Create and customize the Magento store

Create and customize the Magento store

Magento content management system is an open source eCommerce application, perfect for online stores. It is a powerful software characterized by great flexibility and full control over the look, content and functionality of your online shop. Magento CMS was created on March 31, 2008. It was created by Varien, building on components of the Zend Framework.

Magento engine installation procedure

First of all go to http://www.magentocommerce.com/download/noregister and download the Downloader as zip (not the Full release). I would like to recommend you to download the “Downloader”

Create and customize the Magento store - download

Then extract the files. And after that upload them to server through FTP. Pay attention that you follow all server requirements. For this example, I am going to install it on my localhost. So now I need to extract the files to the following directory /var/www/web/tutorials/magento

iyngaran@iyngaran-laptop:~$ sudo unzip -d /var/www/web/tutorials/ /home/iyngaran/Downloads/magento-downloader-1.3.2.1.zip

Create and customize the Magento store - unzip

The unzip process is successfully completed

Create and customize the Magento store - unzip-success

Set file permissions: navigate to the directory with your FTP client. Then locate the function “Change Permissions” or “Change Mode” in your FTP client and select it. Change mode to writable.

In my localhost

iyngaran@iyngaran-laptop:/$ sudo chmod 777 -R /var/www/web/tutorials/magento

Create and customize the Magento store - set-permission

And then you can simply install the Magent.

Step – 1 : Open your favorite web browser and enter the url. Ex – In my localhost the url is – http://localhost/web/tutorials/magento/. You will get the installation wizard on the browser. Start the download process here

Create and customize the Magento store - start the download process

Downloading…..

Create and customize the Magento store - the proccess

Step – 2 : The download process is completed.

Create and customize the Magento store - download-completed

Step – 3 : Start the installation process.

Create and customize the Magento store - Install-step1

Step – 4 : The local settings such as language, currency and etc for your test store.

Create and customize the Magento store - Step2

Step – 5 : Do the configuration such as database configuration and etc for your store

Create and customize the Magento store - Step-3

Step – 6 : Setup the administrator user account for your store

Create and customize the Magento store - step-4

Step – 7 : The final page – you have successfully installed a store 🙂

Create and customize the Magento store - step-5

Step – 8 : Now let’s go to store back-end/Administration panel.

Create and customize the Magento store - index-not-upto-date

There are few warning errors in the admin Panel.

  1. {{base_url}} is not recommended to use in a production environment to declare the Base Unsecure Url / Base Secure Url. It is highly recommended to change this value in your Magento configuration.

Create and customize the Magento store - reindex

To sort this issue, Go the System->Configuration->Web, there replace your http url (Example – http://localhost/web/tutorials/magento/) for {{base_url}} in the configuration settings

Create and customize the Magento store - Base URL Configuration Value

If you had to update your configuration as described above, please go to System > Cache management and refresh all caches.

  1. One or more Indexes are not up to date: Product Attributes, Product Prices, … .Click here to go to Index Management and rebuild required indexes.

Create and customize the Magento store - index-not-upto-date

To sort this issue, Go to the System->Index management and reindex those indexes and refresh the page.

  1. Latest Message: Magento CE Version 1.4.1.1 Patch Available Read details

This is just a message. So at the moment, I am not going to do anything for this.

The Admin Panel without any errors

Create and customize the Magento store - Admin Panel

Step – 9 : Now the Magento store is ready with front-end store and administration panel.

Step – 10 : Now the store is working without any errors. But there is no products in the home page. So I am going to add a product from Admin Panel. To add a product from Admin Panel, Go to the Admin Panel Catalog->Manage Products->Add Product

Create and customize the Magento store - adding products in admin page

Note – Make sure, you have add the product to the Main Website and set category as default.

Go to Catalog->Manage Products, and select the product (tick the product’s check box) and select the “Update Attributes” for the Actions combo box and click on Submit button.

Create and customize the Magento store - Manage Products

And add that product to the “Main Website”

Create and customize the Magento store - update product attributes

Step – 11 : I have added a product in the Admin Panel. But still in the home page the product is not displaying.

Create and customize the Magento store - magento default home page

Step – 12 : I have added a product in the Admin Panel. But still in the home page the product is not displaying.

The product is not displaying on the home page. Because the code on the home page is not designed to show products by default. So the next thing, I have to add code to the home page, which shows some products on the page. To add code to the home page, Go to the Admin Panel CMS->Pages. Click on Home page and click on “Content” tab under the page information. Add the following lines of code to the content.

{{block type=”catalog/product_list” template=”catalog/product/list.phtml”}}

Create and customize the Magento store - home page contents code

Step – 13 : Refresh the home page.

Create and customize the Magento store - displaying products in magento home page

Yes Well Done! The product is displaying on the homepage. 🙂

So lets play around with the new store and customize it. 🙂 🙂 🙂