prestashop, which can mean a good reliable product.. It’s a 2 in 1 solution: you can create a slideshow and push the needed products of your online store. The main features include:

• Shop format adaptation: display both slideshow and push products in two or three-column layout
• Fully customizable: 9 predefined layouts (among them 5 come with slideshow)
• Ability to display different images for different language speakers
• Option to link a slide to an external website

Slider by Category Module

http://addons.prestashop.com/en/17308-slider-by-category.html

Despite its limit of displaying the products by category only, this fact can become your advantage as you won’t need to deal with numerous of additional settings. What options does website administrator have? Let’s see:

• Customizable height and width of the slider
• Control over slides timing and speed
• Selectable categories for adding, enabling, editing or deleting slides.

Do you probably use any other PrestaShop slider module that can provide users with more customization freedom and more possibilities? Don’t hide this info then!

Author bio

Ann is an open source and folk music lover. She likes blogging and learning SEO techniques.

Find Ann on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mainoxa

The post How to Promote Your Products with PrestaShop Slider Modules appeared first on NemoPS.

Last Week, forum user alexdee2007 posted an interesting override: it allows us to extend PrestaShop Modules’ controllers. Previously, we would have had to hardcode any modification within the originals, because the core system didn’t allow for such overrides. You can find a link to the original thread at the end of the tutorial.

What does the override do?

Its concept is very simple, yet smart. It extends the Dispatcher class’ Dispatch() method, modifying what the system looks for, once loading modules front controllers. Here is the core part:

if (file_exists(_PS_OVERRIDE_DIR_ . 'modules/' . $module_name . '/controllers/front/' . $this->controller . '.php')) {
    include_once(_PS_OVERRIDE_DIR_ . 'modules/' . $module_name . '/controllers/front/' . $this->controller . '.php');
    $controller_class = $module_name . $this->controller . 'ModuleFrontControllerOverride';
} else {

    $controller_class = $module_name . $this->controller . 'ModuleFrontController';
}

Basically, it looks for the existence of any file, in the override directory, with the same path and name of the original controller. If it exists, it assigns the name plus “Override” to the current class name (which is what PrestaShop does already, for modules).
This way, to extend any Module’s controller, we can simply create a file inside override/modules/*modulename*/controllers/front, named the same as the original, and then append Override to its Class name.

Video – A practical example

Additional Recources

• PrestaShop Modules Course
• The original Forum Thread

The post Overriding Modules Controllers in PrestaShop 1.6 appeared first on NemoPS.

Here is the updated post a few days after the official 1.7 release: PrestaShop 1.7 is out, here is why it is a failure.
The more I read about PrestaShop 1.7, the more I think it will be a complete failure.

PrestaShop 1.7 will (almost) not be retro-compatible (at all)

While the first news about it, which came directly from the development team, mentioned a gradual adaptation to symfony and hogan, the most recent FAQs on the build site clearly stated that upgrading to 1.7 will be next to impossible.
1.7 will be a drastic shift in how the software is conceived since its own roots, and for this reason 90% of what currently works fine on your 1.6 will never be compatible with 1.7. This was clear for themes already (which might even be acceptable), but even if they still mention that 1.6 modules “should work with little to no changes in 1.7″, they add a few caveats on incompatibilities, specifically:

• - those which target the theme/front office – because we rewrote the way themes are written.
• - those which target the Product page – because we rebuilt it with Symfony2 and its Twig template engine.
• - those which target the Modules page – again, because we rebuilt it with Symfony2 and its Twig template engine.

To translate and make it clear to everyone:

• - Anything that outputs content to the front office (90% of the modules, including sliders, best sales, coupon related, menus…)
• - Anything that hooks to DisplayAdminProductsExtra
• - Anything that has a configuration menu (?). Hard to interpret this, there is no module that I know altering the modules list, so we have to assume it’s the modules configuration page

Will any merchant ever upgrade to 1.7? (Short answer: no.)

