PrestaShop - Module Info - Agile membership new version with free membership support

A new version of Agile Membership management module 1.2.0.5 is released today.
With this new version release, it now supports free membership. The following new features are added to existing many other features available now.

What's new
As store owner, you are able to setup unlimited number of free membership types.
What you need to do is set register products under membership category and set the price to 0.

For all free membership, the module will automatically apply following limits
- Each user can only use one time for each type of free membership type.
- If user try to order/purchase/buy the free membership type that he/she has been used before, a alert "do not quolify" message will be displayed on the shopping cart. See below screenshot image.
-Even if user add and purchase the same free membership type, it will not be added as valid membership.





What is Agile Membership management module?
Agile Membership management module is a PrestaShop membership module. It is easy to install and configure. It will help store owners manage their membership based online store effectively and focus on their on business. With Agile Membership, you will have control of membership fees, membership expiration, member only access contents.

To buy or see more detail, please visit
http://addons-modules.com/

You can also see live demo here
http://agileservex.com/prestashop-membership-management/

PrestaShop Module - Agile Task/Job Scheduler for PrestaShop 1.3x/1.4x

Today, addons-modules.com has just released a new module - Agile Task/Job Scheduler for PrestaShop 1.3x/1.4x.



Agile task/job scheduler is a PrestaShop module that facilitates task/job scheduling function. By using Agile task/job scheduler, as PrestaShop owner/admin, you will be able to automate some of management tasks. For example you can set following task to be run automatically: store maintenance, announcements, daily stock/inventory report and daily order report by email.


Features

• You can schedule tasks/jobs to be executed at your specified time in PrestaShop
  
• You specify frequency of the tasks/jobs by different intervals at minute, hour, week, day, month, or year level
  
• For announcement tasks/job, you can select the announcement message display location such as home, left column, right column.
  
• You are able to manage to tasks/jobs at your PrestaShop back office Tools - Tasks tab
  
• You can easily enable and disable the task/jobs by one click at the task list
  
• You are able to see the tasks/jobs execution history/log at your PrestaShop back office Tools - Task Log tab
  
• You are able to specify to receive a email report of the task/job execution result, such as stock/inventory report, order sale report
  
• The module is extensible, by using SQL Execution type of task/job, you can run any kind of SQL statement to update or get report from PrestaShop database.
  
• By using Maintenance type of task, you can set your PrestaShop store to maintenance mode at scheduled time and restore to normal mode automatically.
  
• By using Announcement type of task, you can display any messages ay your scheduled time, such as

Store maintenance announcement
Promotion announcement
News release announcement
Other kind of announcement

Demo site
You can have live demo experience here
http://agileservex.c...-job-scheduler/

Please contact us for admin access to the demo site


Where get the module
You can get more detailed information at
http://addons-modules.com/


Screenshot images

List of task - back office - Tools tab - Tasks tab



Task details/editing page - back office - tools tasks



Task logs page - back office - tools tab- task logs tab



Announcement task - announcement displayed on home page
(You can choose to display on different locations such as left column/right column/home)


Task execution report by email report

PrestaShop TIPS - Issues when your PrestaShop 1.4x at maintenance mode

Back ground information
This tips is for PrestaShop owner who are facing page error when you access your PrestaShop store at its maintenance mode.

As PrestaShop owner, you know there is a function that you can set your PrestaShop to maintenance mode to prevent user from accessing your store. You can set your store to maintenance mode at back office admin page.

Log in to your back office
Click Preference tab
Set "Enable store" to "No"
You can also set the some IP address to allow access from specific IP address




The issue
When you set your store at maintenance mode, general visitors will get an page error and most browsers will redirect visitor to some other pages or even goes to search page. Your store"maintenance message" only appears a few seconds. Below is images showing how this happens.

This is not good to your site, because it will give visitors wrong message.

This screen transit is from my Firefox browser.


This screen transit image is from my IE



Causes of the issue
Why this will happen?
This is because PrestaShop send a "HTTP/1.1 503 temporarily overloaded" message to visitor's browser. Here is code from PrestaShop 1.4x


header('HTTP/1.1 503 temporarily overloaded');
self::$smarty->display(_PS_THEME_DIR_.'maintenance.tpl');
exit;


Solution to the problem The solution to this issue is very easy.
what you need to do is to delete or comment out the following line by adding two "/" in front of the line.

//header('HTTP/1.1 503 temporarily overloaded');


Personally, I don't it is necessary and HTTP error to browser when the PrestaShop store under maintenance mode. It is not an HTTP at, it is normal maintenance mode.

Paypal Tips - Paypal error - This invoice has been paid

This is a tip for those online Store owners who are using Paypal as payment method.


The Problem
If you own multiple online stores and want you want to use one Paypal account to collect sales, then you will need to configure "allow invoice duplication", otherwise you may encounter following errors.

"This invoice has been paid. For more information, please contact merchant."




Why this error will happen?
Paypal has function to block duplication invoice, by default, this function is on.
So when your customer try to perform payment from different store, the invoice ID might be has been used from another store. So the error will be displayed.


Solution This can be fixed by changing one setting from within Paypal, so log in to your Paypal account do the following:

1. Click "Profile" on the top menu bar.
2. Click "My Selling Tools Preferences"
3. Look for "Block payments" and Click "Update"
4. Under "Block Accidental Payments", choose "No, allow multiple payments per invoice ID".




After this setting, the issue should be fixed.


Agile Paypal Express Checkout module is one of the popular PrestaShop paypal payment module, provided by addons-modules.com. The module has lot of very good features that standard Paypal module does not have. For example, express checkout feature will allow customer to finish checkout process in just a few click instead of going through tedious address and personal information input. The module will automatically get those information from Paypal account and create user account automatically after payment. The module has a flexible recurring payment features that is the best for recurring subscriptions.

See more information, please visit here

PHP coding tips - Error URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration

From time to time, you will need to get a web page content in your PHP code and use the content to generate some other contents.

For example, you have customer address, and you want to get Google Maps geocode of the address in your PHP code, you can use following code

$url = "http://maps.google.com/maps/geo?q" . $address . "&output=xml";
$xml = file_get_contents($url);

$status = $xml->Response->Status->code;
if ($status=='200') { //address geocoded correct, show results
$pos = explode(",",$xml->Response->Placemark[0]->Point->coordinates);
$geoLat = $pos[1];
$geoLng = $pos[0];
}

Problems
Some time you will find your call to the URL failed and get no result.

If you print out the error message, you will find something like this

Warning: include() [function.include]: URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in /home/xxxxxx/public_html/index.php on line 222


Solution
In order to run file_get_contents($url), your server need be configured to allow PHP code calling URL access. This configuration is in php.ini file, with following line set value to "on"

allow_url_fopen = On;

So the simple solution to add above line in your php.ini file if it is not there.
Or you can just create one line php.ini file and put the file under your site root.
The issue should be resolved.

Happy coding....