Extendware Magento Blog

Magento Image Optimization

15.05.201521.05.2016 Extendware Team

Magento Image Optimization is an important performance enhancement that will speed up your Magento page load time. The easiest way to optimize all your Magento images without affecting your existing images is to use the Magento Image Optimization extension for Magento.

Why and when is image optimization important in Magento?

Image optimization affects every single page load. The reason for this is that each page includes unique images and as a result it cannot be cached by the browser well. In addition, low bandwidth and high latency connections such as those used by mobile devices will be benefited a lot from image optimization.

How do I enable image optimization in Magento?

It is simple. Follow these steps:

Purchase Magento Image Optimization for Magento and install it in your store
In your store backend go to Extendware -> Manage Extensions -> Image Optimization -> Configure and click the “Auto Configure” button. That’s it!

Quick Overview

Images are very important for online stores, but unnecessarily large images can slow down the user experience and reduce search engine rankings. Image Optimization will optimize your images and reduce their size without sacrificing image quality, so that your site images are faster loading.

Sorting Products by Newest in Magento

14.05.201521.05.2016 Extendware Team

Sorting products by newest is a great way to increase sales especially for repeat customers. Many times a customer will come and want to just view what is new especially if you sell few products. To sort products by newest all you need to do is use our product sorting extension.

How to List Products by Newest in Magento

To sort newest just follow these simple steps:

Install Product Sorting on your Magento store
Go to System -> Configuration -> Catalog and look under Frontend and change “Product Listing Sort by” to Newest if you want this to be the default sort option. Otherwise it will just appear in the sort drop down as an option for customers.
There is no step #3. It is that easy!

What else can be done with Magento product sorting?

The product sorting extension that you installed has many more features in addition to sorting by newest. You can also sort by best sellers, most viewed, highest converting, and more. You can even automatically sort out of stock products last.

Quick Overview

Magento Product Sorting increases the effectiveness of your online product catalog and can increase your conversion rates. Sort products on your sales page by Best Sellers, Top Performers, Most Viewed, Number of Reviews, and more. Easily cascade your sorting options – such as always showing in stock items first.

Magento exception: Invalid block type

10.04.201521.05.2016 Extendware Team

What does the “Invalid block type” exception mean?

This exception usually means that your layout files are referencing a block that does not exist. This could be because an extension was disabled / deleted or because there is a typo in one of the layout files.

How do I solve this type of issue?

Look at the block name and search your layouts for any reference to this block. You can then either remove the layout reference or create the block it is referencing.

I recommend to always use high quality Magento extensions to avoid errors like this. If you need help resolving this error you can utilize our Magento development services.

Quick Development Services Overview

We understand that sometimes there simply is not a pre-made extension that meets your specific needs. In these instances you need custom development. In addition, custom development can help squash bugs, debug 3rd party extensions, optimize your store, provide consultation, and more.

Magento “Can’t get filling percentage” memcached issue

03.04.201521.05.2016 Extendware Team

Some Magento store admins report that Magento is returning this exception when using memcached as a backend for either the Magento cache or the Magento Full Page Cache. This issue has its roots in the Zend Framework which returns this exception if memcache fails to return its extended stats.

To resolve this is fairly simple. All you need to do is edit the file [Magento root]/lib/Zend/Cache/Backend/Memcached.php and replace the getFillingPercentage() method with the below:

public function getFillingPercentage()
    {
        $mems = $this->_memcache->getExtendedStats();

        $memSize = null;
        $memUsed = null;
        foreach ($mems as $key => $mem) {
            if ($mem === false) {
                $this->_log('can\'t get stat from ' . $key);
                continue;
            }

            $eachSize = $mem['limit_maxbytes'];
            $eachUsed = $mem['bytes'];
            if ($eachUsed > $eachSize) {
                $eachUsed = $eachSize;
            }

            $memSize += $eachSize;
            $memUsed += $eachUsed;
        }

        if ($memSize === null or $memUsed === null) {
			$mem = $this->_memcache->getstats();
			if (isset($mem['bytes']) and $mem['limit_maxbytes'] > 0) {
				return ((int) (100 * ($mem['bytes'] / $mem['limit_maxbytes'])));
			}
        } else {
        	return ((int) (100. * ($memUsed / $memSize)));
        }

        return 100;
    }

public function getFillingPercentage()

