Hi there --

I want to set up a ECT store based on WordPress for a new venture. I'm seeing "Coming soon!" on a number of the new themes in the ECT store. Is there any anticipated release date? Here's a link to what I'm looking at -- https://www.ecommercetemplates.com/wordpress.asp

Regards,
DeeAnna

Classic Bells, Postville, Iowa, USA, http://classicbells.com/

Hi DeeAnna, have you seen this post?
https://www.ecommercetemplates.com/support/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=112435

That may help.
David

Thank you, Dave. The search function and I don't seem to get along very well. --DeeAnna

Classic Bells, Postville, Iowa, USA, http://classicbells.com/

I checked the ECT-Wordpress plugins and only see the ice and blackstuff themes available for download. Here's where I looked -- https://www.ecommercetemplates.com/free_downloads.asp#wordpress

I have been working with the blackstuff theme for some hours, and I'm frustrated. I get the feeling it's so simplified for "ease of use" that it's difficult to use. One deal breaker for this project is the low-contrast color scheme. This theme is not designed for readability and that has to be fixed. From what I can see, the ice theme isn't any much better on this score.

The colors and font sizes for the footer and header, etc. don't seem to be easily changeable from within the Wordpress admin -- looks like I'd have to use the code editor instead. I know the website owner isn't going to be able to manage this, and I don't want to. I need to find a theme that gives better control over the layout. Or a theme that is more legible to begin with, so fewer changes are required for legibility.

I created an ECT-WP website some years ago using a regular WP theme. While I concede that approach has its disadvantages, it does allow me to choose any WP theme that provides more control over readability and ease of use compared with blackstuff. I'd like to use this approach for this new website I'm creating. Is there a tutorial that would walk me through the process?

Also, I'm bemused to see that there are no files such as cart, product, productdetail, etc. in the root folder of the blackstuff theme as installed. If I can view the cart page using the URL mydomain.com/cart then it seems there should be a file named cart.php in the root folder. I've used a stand-alone website for my business for a long time, so maybe I'm just behind the times with the WP version. Is this a new thing or am I missing something?

Regards,
DeeAnna

Classic Bells, Postville, Iowa, USA, http://classicbells.com/

Hi DeeAnna
I'm sorry that this isn't going as you would like but can you give me an example of the low-contrast problem? Maybe this is something that can be resolved in teh configuration. Or if it is a general problem maybe something that can be fixed i the theme.
I was hoping to have more themes out now but some other stuff took over. If you let me know of any preference you have for the remaining themes I can maybe get it pushed up the priority list. But I'm hoping to get them rolling out this week anyway.

Vince

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One low-contrast area in the Blackstuff theme is the footer. The background is #333333 and the text is #000000. The contrast ratio is 1.66. It should be a minimum of 4.5 ratio and preferably closer to 7. See https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/?fcolor=333333&bcolor=000000

Even if the contrast issues are resolved, I have to say I would really prefer to use a theme that makes it easier for users to adjust the colors and general appearance. The website I'm working on is for an elderberry grower's business. I'd like to create a more rustic, softer feel to the website and Blackstuff has a rather modern, hard-edged appearance. That's fine for a computer store, but not for a store that needs to appeal to a crunchy granola crowd.

I finally found my notes from the other WP/ECT website I did some years ago, and as I recall it was not all that hard to adapt a regular WP theme to use the ECT store. Except the instructions I have are based on a version of the store that has the cart, product, product detail, etc. files in the root directory. Here are the notes I have from that earlier installation --

********

In Wordpress, go to APPEARANCE: THEME EDITOR. Locate THEME HEADER: HEADER.PHP and open that file for editing.
Modify this HEADER.PHP file to call the ECT store:

AFTER the first line in the HEADER.PHP file that looks like this:

<?php

ADD these lines of code:

/* Calls to the ECT store */
session_cache_limiter('none');
session_start();
ob_start();
include "vsadmin/db_conn_open.php";
include "vsadmin/inc/languagefile.php";
include "vsadmin/includes.php";
include "vsadmin/inc/incfunctions.php";
include "vsadmin/inc/metainfo.php";

