Tag Archives: magento admin

Magento Selling clothing (or anyother product with options) while having Magento keep track of stock

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Creating confugurable products is more work than adding custom attributes but it might be better in some cases (keeping track of stock, having one set of attributes to select from etc).

In short the steps needed are

  1. Create the attributes that will be configurable by the user – for our example they will be Size and Color
  2. Create the attribute set that will be assigned to the variant products – for our example, we’ll call it “T-shirt”
  3. Create the individual variant products
  4. Create the configurable product, and add the “T-shirt” attribute set
  5. Add the individual variants to this configurable product

Create the attributes that will be configurable by the user – for our example they will be Size and Color
In the adminpanel this is under Catalog->Attributes->Manage Attributes
Scope needs to be set to Global and Input type to drop down. Once this is done then Use To Create Configurable Product is shown and this should be set to yes. Setting required to yes is a good idea as well.

Under label / options create a label (for instance size) and give the different options it can take.

Repeat for all attributes you want to create (for instance size and color)

Create the attribute set that will be assigned to the variant products – for our example, we’ll call it “T-shirt”
Now we’re ready to create an attribute set called “T-shirt” to start using for this product. Go to “Catalog -> Attributes -> Manage Attribute Sets” and press “Add New Set”.
Give the new set a name and then drag and drop the attributes to the group where you want them to be when creating a product.

Create the individual variant products
Create a product and make sure that you use the attribute set you have created. Add the attributes where you placed them.


Repeat for all the products you have

Create the configurable product, and add the “T-shirt” attribute set

Add the individual variants to this configurable product
This can be done when the configurable product is created or later on using edit product.

And then it should look something like this in the shop

Magento Selling clothing (or another product with options) without having Magento keep track of stock

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Some products have a number of options that are important for the customer to select.
Here I show how to make a product with options (color and size) where Magento only sees one product – so it won’t it will not be possible to see how many large in red you have from Magento.

When you create a product in the admin panel there is a label Custom Options.


Use “Add new option” to make the option (color, size or whatnot)
Then for each of the options use add new row to add the deferent values that the option can have.
The column labeled price is for adding a extra cost for a option (if for instance the red shirt should be more expensive).

Then this will look something like this in the store

Then only down sides I have seen with this is that I have to add the options one time for each of the products (but that is also nice since not all products have the same values) and that Magento will treat this as one single product so I can’t let Magento manage the stock for this/these products.

Magento: Problem uploading images

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When I was truing to upload images to products in the Magento admin panel I got the following error:
SSL Error: Invalid or self-signed certificate while uploading image from backend

The way I solved this issue was by setting the timezone on the computer that I was uploading from to the same timezone as the settings in Magento.

Other suggestions to try out if that don’t work:

  • If you are using certificate: Verify that it is valid, you have correct domains etc
  • Set use secure url in admin to false

Creating sitemap(s) in magento

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A sitemap is a xml file that is used by (for instance) search engines to get a better overview of your site. It gives details about what pages exists and how ranks the pages towards themselves.
Despite the name the sitemap is not Google specific, it can be used for any search engine, or any other reason that you need a sitemap.

Create a folder for the site map and make it writable

First figure out where to place the sitemap(s) and make that location writable by the webserver.
In a Linux environment this is done from the console this is done like:

mkdir sitemap
sudo chown admin:www-data sitemap
sudo chmod 775 sitemap
touch sitemap/index.php

The touch index.php will create a empty index file (that keeps the folder from being listed.

Define a sitemap

In the admin panel go to “Catalog->Goolge Sitemap->Add sitemap”

Fill out this form with values that makes sense to you.
Note: If you have sveral stores one website, then all product that are visible on that website is added to the sitemap.

Make the site map update automatically

In the admin pangel go to “System->Configuration->Google sitemap”

As always, change to values that makes sense to you

Another (older) way of doing this is described by the guys at inchoo

Magento: Enabling Template/Block Hints in the Admin Panel

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If you would like to turn on Template hits and block names in the admin panel this can be quickly done via the database.

INSERT INTO core_config_data (scope, scope_id, path, VALUE)
VALUES ('default', 0, 'dev/debug/template_hints', 1),
('default', 0, 'dev/debug/template_hints_blocks', 1);

Note, don’t forget to add your prefix if you are using one.

To turn this off once you are done, either delete these rows from the database, or set the values to 0. (If you set them to 0 you can later reactivate this by just swapping it back to 1, but the insert statement won’t work any more.

Magento: Starting SOAP (adding a user)

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In order to get SOAP up and running you will need to add a web services user in the admin panel.

    First add a role for the user. (Roles are used to limit the permissions of the user)

    • System->Web Services->Roles->Add new role
    • Give the role a name
    • Set permissions for the role
  • Then create the user with these permissions
    • System->Web Services->Users->Add new user
    • Add information about the user (the API key is the password used for SOAP)
    • Under roles bind the user with the previously created role

Magento: Selling string (cloth or any other item with a decimal value)

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Some items (such as string, cloth, fluids etc) can be sold in decimal values.

This example will show how to sell string in meters (price etc) but where the customer can order any length – but at least 30 centimeters.

In admin->catalog make the string as a product and under inventory set “Minimum Qty Allowed in Shopping Cart” to “0.3” and “Qty Uses Decimals” to yes. Set up the price as the price per meter.
Also please make sure that the information about the product states that the any length (over 0,3 m) can be ordered and that the price is per meter.

When the customer adds 2.5678 m in the basket, magento will calculate the correct price and show it to the customer.