Getting started with PrestaShop 1.4

Whether you are a computer expert or novice, the PrestaShop™ e-Commerce solution lets you take any business online.

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1. Verify that you can meet all system requirements.
2. Install or update PrestaShop on your hosting server.
3. Configure the PrestaShop Back Office:
   1. Create your own graphical theme and make changes to logos and other images.
   2. Build your product catalog : Import a product database, create categories and subcategories, register your products and their images, attributes, and features.
   3. Install and configure your payment module(s). (Contact us directly for information on purchasing payment modules for specific banks.)
   4. Configure other elements such as shipping costs, currencies, taxes, notification e-mails, and languages.
   5. Select which products to display on the homepage as New Products, Top Sellers, and Featured Products.
4. Open your Web store!

System Requirements

Before downloading or installing anything, you need to provide a home for your PrestaShop online store. This means it needs to reside on a Web server. You might have a Web server of your own, but it is more likely that you have or will have your shop hosted by an Internet hosting service.

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Install PrestaShop

Now that you have made sure that the necessary components are installed on your hosting server, there are a few things to check before installing the PrestaShop e-Commerce software.

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Keep a test version handy!

After you have completed setting up your shop to get it just the way you want it, but before officially opening it to the buying public, we strongly recommend that you install a local test version on your personal computer (using WAMP for Windows, MAMP for Mac, or LAMP) for Linux), or elsewhere on your hosting server.

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Update PrestaShop

Done well, the whole update process described within these steps should not take more than half an hour. Do not try to skip a step in order to be done with it faster, as they all are crucial.

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• Via email: [email protected]

Step 1: Save and Backup Your Current Shop

This step consists of backing up your database and your files. This step is not avoidable for success and should never ever be ignored or skipped. Do not proceed to step two without completing this step.

A. Backing Up Your Files

You must save all of the files related to your PrestaShop store.

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• Ask your hosting company to back up your files.
  Make sure that this backup is fully functional, recent, and more importantly that it reflects the content of your current store. 
• Or, copy all of your FTP files from your server to your local computer
  This method is only possible if your hosting provider has provided you with an FTP access to your server. Create a “Backup” folder on your computer, then, using an FTP client (such as FileZilla), select all the PrestaShop files and folders on your server (use the Ctrl-A command) and copy them to your “Backup” folder.

B. Deactivating Your Store

Go to your store’s back-office, click on the “Preference” tab, then select “No” for the “Enable Shop” option.

In the “Maintenance IP” field, located just below the “Enable Shop” one, enter your own IP address, so that you can keep on using your store during the update. This will allow you to test the store, while still making sure visitors cannot access the website.
In order to find out your IP address, visit this page: http://www.myip.dk/

C. Backing Up Your Database

You must absolutely back up the whole database in conjunction to your PrestaShop store.

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• Ask you hosting provider to back up your database
  Be sure that your database backup is functional, recent, and especially that it contains all of your data for your PrestaShop Store.
• Or, download a copy of your database via phpMyAdmin
  Be sure that your database backup is functional, recent, and especially that it contains all of your data for your PrestaShop Store. If your database is too big, you might receive an error. If that is the case, you will need to contact your hosting provider.
• Or, download a Database Backup from your PrestaShop Back-Office
  Visit the “Tools tab, then the “DB backup” sub-tab. This process will take between 1 and 20 minutes depending on the size of your database. Make sure this backup is functional, recent, and especially that it contains of all the data of your website. Open the zip file and make sure that there are absolutely NO ERRORS before proceeding to the next step.

D. Backing up Your Customized Translation

If you did not add any personalized translation at the root of your modules, please proceed to step 2.

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Save the downloaded file into a backup folder of your choice, on your local computer…

E. Before going to the next step

Verify your Backup folder, does it contain…

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If you answered yes to all of the questions above, then proceed to Step 2.

Step 2: Getting Ready for the New Version

This step consists of preparing the files that you will need to copy into the new version of PrestaShop.

A. Downloading and Unzipping of the Latest PrestaShop Version

Visit http://www.prestashop.com and download the latest version of PrestaShop (click the “Download” button on the homepage). You now should have a file: prestashop_1.x.x.zip (where “x” represents the version number).
Unzip the file to your computer. If you do not yet have an unzipping tool, you can download a free one here: http://www.7-zip.org/ .
Once unzipped, open the “prestashop” folder that it contained.

In that “prestashop” folder, select the “admin” folder and rename it to something unique to you (for instance, “admin436”. Your online store currently also has a unique “admin” folder, from its original installation; you can use that unique name if you wish. If you do not know the unique name of your online store’s “admin” folder, use whichever name you want.

B. Copy the files backed up during Step 1 to the “prestashop” folder

Some of the folders that you have backed up will need to be copied to your "prestashop" folder.