********

Also modify the HEADER.PHP file to to call the CSS for the product, product detail, categories, and cart pages.
Do this by adding this line right below <head>:

<link href="css/ectcart.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">


********

Other mods: Go to all STORE main pages (products, proddetail, category, sorry, thanks, etc)
in the ROOT and copy and paste these lines. Modify the "include" line to call the correct PHP file (
in other words, change the "incsorry" line in the snippet below) --

<?php
$GLOBALS['ectcartpage']='products';
require('./wp-blog-header.php');
get_header(); ?>
<div id="primary" class="content-area">
<div id="content" class="site-content" role="main">
<?php
include "vsadmin/inc/incsorry.php";
?>
</div><!-- #content -->
</div><!-- #primary -->
<?php
get_sidebar( 'content' );
get_sidebar();
get_footer();

Classic Bells, Postville, Iowa, USA, http://classicbells.com/

Hi DeeAnna
Sorry it took a couple of days to get back to you about this. But I had a look at the theme and you are correct of course, the contrast is too low in the footer and I'll look at how to improve that. But, the theme also supports the wp_head() function which means that any custom CSS entered in the WordPress Customizer will be entered into the theme. So, for instance if you wanted to change the title color you could go to
WP-Admin -> Customizer -> Additional CSS
...and then enter...
#footer-widgets .widgettitle {
color: #F00;
}
(But obviously not red. )
And likewise for any other theme area you are not happy with.
The focus of these changes has been for making the pre-built themes easier to work with. But I'll have a look tomorrow at using the system with a 3rd party theme. Was there any theme you were looking at in particular?

Vince

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Hello, Vince,

Thank you for your kind reply. It can be really tough to hear criticism and respond with openness and thoughtfulness as you have done with me in this thread. After years of learning how to provide good customer support in my own business (and not always succeeding), I have learned to appreciate superb relationship and conversational skills like yours. Kudos to you!

You asked "...I'll have a look tomorrow at using the system with a 3rd party theme. Was there any theme you were looking at in particular?..."

I've been playing with the Twenty Sixteen theme from wordpress.org. I could live with it -- or the Twenty Nineteen theme.

I have to say I'd prefer this one, however -- https://themify.me/themes/basic It offers many options for customizing the look and feel, even though it's a free theme.

Regards, DeeAnna

Classic Bells, Postville, Iowa, USA, http://classicbells.com/

Hi DeeAnna

quote:

---

I have learned to appreciate superb relationship and conversational skills like yours. Kudos to you!

---

And thank you so much for saying so, that's very kind of you!

quote:

---

I have to say I'd prefer this one, however -- https://themify.me/themes/basic It offers many options for customizing the look and feel, even though it's a free theme.

---

I've been looking today at using 3rd party themes with the cart and I have to say it seems to be going really well. That is, now that I've got a couple of basic principles sorted out, it's a lot easier to merge the cart into a 3rd party theme than it was before. I'll send you the files that needed changing via email for the Themify Basic theme but I think it would be quite simple to get the top 3rd party themes integrated. The wp-ect-header.php is one of the changed files but the changes in that file can be used with the ECT templates too, so in the future that file won't need changing.

Vince

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Hi, Vince --

Thank you, THANK YOU for the updated files. I installed them yesterday, but am still having trouble accessing the store pages. It's probably something stupidly simple that I'm overlooking.

Would you help troubleshoot, please? In case you can, I'll send you the FTP info by PM.

I am learning about making "child themes" in Wordpress. Looks like the ECT-modded theme should be created as a "child" of the un-modded "parent" theme. That way the mods to the header.php and page.php files don't get overwritten during theme updates.

--DeeAnna

Classic Bells, Postville, Iowa, USA, http://classicbells.com/

Hi DeeAnna
Sure thing, send the FTP login details to my email and how to recreate the problem. The wordpress login would be good too.