Given the insane amount of effort that will be required to upgrade a running store to PrestaShop 1.7 (see here), it’s likely that nobody will ever do it.
Thinking of the current chills one already feels when upgrading a minor version, and seeing how painful it has been to move from 1.4 to 1.5, or to 1.5 to 1.6 in the past, chances are no merchant will ever risk his business to radically switch to a new software. Alas, this is what 1.7 will be, a completely new system that will force you to start anew with your shop.

Smarty or not Smarty

It’s hard to understand a few incoherent lines of the FAQs page. While they state the 1.6 themes will not be compatible with 1.7, they also want to continue using Smarty. It would have been better to switch to Symfony since 1.7.0, instead of planning it for future versions, since in any case nobody will be able to upgrade (foreseeing other incompatibilities ahead).

Good-bye overrides!

Yes. Unfortunately, PrestaShop 1.7 will not use overrides anymore. The article states legacy architecture will still be usable; however the back office’s Product and Modules page will not allow their usage. Into human language, it means all modules currently (wisely) using overrides will have to drop the system in future 1.7 versions.

This adds another point to the issues for upgraders: any module using overrides will have to be re-written.

It is not clear yet how modifications will be handled, but as long-time developer, I am afraid the new extensions system will have a strong impact on code maintainability.

And more

• - Mixed up back office interface (Symfony on some pages, Smarty on others)
• - The current Beta is almost impossible to install on non-unix OS (tried 4 times, all failures)
• - 1.7 will still use the old Swiftmailer, which means no TLS or compatibility with Google Servers

For all these, there will be no reason not to migrate to some other software (OpenCart, Magento, just to name a few) for those people currently experiencing trouble and limitations with PrestaShop 1.6. PrestaShop 1.7 doesn’t simply have a couple of good-deal breaker features, it’s just a failure in its own conception.
In my opinion, it’s not acceptable to ask any merchant to switch e-commerce software after establishing a successful business. Given that nobody (1.000009%?) will ever upgrade to the new version, PrestaShop is probably going to lose a big slice, up to 70%, of its current user base. Thinking about your business long-term, you might want to start looking for a life-boat.

Stay tuned for more info about PrestaShop 1.7’s release.

Additional Resources

• PrestaShop 1.7 FAQs
• PrestaShop 1.7 Development Branch on GitHub

The post PrestaShop 1.7 will be a catastrophe. Here is why appeared first on NemoPS.

The course is available now for 49.99 euros. You can read more about it here

The post PrestaShop Modules Development Course – Now available! appeared first on NemoPS.

All of the modules in my PrestaShop Addons store will be available for half the price for the whole day (Monday, November 30, 2015).

Check them all out!

The post Cyber Monday! All modules 50% off till tomorrow! appeared first on NemoPS.

PrestaShop is a great e-commerce platform, but it’s very unlikely that anyone starting a new business will be happy with the very basic modules selection. Most of the PrestaShop modules on the market are paid products, because of the great functionalities they can add to your shop, and help you sell more. However, there are some free PrestaShop modules as well, which can equally enhance the basic functionalities, with the advantage of not having to spend a single penny for it. Let’s have a look at 10 best free PrestaShop Modules currently available. All of the listed modules are compatible with both PrestaShop 1.5 and PrestaShop 1.6.

Prestashop Ask a question Free Module

Free Download

This Free Prestashop Addon allows your customers to ask you any question about a specific product, without having to register. You will also have the possibility to choose if you want to publish the question with relative answer, which makes this module, in fact, nothing less powerful than a full-fledged FAQ plugin.

Free Prestashop Twitter Widget

Free Download

Social media are a key factor in business success. With this free module, you can display a Twitter Timeline on your site, with plenty of options. You can configure all of the customizable aspects of the Twitter Widget, including colors, size, which elements to display, and number of tweets, as well as hooking it to either column, or the footer.

