OpenCart Portal – Open Source e-Commerce software Open Cart e-commerce portal. Advice, tutorials, add-ons and everything you need to know about this Open Source shopping cart.
If you are making some changes to your OpenCart store to tailor it exactly to your needs, at some point you will stumble upon VQMod library, which is the virtual system modifications required by manz modules. The name sounds pretty threatening, but fear not – VQMod installation is very easy and once done, you don’t need to change anything.
What is VQMod?
Modifying core functionality of major CMS systems and e-commerce stores require changes in the basic system files. Such modifications can be very cumbersome, may generate many errors and problems, and thus expansion store or portal with new module can be tricky.
An example of such a system is the popular phpBB forum, which require changes to several system files even in theme modification. To deal with this problem and avoid manual changes in OpenCart core files with every addon installed, VQMod was created. VQMod scripts are saved in the form of XML files and automatically loaded with every website refresh. Therefore, if you want to add or remove a module that originally would have required significant changes in base OpenCart files, simply remove or add the appropriate XML file by uploading it to an FTP server. Modules that require vQModa also have these XML files, which are simply added to the directory “vqmod” in the store root folder. To start working with these modules, you must first install the VQMod.
How to install VQMod
Installation
1. Download the VQMod script, available on it’s Google Code page: http://code.google.com/p/vqmod/
2. Download the latest version, marked as “OpenCart”. This extension can be used to edit any PHP scripts, but as you are building OpenCart store you will be interested in a this particular version, dedicated for OpenCart.
3. Unzip the file and upload the entire folder named “vqmod” to store root (main installation folder). It should have permission 755 or 777 (by default, these permissions should be applied to it, so usually there is no need to change).
4. Type in your browser the following address: http://yourstore/vqmod/install, where “yourstore” is, of course, address of your store.
5. You should see the message “Install successful.” If not, check permissions and directory contents on an FTP server and change if necessary.
From now on you can load modules that use vQMod.
- Never delete the “Install” directory.
- If you do store upgrade to a newer version, run the VQMod installation again.
- You will not lose any data by installing the vQMod again.