Vince

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Ahhh, I see you'd already thought of that.
I think this could be because the URL's of the wordpress theme's category root is...
https://yourstoreurl.com/category/
...for the category root. That seems to give a 200 Ok and it should be possible to get the rest of the page structure from that.
I did have to make a change in the theme header as I hadn't added the base href for the SEO URL's. Now the images show for the products / categories.
I see you have already set up a child theme. I'm really interested in hearing about this as it would be great to be able to update the theme too.

Vince

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WP and FTP login info sent to you.

I've also been trying to figure out how to create a child theme, and I've been partially successful. The child shows up in the WP Admin as a theme that can be activated and used, but it doesn't look like I'm using the correct call to link the parent's style sheet with the child's style.css file.

Classic Bells, Postville, Iowa, USA, http://classicbells.com/

quote:

---

I am learning about making "child themes" in Wordpress. Looks like the ECT-modded theme should be created as a "child" of the un-modded "parent" theme. That way the mods to the header.php and page.php files don't get overwritten during theme updates.

---

That's right, you should always do that, hacking at themes (or core) always ends in tears https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/advanced-topics/child-themes/

Peter


Professional ecommerce web hosting services
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Ecommerce Templates specialists since 2003
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So I've been working on this child theme idea. The website URL is https://hyldesgarden.com for those who are curious.

My thinking is that css and theme files that are added or modded by ECT should be in the child theme. That would be ectstyle.css, ectcart.css, as well as the ECT modded files of header.php and pages.php. So I copied all of these files to the child's theme folder. Following this line of thinking, the only ECT-related files that would remain outside the child theme would be the ectcart.js file inside the js folder and the wp-ect-header.php file in the root.

***

I found I need to "enqueue" the style.css file located in the parent's theme folder as well as the ectstyle.css and ectcart.csss file in the child theme folder so these css files will all function in the child theme. With the help of a customizer add-on (I honestly have no idea what I'm doing), I've added these instructions to the child's functions.php file to --

<?php
/**
* Loads the parent stylesheet.
*/
function load_parent_stylesheet() {
wp_enqueue_style( 'parent-styles', get_template_directory_uri() . '/style.css' );
}
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'load_parent_stylesheet' );

// BEGIN ENQUEUE PARENT ACTION
// AUTO GENERATED - Do not modify or remove comment markers above or below:

if ( !function_exists( 'chld_thm_cfg_locale_css' ) ):
function chld_thm_cfg_locale_css( $uri ){
if ( empty( $uri ) && is_rtl() && file_exists( get_template_directory() . '/rtl.css' ) )
$uri = get_template_directory_uri() . '/rtl.css';
return $uri;
}
endif;
add_filter( 'locale_stylesheet_uri', 'chld_thm_cfg_locale_css' );

if ( !function_exists( 'child_theme_configurator_css' ) ):
function child_theme_configurator_css() {
wp_enqueue_style( 'chld_thm_cfg_ext1', 'https://hyldesgarden.com/wp-content/themes/basic-child/ectstyle.css' );
wp_enqueue_style( 'chld_thm_cfg_ext2', 'https://hyldesgarden.com/wp-content/themes/basic-child/ectcart.css' );
}
endif;
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'child_theme_configurator_css', 30 );

// END ENQUEUE PARENT ACTION

***

In the ECT modified header.php file as provided by Vince, I deleted the two bolded lines below, since they seem redundant with the functions.php (above).

<link href="<?php print site_url('/') ?>css/ectcart.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
<script src="<?php print site_url('/') ?>js/ectcart.js"></script>
<link href="<?php echo get_template_directory_uri()?>/ectstyle.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

***

Areas where there is supposed to be content from the Store are blank. I'm not getting 404 errors. Just blank. I'm at a bit of a loss at this point -- I don't have the skills to troubleshoot this issue.

