How To Install Magento Extensions

Magento Extensions are simply great way of adding new features and functionality to your Magento powered stores. Magento is powerful E-commerce software to build highly scalable online store. Magento software is built on Zend PHP framework which provides great flexibility and reliability to Magento powered stores. No doubt, there are more than 1700+ extensions built for Magento stores, the number of extensions are increasing day by day.

How To Install Magento Community or Commercial Extensions?

There are various cool Magento extensions Live in Magento Connect repository. Magento Extensions are classified into two main categories:

1. Magento Core (Extension Created by Magentocommerce team)
2. Community Extensions (Free Magento Extensions Built by the Magento Community)
3. Commercial Extensions (Paid Magento Extensions)

Depending upon your need, required support you can choose any Magento extension to install. Once you have made up your mind of which extension to install, just follow the steps given below where i am presenting step by step instructions for installing Magento extensions.

Installing Magento Commercial Extensions

Commercial Magento Extensions are not sold via Magento Connect. You can browse those extensions from Commercial Magento Extensions but in order to install any of the commercial extension you need to go to the merchant site and buy the extension. After your successful purchase they will send you the zip file containing installation instruction and source code. All these commercial extensions are written by different companies so their style of installation might differ from each other. Just, focus on the installation instruction and you will know what to do. Don’t forget to go to admin area > System > Cache Management, “Refresh” option in the “All cache” dropdown and click “Save cache settings” button. You can always ask for support if you find the extension installation too difficult for you. Most of these extension merchants provide either Free or Paid support.

Install Magento Extensions via Magento Connect Manager (Community Extensions)

If you are about to install a Free Magento community extension from Magento Connect then follow the steps given below (Advance users may skip few steps):

1. Select the community extension by browsing huge Magento extension archive. OR, If you know the direct URL of your favourite extension just open its Magento connect URL
2. Now, you will see a button right under the theme image called “Get Extension Key”. You need to click “Get Extension Key” and agree to extension license agreement.

3. After you select agree checkbox and click “Get Extension Key” you will see the Magento extension key right there itself (displayed in the box). You need to paste this extension key in your store’s Magento connect tab. Keep it safe.
4. Copy this Magento extension key. E.g. It will look like “magento-community/Magik_Autocomplete”
5. In order to install this Magento community extension into your Magento store you need to login to your store admin panel and go to System->Magento Connect->Magento Connect Manager. Magento connect manager will ask you to login again. You need to use your store admin login credentials to get past the login screen. You need to paste the theme “extension key” copied from the Magentocommerce.com’s Magento connect here.

6. Installation process will begin and after successful install it will show a message. You can optionally click on “Refresh” button to see whether the extension is installed or not.
7. If the extension requires any post installation configuration then you should read & follow the documentation provided with the extension.
8. Your Magento extension is installed and Ready.

How To Install Magento Extensions From shell, using command line PEAR instructions

Suppose you own a Magento powered store which is Live with high traffic. Such high traffic store will surely face lots of hacking attacks. Leaving your folders and files writeable (chmod 777) will certainly leaves a big hole in your store’s security. In this case you might not want to download Magento extensions via Magento connect manager (which requires write permission on several folders). In this case you might want to install Magento extension using SSH Terminal.

1. Copy the Magento extension key as mentioned above
2. Log into your Magento SSH Terminal (Magento install directory)

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# set preferred stability for installed/upgraded packages (alpha,beta,stable):
./pear config-set preferred_state beta
 
# initial installation from downloader package:
./pear mage-setup .
./pear install magento-core/Mage_All_Latest
 
# install extension: (paste the extension key in front of ./pear install "Magento extension key"
./pear install magento-community/Your_Extension_Key
 
# list available upgrades
./pear list-upgrades
 
# upgrade a package
./pear upgrade magento-core/Mage_Package
 
# uninstall a package
./pear uninstall magento-community/Unwanted_Package

Note: Your PEAR package might be installed in “magento/downloader/pearlib”

This will successfully install a new Magento Extension using SSH Terminal. Few Magento extensions would require you to place specific directories to specific place. Read the manual and copy required files to those specific directories.

I would love to hear your experiences of installing Magento extensions using Magento Connect Manager or SSH Terminal. Please leave me a comment and let me know. Don’t forget to subscribe our RSS to receive latest updates delivered to your mailbox.

We are glad to announce our new FREE Magento Extension which helps in adding more than one Extra Fees (ex. Gift Wrap) in shipping & handling.

Magik Fees enables site owners to add extra fees to their products i.e. Gift wrap etc. Site owner can manage these fees from admin settings. Magik Fees extension is very easy to use which gives options to site owner so that they can add any number of extra fees in billing.

