ClickCartPro 8 and EuropaCart 8 have the ability to connect to and interact with Joomla! CMS built-in.

The integration between the two systems in very unique in that our software and Joomla! 1.5+ (including Joomla! 1.6, 1.7, up through Joomla! 2.5) run in parallel on the same domain as two standalone installations. Each is installed separately and is independent of the other.

With all extensions installed and activated you get:

1 Truly bi-directional user management which allows users to sign up in our software or Joomla! and have their accounts automatically added to the other system. All user authorization and management functions were build using Joomla!’s plugin framework APIs. This means that adding additional systems to Joomla! or adding extensions, etc. is not a problem at all, and will work as expected.

2 Inclusion of our most popular skin widgets to the Joomla! template as modules. The account, categories, store, pages and custom menus and the mini-search and mini-cart skin widgets can all be used on your Joomla! pages in any template.

3 The ability to import your Joomla! template into our software is available. This import is done in realtime so users get the template from Joomla! that they would see if they accessed Joomla! itself – with all their user information intact. This skins our software to be identical to Joomla! and works with all known Joomla! skins.

Below is a step-by-step guide on how to configure ClickCartPro 8 or EuropaCart 8 to work on the same site with Joomla!.

Before You Begin

Use the same domain for both the Joomla! and ClickCartPro or EuropaCart installations. You can’t install one on one domain and the other on a different domain. As Joomla! requires cookies to maintain user state, both installations must be able to read cookies set by the other – and this is only possible on the same domain. FYI: The domain name does not include the machine name (ie. www) so you could install Joomla! at cms.yourdomain.com and our software at store.yourdomain.com and it’s OK – as long as everything is installed on yourdomain.com.

Step 1: Install ClickCartPro 8 or EuropaCart 8

The first step is to install either ClickCartPro 8 or EuropaCart 8 on your domain. Generally you would expect the CMS (Joomla!) to be in the root web directory, so for this tutorial, we’ll assume you install our software in a subdirectory of your root web directory called ‘/store’. Follow the instructions in the documentation provided by Kryptronic for installing it’s software to install ClickCartPro 8 or EuropaCart 8 on your website. The latest documentation is always available here:

https://kryptronic.com/Software-Documentation

We recommend using the same email address and password for your installer that you intend on using for your initial administrator account in your Joomla! install. If you activate the single-sign-on functions provided with this integration, making the login credentials the same now will make things easier on you.

During the installation of our software, use the cookie domain ‘.yourdomain.com’ (obviously replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain name) and the cookie path ‘/’. This allows Joomla! to read our software’s cookies, which is necessary.

If you configure our software to use SSL (recommended), you’ll want to be sure that your SSL certificate matches your Non-SSL domain name and that all Non-SSL content is available via SSL using the same URL schema. Example: If you run both Joomla! and our software at www.yourdomain.com, purchase a certificate with the common name ‘www.yourdomain.com’ and make sure your server is set up to serve the same content via SSL that it does via Non-SSL (from the same directory).

Step 2: Install Joomla! and Configure It

For the purposes of this tutorial, we have installed our store software in a subdirectory named ‘/store’ which resides in the web root directory. Joomla! will comprise the main portion of our site, so that should be installed in the web root directory itself. Download Joomla! from www.joomla.org and install according to the instructions provided on the Joomla! website.

We recommend using the same email address and password for your initial administrator account as you did for your store software installation. If you activate the single-sign-on functions provided with this integration, making the login credentials the same now will make things easier on you.

Next, download the Joomla! extensions for your store software from the following location. Make sure you grab the correct extensions for your software version:

https://central.kryptronic.com/public/joomla-software/

You (at a minimum) must download and install the Connector Component and System Plugin. Other extensions are option depending on the functionality you desire. Here is a list of what’s available:

1 Component: Connector – provides an XML interface for ClickCartPro/EuropaCart to speak to Joomla! via the Internet for various functions. (Activation Required)

2 Plugin: System – provides system libraries for all ClickCartPro/EuropaCart Joomla! extensions to use. (Activation Required)

3 Plugin: User – provides an XML interface for Joomla! to speak to ClickCartPro/EuropaCart via the Internet for user management. (Activation Required if you want Single-Sign-On)

4 Plugin: Authorization – provides an XML interface for Joomla! to speak to ClickCartPro/EuropaCart via the Internet for user authorization. (Activation Required if you want Single-Sign-On)

5 Module: Widget Account – provides a way to import the ClickCartPro/EuropaCart account menu into the Joomla! template. (Not Required)

6 Module: Widget Categories – provides a way to import the ClickCartPro/EuropaCart categories menu into the Joomla! template. (Not Required)

7 Module: Widget Custom – provides a way to import the ClickCartPro/EuropaCart custom menu into the Joomla! template. (Not Required)

8 Module: Widget MiniCart – provides a way to import the ClickCartPro/EuropaCart mini cart into the Joomla! template. (Not Required)

9 Module: Widget MiniSearch – provides a way to import the ClickCartPro/EuropaCart mini search into the Joomla! template. (Not Required)

10 Module: Widget StoreMenu – provides a way to import the ClickCartPro/EuropaCart store menu into the Joomla! template. (Not Required)

11 Module: Widget Pages – provides a way to import the ClickCartPro/EuropaCart pages menu into the Joomla! template. (Not Required)

Login to your Joomla! administrative interface to manage your Joomla! installation.

