CoreCommerce

To see your blog on the front end, go to http://.../cart.php?m=blog_post_list. Just substitute the … with the actual URL of your web store. i.e. http://my_sample_store.corecommerce.com/cart.php?m=blog_post_list

There are three main parts to the CoreCommerce blog feature. They are posts, blog categories, and comments.

Categories

You can create blog categories to help you organize your posts into an intuitive and easy to navigate hierarchy. To get to your blog categories, in your CoreCommerce admin mouse over the Site Content tab and click on Categories in the right most column. Here are some of the highlights of blog categories.

• Blog categories are flat. You can't create sub categories or mark some categories as parents of others.

• They work with multiple languages.

• Every post can be assigned to an unlimited number of categories.

Posts

To get to your blog posts, in your CoreCommerce admin mouse over the Site Content tab and click on Posts in the right most column. The screen that loads will allow you to add, edit and delete posts. Here are some highlights of blog posts.

• Blog posts work with multiple languages.

• They can be assigned to any number of blog categories.

• The post teaser shows up below its title on the post listing page.

• The post description shows up on the post detail page. The user can get there via a direct link or by clicking on the post's title on a post listing page.

• All posts you add in the admin will automatically show up on the front end of your store.

• You can quickly view all comments tied to a specific post (explained in the Comments section)

Comments

Visitors to your site can look at post listings, check out individual posts and leave feedback if they desire. When a user submits a post comment, it is saved in the system, but is not displayed on the front end of your store until it has been approved by an admin user. To get to your blog comments, in your CoreCommerce admin mouse over the Site Content tab and click on Comments in the right most column. Here are some highlights of blog post comments.

• When a user submits a comment they'll be able to specify their name and feedback. Both fields are required.

• When a comment is first saved, it's assigned a Pending status which will keep it from showing up on the front end.

• When you edit a comment as an admin, you can only change its status. The two statuses are Pending and Active.

• You can view all comments for a single post by going to the Posts section in the admin, using the search to find the post you're interested in, mousing over that post's row (the row will turn blue), mousing over the gear icon that appears and clicking on View Comments in the drop down menu.

Widgets

We've also added a couple of widgets you can include in your design to help users consume your blog information. You can include them in your store by using the Manage Design feature in your admin. In your CoreCommerce admin, click on the Design tab. When the page loads, mouse over the “Sidebar” tab and click on “Add Widgets” In the dropdown in the middle choose “List Widgets” and you'll see the “Blog Categories” and “Blog Archives” widgets.

The “Blog Categories” widget will display a list of all blog categories you've added in the admin. When a user clicks on one of the categories, they'll be taken to a paginated list of all posts that are tied to that category. The posts will be presented in a descending order (newest first).

The “Blog Archives” widget will display a list of all months you have created a post in. The list will use a month year (i.e. October 2011) format and group dates by month (so if you created multiple posts in October of 2011, that date will only show up once in the widget). When a user clicks on one of the dates, they'll be taken to a paginated list of all posts that were created in that month and year. The posts will be presented in a descending order (newest first).

Below is a video that goes over the blog feature.