Fontis Ecommerce Blog: Commerce Advice and Insights

Magento provides a simple user account signup page. However, some online stores might want to collect relevant customer information for more targeted and personal interactions with their customers. Some examples of details that could be collected include shoe size, clothing size or favourite colour.

Adding your custom fields on the signup form is not difficult, but it is not trivial either, since one cannot use the Magento backend for the task. As an example of how it can be done, I will demonstrate the addition of a new custom field to the signup form asking new users to enter their favourite ice cream flavour.

1. We need to make a module to extend the functionality of the customer model. Start by adding the module xml file to the app/etc/modules/ directory. You need to decide on a module name. In this example we will use the Fontis scope, and call the module 'Customer'. Therefore we need to create a file named Fontis_Customer.xml and add the following content:

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We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of Fontis M2M Sync for synchronising customers, products and orders between Magento and MYOB. Using our software will allow you to speed up your sales and accounting processes and eliminate the errors associated with manual transfer of the same information.

This is a Windows application that runs on your local computer with MYOB installed, and connects remotely to your Magento store. We are providing the software on a yearly subscription basis, which includes comprehensive documentation, support, upgrades, and a 30-day money back guarantee.

I recently needed to create custom 'arrays' within Magento's admin panel to support drop-down lists rather than just text fields. This can be a much more convenient means of configuring more complicated backend settings.

When I say 'arrays', I'm talking about the type of interface element you can see if you go to System -> Configuration -> General -> Design -> Themes in the Magento admin interface and click one of the 'Add Exception' buttons. Each time you click the 'Add Exception' button, you'll be presented with a pair of text fields. You can add news rows and delete existing ones, and they'll still be there when you save the config settings.

If your Magento site supports reviews and ratings for products, as many do, then adding a way to sort by product rating is a feature that your customers may appreciate. The following is a quick way to add in "Rating" as a valid sort selection in category toolbars.

First we shall alter the way products are retrieved from the database, to include the overall rating (shown as the number of stars on the product) along with the rest of the product attributes. Copy the file app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/Block/Product/List.php to app/code/local/Mage/Catalog/Block/Product/List.php and open it for editing.

We are pleased to announce the release of our latest Magento extension, Fontis reCAPTCHA, which adds in CAPTCHA elements to the "Send to a Friend", "Contact Us" and customer registration forms, increasing the difficulty for spammers to misuse your forms and send UCE. The extension was developed after observing the "send to friend" form (in particular) being abused on a number of live Magento sites. This is a popular feature, and rather than disabling it, using the reCAPTCHA system can substantially reduce spam submissions without overly inconveniencing legitimate human users.

We have a client who has created a number of sub-stores under their main Magento website, so that each of these stores has its own Magento skin, logo and so forth. However, they also have associated subdomains, which normally must be manually specified in the main index.phpfile so that Magento can be told to run the appropriate store in place of the default. This post details a way to automate the process and make it easier for the user to add additional sub-stores themselves.

Our WYSIWYG Editor extension is now the 7th most downloaded extension on Magento Connect! With over 9000 downloads and counting, it's great to see how many members of the Magento community have found the extension useful.

As one of the most requested features for inclusion in Magento, demand for a WYSIWYG editor is unlikely to go away any time soon, so we're happy to have been able to provide an easy-to-install solution. We have a number of ideas on how to keep improving the extension, so be sure to check back for future updates on the extension page.