--DeeAnna


Classic Bells, Postville, Iowa, USA, http://classicbells.com/

Hi DeeAnna,
1. Remove what you have in functions.php (the file in your child theme) and add this below:
<?php
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'my_theme_enqueue_styles' );
function my_theme_enqueue_styles() {

$parent_style = 'parent-style'; // This is 'themify-basic-style' for the Themify Basic theme.

wp_enqueue_style( $parent_style, get_template_directory_uri() . '/style.css' );
wp_enqueue_style( 'child-style',
get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/style.css',
array( $parent_style ),
wp_get_theme()->get('Version')
);
}

2. Put the header.php 2 lines back that you removed
3. Upload page.php that Vince sent you to the themes/child theme directory
4. Upload a style.css file to your child theme directory with the following contents:

/*
Theme Name: Themify Basic Child
Description: Child theme for Basic
Author: Your Name
Template: basic
Custom CSS can be added to this file, any code you add to this will overwrite the style.css in the basic directory
*/

div.yourstyle{color:#fff;} */just an example


That should do it





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Thank you for your thoughtful reply, Phil. That's pretty much what I originally came up with and it certainly works.

But it seems odd to create a child theme but still end up modifying the parent theme's header.php and page.php files. I thought the point of a child theme was to put all mods in the child theme. I'll concede I'm not any expert at the php language, however, so my ability to analyze and solve this puzzle is limited.

What I do know is I set up a Wordpress/ECT website some years ago with a modded parent theme (not knowing any better). I had to fix that darn header.php file and sometimes tweak the css whenever the theme was updated. It was the best I knew how to do at the time, but I'd sure like to do better now.

And it also seems that a css file that specifically relates to the mods should also be located in the child theme. There might well be good reasons why ectcart.css is outside the theme folder and being an outsider and a rookie, I don't know those reasons. So I'm not throwing stones, just wondering about something that seems odd from my outsider viewpoint.

Regards,
DeeAnna

Classic Bells, Postville, Iowa, USA, http://classicbells.com/

quote:

---

I thought the point of a child theme was to put all mods in the child theme.

---

It is. What you have is all well and good if you never update the theme, but as soon as you do (whether that happens automatically or manually) the site will be hosed. It would appear from this https://themify.me/changelogs/basic.txt that the theme is updated pretty regularly. Whether those theme updates are absolutely necessary to keep everything working I couldn't say, but as a matter of good policy, you want to be running the latest versions of core, plugins and themes to avoid bad things happening.

Peter


Professional ecommerce web hosting services
Shared hosting Windows & Linux | Dedicated servers | Domains | SSL
Ecommerce Templates specialists since 2003
https://servelink.com

quote:

---

But it seems odd to create a child theme but still end up modifying the parent theme's header.php and page.php files.

---

You would add page.php and header.php to your child theme and make any changes to those files. Any other files you make changes to make sure they're in your child theme.

Did you edit/set the path to your child theme in the wp-ect-header.php file?

Something like this:
require_once './wp-content/themes/themify-basic-child/page.php';
where themify-basic-child is the name of the directory of your child theme



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Hello, Phil --

As I was lying in bed last night, I realized the website wasn't using the header and page files in the child theme -- it was still using these files in the parent theme. But I hadn't a clue how to fix that, and today I see your suggestion addressing this very issue. It worked!

In wp-ect-header.php as originally written, the last line is --
require_once './wp-content/themes/' . $ectthemename . '/page.php';

I replaced it with your version --
require_once './wp-content/themes/themify-basic-child/page.php';

where "themify-basic-child" was replaced with the actual name of the child theme.

The two ECT CSS files are still inside the child theme folder. The child's functions.php is as I described earlier so it will enqueue these two CSS files.

It seems so far that this is working fine. The only ECT related files outside the child theme at this point is wp-ect-header.php and the ectcart.js file. I'm sure there are ways to make this code more generic for any website and WP theme, but I'll leave that to more capable hands if people want to take this idea further.

My grateful thanks to all who contributed to this discussion! Your ideas and suggestions have been a big help to me and I hope other people can benefit.

Regards,
DeeAnna

Classic Bells, Postville, Iowa, USA, http://classicbells.com/

Hi DeeAnna
Things have improved so you don't now need to edit the file wp-ect-header.php and that means you can just switch between themes as for any other wordpress theme. More details here...
https://www.ecommercetemplates.com/support/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=112435
It really is quite easy to convert a theme so if there are any others you would like to see converted, please let me know.

Vince

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