If you wish to download Magik Fees extension from Magento Connect please click here Download Magik Fees Extension.

Screenshots: (Click on the images to see the large preview)

Magik Fees Admin Settings

Frontend Billing section

Frontend Shipping section

We are glad to announce our new FREE Magento Extension which helps in “live search” for Products with an option to display product thumbnails along with description. Your current Magento installation can only show product names while searching. Where as our Magik Autocomplete extension can display product name, product description and small thumbnail as well. It is well known fact that only product name is not enough for searching a desired product so why not show them product thumbnail and small product description which gives better visibility for your products.

With this extension live search becomes more easier as user can get a quick overview of your products without waiting the search result pages to be displayed (without refreshing). Best thing about Magik Autocomplete extension is that it become more user friendly than the default magento install live search.

Magik Autocomplete extension comes with admin panel options to configure how you want your search results to be displayed. You can easily hide product thumbnail or product description using the admin configuration settings. You can customize the appearance of search box with the help of CSS to match with your current Magento theme.

If you wish to download MagentoMagik Autocomplete Search extension from Magento Connect please click here Download MagentoMagik Autocomplete Search Extension.

Screenshots: (Click on the images to see the large preview)

Frontend Live Search Bar

Admin Settings

Please leave me a comment and let me know if your run into any problems in installing and using our Autocomplete Search Magento Extension. Don’t forget to subscribe our RSS to receive latest updates delivered to your mailbox for free.

MagentoMagik store wise Feature Product extension helps the store owners to showcase different featured products for different stores running on single Magento installation.

Many store owners are using Magento Ecommerce software to launch more than one store with one backend (admin panel). This saves them from logging to multiple stores and manage products, orders etc.

Magik Store wise Featured Product Extension let store owners choose and manage their featured products in such a way that they can showcase different products per store. They can choose whether to glide products horizontally or vertically for each store.

I have seen other featured product sliders but most of them were able to showcase for one single store or same featured products can be displayed on all stores (Which is not what store owners would want). Best thing about Magik store wise featured products is that If you run multiple stores using single Magento installation then you can showcase your featured products for each and every store easily using this extension.

Moreover, Store Owner can upload custom built images and link those to their desired pages. This helps them in showing a custom image for any of their product (without changing actual product image).

If you wish to download MagentoMagik Store wise Featured Products extension from Magento Connect please click here Download MagentoMagik Store wise Featured Product Slider Extension.

Screenshots: (Click on the images to see the large preview)

Admin Setting for featured products

Featured Product showcase on frontend

Admin Settings for prebuilt images

Prebuilt Image showcase on frontend

We are constantly working hard to enhance our extensions and themes. Please leave me a comment and let me know if your run into any problems in installing and using our Store wise Featured Products Magento Extension. Don’t forget to subscribe our RSS to receive latest updates delivered to your mailbox for free.

MagentoMagik Product Slider helps the store owners to showcase their featured products on their home page. Products will glide either horizontally or vertically.

You can control the slide (horizontal/vertical) via admin panel and choose between horizontal or vertical slides. It hardly requires any technical knowledge. All you have to do is set the values once and rest will be done by the extension itself.

Using this extension you can also upload images (banners) and link those to a desired page in the slider rather than showing actual featured products.

If you wish to download Magik Slider extension from Magento Connect please click here Download MagentoMagik Slider Extension.

Screenshots: (Click on the images to see the large preview)

Admin Settings for Featured products slider

Featured Product slider on frontend

Admin settings for Image slider

Image slider's Frontend

We are glad to announce our new FREE Magento Extension which helps in sending mass emails out to their customers (those who have opted to sign up for email subscription). Sending an email from your existing Magento Installation was a pain as there is no such extension which helps in sending mass emails to the customers without putting load on the server.

If you are a non techinal person and fighting hard to understand Magento to send out mass emails then this extension will help you in great deal. This extension won’t require you to set cron files to send emails rather work on its own intelligent system to send mass emails without effecting your system and putting load on server.

This extension once installed will also helps you in selecting your preferred Email Template to send out to your customers. Moreover, if one or some of your customers do not wish to receive your newsletter and wish to unsubscribe then this extension will remember their choice and won’t send emails to those customers. Best thing about MagentoMagik Email Subscription extension is that you can select your template (email template to be sent) and customer emails in very few clicks which will really save you lot of time. You can easily select/deselect customers from your email subscription list without going back and forth.

If you wish to download MagentoMagik Email Subscription extension from Magento Connect please click here Download MagentoMagik Email Subscription Extension .

Screenshots: (Click on the images to see the large preview)

Selecting Magento's Email Templates

Selecting Customer Email Addresses