First, go to the Site | Global Configuration function and be sure your cookie settings are correct, if cookie settings are listed in that function (not all Joomla! versions have cookie settings listed here – they may be in the global configuration.php file, or set by the Joomla! codebase). The cookie settings entered here should match what you entered during your ClickCartPro/EuropaCart installation. Use the cookie domain ‘.yourdomain.com’ (obviously replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain name) and the cookie path ‘/’. This allows our software to read our Joomla!’s cookies, which is necessary.

Next, go to the Extensions | Install/Uninstall function and choose to ‘Upload Package File’ for each of the extensions for ClickCartPro or EuropaCart you have downloaded. When complete, go to the Components | ClickCartPro Connector (or EuropaCart Connector) function and enter the full URL to your ClickCartPro or EuropaCart installation (for our tutorial it would be http://www.yourdomain.com/store/index.php) and a password for the connection. This password can be anything, but you need to remember it because it needs to be entered into the store software later.

Next, go to the Extensions | Plugin Manager function and enable all of the plugins for our software that you just installed. If you are installing ClickCartPro or EuropaCart in conjunction with jfusion to handle multiple single-sign-on applications, be sure that all jfusion Authentication and User plugins are last in execution order. Enable the Authentication and User modules if you will be using single-sign-on between our software and Joomla!. You must enable the System plugin.

Next, go to Menus | Main Menu (or any other menu) and choose to add a new menu item. The menu item type will be ‘External Link’ and it will need a title of ‘Online Store’ or something similar. Enter the full URL for your ClickCartPro or EuropaCart installation (for our tutorial it would be http://www.yourdomain.com/store/index.php) in the ‘Link’ field. After that menu item has been saved, on the following page you will see a number in the ‘ItemID’ column that’s used to identify your new menu item. Make note of that menu itemid number – you will need to enter it into the store software later. Be sure to set the ‘Template Style’ as ‘Use Default’, if you have that option.

Note: Our software accesses the page for the menu item you just created to import the Joomla! template into it’s skin. If you have Skin Imports activated, the modules which are active for that menu item in Joomla! will be displayed in the skin for your ClickCartPro or EuropaCart store. This gives you complete control of which modules are displayed for your store versus all of the other pages of your Joomla! site.

Next, go to Extensions | Module Manager. Locate the modules for our software that you just installed and activate any that you wish to have available in your Joomla! skin. You can use the assignment controls to control which widgets show on which pages. If you want these modules to show up in ClickCartPro or EuropaCart during skin imports, make sure they’re assigned to the menu item you just created for the Online Store, or simply assigned to all menu items (the default).

You may want to consider activating the ClickCartPro or EuropaCart account menu widget module and deactivating the default Joomla! User Menu module while using the Extensions | Module Manager function. The ClickCartPro and EuropaCart account systems are much more robust than those in Joomla! by default. BOth can run at the same time without problems, though.

Step 3: Configure ClickCartPro or EuropaCart to work with Joomla!

The next step is to login to your ClickCartPro or EuropaCart management interface and access the System | Component | Settings | Joomla! Connector Settings function. Here you can choose to:

1 Activate Joomla! Single-Sign-On – This status indicator allows you to activate (true) or deactivate (false) Joomla! Single-Sign-On. If you activate Joomla! Single-Sign-On, user information between this software and Joomla! will be synchronized and users will be given access to all resources when logging into either system. You need to make sure the Authentication and User plugins are activated in Joomla! if you turn this on.

2 Activate Joomla! Skin Importer – This status indicator allows you to activate (true) or deactivate (false) the Joomla! Skin Importer. If you activate the Joomla! Skin Importer, this software will import the template from Joomla! and use that template as a skin for all displays.

3 Activate Joomla! Skin Widget Export – This status indicator allows you to activate (true) or deactivate (false) Joomla! Skin Widget Exports. If you activate Joomla! Skin Widget Exports, skin widgets will be available to modules for inclusion in the Joomla! template. You need to make sure you install and activate at least one skin widget module in Joomla! installed and activated if you turn this on.

Make sure you complete your Joomla! URL (for our tutorial it would be http://www.yourdomain.com/index.php), and the password for this connection. The password is the same one you selected when you configured Joomla! to work with our software.

Next, enter the online store menu itemid. This is the numeric ItemID for the ‘Online Store’ menu item you created in Joomla! when configuring it.

Lastly, choose whether or not to use a cached version of the Joomla! template for your skin, and set the timing for the cache. This option is only applicable if you have selected to activate the Joomla! Skin Importer. Do not use a cached version of the Joomla! template if you are using dynamic Joomla! modules in your Joomla! template which change based on user login status or input (ie. login modules not part of ClickCartPro or EuropaCart).