{

$mems = $this->_memcache->getExtendedStats();

$memSize = null;

$memUsed = null;

foreach ($mems as $key => $mem) {

if ($mem === false) {

$this->_log('can\'t get stat from ' . $key);

continue;

}

$eachSize = $mem['limit_maxbytes'];

$eachUsed = $mem['bytes'];

if ($eachUsed > $eachSize) {

$eachUsed = $eachSize;

}

$memSize += $eachSize;

$memUsed += $eachUsed;

}

if ($memSize === null or $memUsed === null) {

$mem = $this->_memcache->getstats();

if (isset($mem['bytes']) and $mem['limit_maxbytes'] > 0) {

return ((int) (100 * ($mem['bytes'] / $mem['limit_maxbytes'])));

}

} else {

return ((int) (100. * ($memUsed / $memSize)));

}

return 100;

}

What exactly does this do?

It will make an additional attempt to get the filling percentage and if it cannot determine the filling percentage then 100 is returned which indicates it is full. In this way there will not be an exception thrown during the temporary periods when filling percentage cannot be determined.

Quick Extension Overview

Full Page Cache reduces your Magento store’s First Byte Time, Increases your web server request rate, reduces database load, and makes your store much more responsive. Extendware’s Caching solution is the best Magento Caching Performance Extension you can buy to speed up your store and easily pays for itself by saving you money rather than buying expensive hardware solutions to increase your Magento store optimization rates.

Magento Collection Filter by Visible Products

13.03.201521.05.2016 Extendware Team

If you are working on a custom project you might want to create a custom block and only show products that are visible. To do this is actually very simple in Magento. All you need to do is use the following code:

$collection = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->getCollection()->addAttributeToSelect('*');
$collection->addAttributeToFilter('status', Mage_Catalog_Model_Product_Status::STATUS_ENABLED);
$collection->addFieldToFilter('visibility', Mage_Catalog_Model_Product_Visibility::VISIBILITY_BOTH);

$collection = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->getCollection()->addAttributeToSelect('*');

$collection->addAttributeToFilter('status', Mage_Catalog_Model_Product_Status::STATUS_ENABLED);

$collection->addFieldToFilter('visibility', Mage_Catalog_Model_Product_Visibility::VISIBILITY_BOTH);

Don’t spend time re-inventing the wheel. Have a look at our Magento Admin Product Grid extension. For example, did you know you can use Magento product grid extension to more easily mark products visible or not visible directly in the grid?

Quick Extension Overview

Extendware’s Magento Admin Product Grid extension allows you to easily filter and edit your products within the product grid. You can add / remove columns, change the ordering of columns, filter by new attributes or categories, and much more. Editable Product Grid turns your Product Grid into a powerful editing tool.

Improving First Byte Time in Magento

16.02.201521.05.2016 Extendware Team

First Byte Time is very important for a stores usability and search engine ranking. Improving the First Byte Time can improve customer satisfication and rankings in search engines. The end result is more revenue for the store.

What exactly is First Byte Time (FBT)?

First Byte Time is one aspect of load time. Load time = First Byte Time + Download Time. In general, a First Byte Time is dependent on how fast your hosting platform is and the size of your Magento store. In addition, some extensions can slow First Byte Time. As bottlenecks increase the First Byte Time will also increase. In Magento the primary bottleneck is the database and in general waiting for the database is what causes most of the slow speed.

How can First Byte Time be improved?

The easiest way to improve First Byte Time is to use our Magento Full Page Cache. With our extension, the FBT can be drastically reduced. In some cases by as much as 100x. The page cache works by reducing load on the database and reducing processing of the page generation. The end result is a faster site and reduced server load.

Features of Extendware Page Cache?

The Extendware Full Page Cache is the fastest and most flexible page cache available for Magento. It even outperforms the Magento Enterprise Cache. It does this because it is multi-leveled. The primary cache does not even require sessions or database. The secondary cache supports advanced hole punches for dynamic content. The end result is the fastest store possible. Review the product page for a full list of features.