Facebook Open Graph for PrestaShop

Free Download

Do you want your products shared on Facebook or Pinterest to look nicer, instead of having the image chosen randomly in the page? You can use this free Module to add richness to shared content, so that it will not only be nicer to see for your potential audience, but also be more relevant to Search Engines.

Free CSS Editor for PrestaShop

Free Download
With this module you can adjust background colors, font-sizes, fonts, just about any thing visually on your PrestaShop store can be accomplished with CSS. You will have a powerful visual editor with syntax highlighting, so that you can easily add and modify your own styles.

PrestaShop AddThis Module

Free Download
This module is really simple. You just need to login to your AddThis (the popular sharing buttons service) account, grab any of the sharing codes, be it buttons, smart layers or welcome bar, and paste it in the module. You can then choose on which pages you want to display smart layers and welcome bar. Thanks to AddThis, you will benefit from plenty of analytics about social activity on your PrestaShop Store.

Super abandoned cart

Free Download
It’s a best practice to send emails and follow up with those customers who left your site right during a purchase. With this module, you can set up plenty of options to target abandoned carts, such as vouchers to create, templates for emails, and organize everything into several campaigns.

Free blog for PrestaShop – Smart Blog

Free Download
If you feel like you’re not satisfied with the standard CMS system, but want a full Blog System for PrestaShop instead, then Smart Blog is the module you want. Constantly updated and great support in the forum community, it includes all of the features you will need: categories, comments, tags, a search system, popular posts, and more.

PrestaShop Opcache Module

Free Download
If you are not running Opcache with PrestaShop, you seriously need to look into having it installed on your server. If you do not know what Opcache is, it is part of PHP 5.5 that stores your compiled files in memory for faster execution. Generally, sites that run Opcache cut their loading time in half.

Sliders Everywhere for PrestaShop

Free Download
As the name suggests, with Sliders Everywhere you can add sliders, banners and galleries wherever you want in your PrestaShop store. You can customize colors, contents, and even add shortcodes to each of them, uniquely for every page. And of course, all sliders are responsive.

Prestashop Newsletters Free

Free Download
By default, the built-in Newsletter Module PrestaShop has does not let you send anything. This is the only Free PrestaShop module that lets you setup, customize and send Newsletters from the back office, without having to rely on third parties. It also works on older PrestShop version, such as 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4.

The post Top 10 Free PrestaShop Modules appeared first on NemoPS.

Watch the Screencast

The post Faster Prestashop Back Office #1: removing modules and themes Ads appeared first on NemoPS.

After months of development, the Prestashop Modules Fixer is finally ready! You can access it by clicking on the following link

Prestashop Modules Fixer

What can the Prestashop Modules Fixer fix?

Prestashop Standards Errors
Fixes all Prestashop Standards Errors except “global” usage

Translations
Adds missing module names and fixes wrong ones

Licenses
Adds all missing licenses to all file types

Missing Escapes
Adds missing module names and fixes wrong onWipes out the nasty Missing Escapes errores

Missing index.php
Generates all the missing index files

Where is the catch?

No catch, but of course it can’t fix everything. Here are validation rules that can’t currently be fixed:

Folder Structure
It doesn’t fix a wrong folder structure

“Global” usage
It won’t replace global variables

Hardcoded Image Types
It doesn’t rename or add variables instead of hardcoded types

Got excited enough and want to get your modules ready for the addons store right away? Subscribe the Fixer Now!

The post Prestashop Modules Fixer Launched! appeared first on NemoPS.

I am glad to announce my Prestashop modules Fixer Beta is finally open! Here is the link

Prestashop Modules Fixer

The ones who registered already should be able to access with their chosen username and a password sent by email. All others can of course join for Free by registering here: Join the Prestashop Modules Fixer Free Beta (Please notice the free period is now over)

Please bear in mind it’s not exactly recommended to sell these fixed modules at the moment, as there are a bunch of issues left which might even break the php structure. Other than that, you should also read the F.A.Q. page

Happy Fixing!

The post Prestashop Modules Fixer – Free Beta Open! appeared first on NemoPS.