Why your installation of WP-Ecommerce isn’t working.

Despite the moans and cries of countless folks on the internet,I am using the free, stable release of the plugin (3.5.1) on 3 WordPress powered websites,one is updated to 2.5 the other is still 2.3.3(come on it’s only been a few days!) the other is my testing plugins wordpress install.

And since I am not an API level developer/coder my conclusions are as such:

  • You might have to rework the theme you use.
  • You may not have set up your PayPal website payments preferences properly.
  • Your theme may not have wp header();
  • Or wp_footer(); in the right places.

In the sites I have this plugin I made the themes so I know exactly what’s going on in the header,footer and in the index.php content divs and the sidebar.While this may give me an unfair advantage over users who are using a free theme they installed 2 years ago,I think any properly coded theme can use this plugin.

The activated plugin injects stuff into your footer.php.
Upon activation, view source and you will see loads of strange html in the footer along with all the strange html you put there.

**Note: this is out of date! you don’t have to do this anymore**

You’ve got to FTP into your wp-content/plugins folder and open up the ecommerce plugin file “sharethis.php” go to line 10 and change true to false,i.e:
@define(‘wpsc_akst_ADDTOFOOTER’, false);
// set this to false if you do not want to automatically add the Share This form to the page in your footer

If you don’t have ftp you can use the file manager in the wordpress admin to get to the file but good luck finding the path and if the permissions aren’t at least 755 or even 777,you can’t edit it this way, anyway.Get Filezilla
it’s free and so easy to use…

I hated this injecting html aspect of the plugin and nearly didn’t use it because of it.Luckily you can take it out.
If you are on IIS switch hosts.
Seriously.

I really don’t get why so many folks have so many problems with this plugin!
For trishamcbridedance.com it worked right out of the box,so to speak. There’s nothing that special about the hosting we both use (PowWeb) except the people behind it do seem to care that things are adjustable for their users.Hardly anything is off limits to a PowWeb user,from a direct .htaccess editor to php.ini.
New accounts are out of luck tonight,though as they are doing things to the mySQL servers and all attempts to access these websites tonight are met with an error establishing database connection message.
But since I am an old and gray customer of 2 years I seem to be on the mySQL server not being messed with.And so I can write this lovely and informative post.

I’m very happy with both carts.Trisha’s website is selling something that people want and so she has made sales.The other website is selling books and as we all know it takes a genius to sell a book.I may not be a genius but I make up for what I lack in sheer persistence.You will buy a book from stonestreetpress.com one day.They are very beautiful and unique. If you ever want to know a little about Irish history or food or some of it’s prominent figures in history,these are the books for you.Or if you just want to own something beautiful to look at,too.
And not all the books are about Irish stuff,either.There’s a funny one about snoring and also one about Christmas,1935 in Germany.And we all know what was going on back then,or we ought to know,anyway.
Support a local artist! Support an Irish artist! Support an artist! Support poetry!
Then you may return to watching America’s Next Top Model knowing you have exposed yourself to a little culture,ha ha.

Awright sales pitch over.
I do what I can.