Extendware offers an array of performance extensions that affect different aspects of performance. Review all our Magento extensions to improve your store even more.

Quick Extension Overview

Magento Review Reminder

01.02.201521.05.2016 Extendware Team

Getting your products reviewed by real customers can boost sales significantly. Unfortunately, many customers forget to write reviews. Magento Review Reminder will help solve this issue for you by sending emails to customers after they have placed an order and reminding them to write a review.

The extension is very simple to use. You can send a series of reminders to customers in order to remind them to review and you can even include a coupon in the email.

Quick Overview

Review Reminder allows you to remind your customers to leave a review about the products in their order. You can send an unlimited number of follow-up emails and even attach a coupon to the follow-up to encourage reviews.

Magento Product Attachments

01.02.201521.05.2016 Extendware Team

Some products such as electronics, software, appliances, etc, might have electronic user guides, license agreements, and more. Magento Product Attachments will enable you to upload and associate these files with products, so that your customers can download them.

The extension is very simple to use. Attachments can be categorized and can be restricted by user group. Download count statistics can also be shown for each attachment and an attachment can be associated with multiple products.

Here is how an attachment will look on the frontend where customers can download it:

Quick Extension Overview

Easily associate files with products which make it easy to include user guides, software downloads, and other digital content that might be associated with the product you are selling with Extendware’s Magento Product Attachments extension. The popularity or download count of an attachment is also recorded.

Stopping Spam in Magento

29.01.201521.05.2016 Extendware Team

Spam is very annoying. Unfortunately, running a popular platform like Magento will make your store vulnerable to spam as bots exist that target Magento store. The biggest problem with spam is that it requires you to filter reviewed, support emails, etc, which wastes your time. Fortunately, we have a couple Magento extensions that can reduce spam in your store. There are two basic strategies:

Adding a CAPTCHA to forms

This is the most common strategy to stop automated bots from submitting forms. Our Magento captcha extension is the best solution to this. You can add either a Google reCAPTCHA or an Open Captcha to your contact form. You can also disable it for logged in users so it is less annoying to users.

Creating honey pots to block bad bots

The other strategy is to entice bots to submit data to hidden forms and identify them as a result. Once identified, they can be blocked from your site. Our Magento bot blocker extension accomplishes this for you. In addition, it will rewrite existing forms to make it difficult for automated bots to understand how to submit them. Bot blocker also has the added advantage of preventing bad bots from scraping your site for information as they will be banned once identified.

Quick Extension Overview

Stop spam bots and other bad bots that spam your store and increase your server load by repeatedly crawling your store with Extendware’s Bot Blocker extension. Automated and easy to use solution to block bad bots, free up server resources, and reduce the spam that is sent to your store.

Update Product Inventory Programmatically in Magento

27.01.201521.05.2016 Extendware Team

Using our Magento product grid extension or Magento bulk product editing extension can make it easy to update product information. However, sometimes you need ultimate flexibility that is only possible with a script. If you need to update product inventory programmatically you can use the following:

$productId = 169;
$stockItem = Mage::getModel('cataloginventory/stock_item')->loadByProduct($productId);
if ($stockItem->getId() > 0 and $stockItem->getManageStock()) {
	$qty = 100;
	$stockItem->setQty($qty);
	$stockItem->setIsInStock((int)($qty > 0));
	$stockItem->save();
}

$productId = 169;

$stockItem = Mage::getModel('cataloginventory/stock_item')->loadByProduct($productId);

if ($stockItem->getId() > 0 and $stockItem->getManageStock()) {

$qty = 100;

$stockItem->setQty($qty);

$stockItem->setIsInStock((int)($qty > 0));

$stockItem->save();

}

In this script you will need to set the $productId and $qty to the appropriate value. This script will only update the qty if the product inventory is managed. In addition, it will set the Stock Availability based on the qty status.

Need a more full featured store? Have a look at our Magento extensions.

Quick Admin Product Grid Overview

Quick Bulk Product Updating Overview

Effectively manage your products by using Bulk Product Updating. Easily bulk assign categories, product links, change product prices, and more. The Extendware Magento Bulk Product Updating extension will simplify and speed up your product management admin duties so you can get back to what you do best, selling.