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• “mails” folder has all the mails that you have modified.
  If you have never made any modification there, do not worry about this folder.
• “img” folder contains your logo and all the pictures of your store (categories, products…)
• “modules” folder, only copy the modules that you have added.
• “themes/yourtheme” folder, only copy your current theme. If you use the default theme from PrestaShop, do not copy it, you must use the one from the new version.
• “download” and “upload” folders, which contain all the downloadable products, the attached files and the customizable products. If you do no use any of these functionalities, do not copy these folders.
• “classes” folder: in case you have added customized classes to this folder, copy them to the new “classes” folder. Then open each and every one of them, and rename their name, adding the “Core” suffix. For intance, “MyClasse” becomes “MyClasseCore”. Only change the name in the PHP class within file, not the name of the file itself.
• “config” folders, only copy the settings.inc.php file, then modify the following lines:
  • The line that contains “PS_BASE_URI” must contain the name of the subfolder where you are going to do your update. For instance, “/prestashop/” instead of “/”, or of the name of current folder for your current store.
  • If you modified your database credentials (you should not have had to do that normally), update all the lines that contain “DB_NAME”, “DB_USER” et “DB_PASSWD” too.

C. Moving the "prestashop" folder to your FTP server

The “prestashop” folder that you have unzipped, now contains all the modifications from your “Backup” folder (and therefore, from your currently live store). This next step will have you upload that folder on your FTP server.

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Using your FTP client, upload the “prestashop” folder to your server.

D. Checking before going further

Let’s say your store is at the following URL: http://www.myshop.com

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1. You uploaded your “prestashop” folder to your FTP server, and it can be accessed at: http://www.myshop.com/prestashop

E. Before going to the next step

Did you follow these 5 steps?

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If you answered yes to all of the questions above, then proceed to Step 3.

Step 3: Starting the Update

This step consists of starting the upgrade script which will upgrade your database.

A. Launching the update script

Visit the following URL: http://www.myshop.com/prestashop/install
(Replace "myshop.com" with the actual URL of your store, and “prestashop” with the name of the folder that you have just transferred to your FTP)

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If you did follow the first step of this guide concerning back-ups, you can click “I certify that I backed up my database and application files. I assume all responsibility for any data loss or damage related to this upgrade.” If you did not do the required back-ups or if you did not have a chance to verify the data’s integrity and that these backups are functional and recent, please go back to step 1 of this guide.

B. Verification of all parameters before the update

The parameters of your hosting provider should show on the screen, as well as more details about the operation about to be launched.

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Once you’re done, click “Next” at the bottom of the page, the update will start and probably last a few minutes.

C. Finishing the update

Once the update is finished, you should see the a screen saying "Your update is completed!"

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You can now access your store’s front-office at http://www.myshop.com/prestashop (change the URL accordingly).

D. Before going to the next step

Did you fellow these 3 steps?

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If you answered yes to all of these questions, proceed to step 4.

Step 4: QA and Testing

This step consists of doing various checks to make sure that the store has been properly updated to the latest version.

A. Import your Translation that you saved in Step 1

If you did export your own translations during step 1 (Backups), import them back into your new store by going to the “Tools” tab, then the “Translations” sub-tab.

B. Verification of the main Domain Name and regeneration of your .htaccess

You should verify that the domain name assigned in the database is indeed the one that you are working with. To do so, visit the “Preferences” tab, then the “SEO & URLs” sub-tab.

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• “PS directory”: this folder should be the one that you have transferred onto your FTP server; in this tutorial, it would be “/prestashop/”
• “Domain Name”: This should be the domain name to which you are currently connected. Otherwise, all your links will be invalid and will use an incorrect domain name.

C. Verifying your theme’s compatibility

You can verify your theme’s compatibility with the updated version by visiting the “theme validator” developed by Prestashop.
This tools is available at the following address: http://validator.prestashop.com/
If you use an unmodified copy of the default theme of PrestaShop, this step is not necessary.

D. Tests to be done on your new store.

To make sure that everything is working properly on your updated store, you should perform a few tests:

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If every test is successful, congratulations! Proceed to step 5.

Step 5: Going Live with the New Website

This step will accompany you in going live with the latest update.

A. Swapping your updated store and your production store.

Congratulations, you have achieved all the essential steps to update your store!

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At the end of the operation, edit the file config/settings.inc.php: look for the line containing _PS_BASE_URI_, and replace “/prestashop/” by “/”. If you don’t do that, your images and theme will not appear correctly.
> For more information, look at the end of the Paragraph D.4 step 2.

B. Activating your store

Visit the “Preference” tab in the back-office of your production store and click “Yes” for the option “Enable Shop”.

You're done! Enjoy your update shop!

In case of issues

In some rare cases, some modules are not compatible with new version of PrestaShop. You should contact the company / person that provided you with this module to request a few code changes to bring it up to date.

A. Rolling back your database. (Only proceed to this step if you have no other way out)

If your update went bad and you do not see any other fix than to roll back to the previous version of your database, there are two mains way of doing so:

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