In this tutorial, we will cover the following areas covering how to manage extensions and themes on your magento website:
- How to Install Extensions in Magento 1.x
- How to Install New Themes in Magento 1.x
- How to Disable Magento 1.x Extensions
- How to Setup Magento 1.x SMTP Extension
Further reading:
How to login to Magento admin backend
Magento Website Optimization Tips
Magento Website Security Tutorial
Magento Store Settings Configuration Tutorial
Managing Products and Categories in Magento
How to Install Extensions in Magento 1.x
If you miss any functionality in your Magento store most probably it has been already developed and available for installation as a Magento extension. Magento Extensions are addons to the standard features of Magento and can be easily installed via the Magento admin panel following simple point and click steps.
Magento community has a special Magento extensions marketplace called Magento Connect. In the Magento Connect page you can find many free and paid extensions which can be easily installed on your store by obtaining the extension key which is an unique string for each extension.
Browse the catalogue and obtain the key for the desired extension. This can be done by registering on the official Magento website and click on the Install Now button on the extension page.
Then, choose the community platform, Magento Connect 2.0 and tick the "I Agree to the extension license agreement.". By clicking on the get the extension key button you will be provided with a link such as:
http://connect20.magentocommerce.com/community/ASchroder_SMTPPro
When you are ready, login your Magento Admin panel and refer to Configuration ? Magento Connect ? Magento Connect Manager.
You will need to login once again with your Magento Admin panel login credentials in order to access the Magento Connect Manager. When you are logged in, please paste the desired extension key and click Install.
You will be displayed with the extension dependencies and the status of the extension installation. If the status is Ready to install you can safely click on the Proceed button.
If the extension installation is complete you should see a message in the terminal window informing you that the process has been completed and the application cache has been cleared.
Congratulations, you have successfully installed a Magento Extension.
How to Install New Themes in Magento 1.x
In this tutorial we will show you how to install a new theme on your Magento store via the Magento Connect extension manager. Be advised that if you have custom theme purchased or downloaded via a different vendor that does not have an extension key you will need to review the installation instructions and follow the steps specific to your theme to install.
Free Magento Theme Installation
Todhost provides free premium support services with all Magento Hosting Packages. This service includes free Magento installation, free Magento Theme installation as well as free Magento Extension installation.
To install a Magento theme via the Magento Connect manager you should first obtain the theme extension key. This can be done directly from the official Magento website.
You need to be registered and logged user in the official Magento website in order to obtain the extension key. When you choose the desired Magento theme you can obtain its extension just like any other Magento Extension by click on the Install Now button. This will give you the option to select the desired Magento Connect version and obtain the theme key when you agree to the Extension License Agreement.
Copy the Magento Theme extension key and refer to your Magento Connect manager available in your Magento Admin panel under the System ? Magento Connect ? Magento Connect Manager menu. If you are not exactly sure how to access your Magento Connect, please check our tutorial on the matter.
When you are logged in your Magento Connect Manager paste the Magento Theme extension key and click the Install button.
If you see the theme ready to install in the dependency menu you can safely proceed with the installation by clicking on the Proceed button on the right side.
If the Magento Theme installation is successfully completed the terminal screen should report that the extension installation is completed and your Magento Store cache has been flushed.
Now when the Magento Theme has been installed on your Magento we should configure your store to use the new theme. This can be easily done via your Magento Admin Dashboard by navigating to System>Design menu from the top navigation.
On the next page click the Add Design Change button on the top and select your new theme via the drop down available.
When you are ready click the Save button on the top right. Your new design should be applied now. Please check your Magento store front page.
In case the new design is still not properly displayed, please clear your Magento cache via Magento Admin panel -> System ? Cache Managment.
How to Disable Magento 1.x Extensions
By default Magento has a large number of enabled extensions. Additionally, if you have previously installed any third party extensions you might want to disable some of them. This can be easily done in a few steps via your Magento Admin panel.
Navigate to your Admin Panel ? System ? Configuration
On the next page, please click on the Advanced menu from the Advanced section at the bottom left on your screen.
This will refer you to the Disable Modules Output via which you can easily enable or disable any of your Magento store modules.
How to Setup Magento 1.x SMTP Extension
By default Magento store uses sendmail to send mails. Sometimes you might want to use SMTP instead to improve email delivery, reroute your mailing via a different server or prevent having your mails marked as spam. To achieve this you will need to install the following Magento SMTP extension on your Magento Store. To achieve this, please follow our step by step tutorial on How to install Magento Extensions.
When you have your Magento SMTP extension installed, please log in your Magento Admin panel and refer to the System ? Configuration section via the top navigation menu. From the configuration page scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the Advanced ? System section.
On the next page expand the "SMTP Pro Email SMTP Settings" menu and fill in your SMTP login credentials, SMTP hostname and port. These SMTP settings can be provided by your mail service provider.
Todhost SMTP Settings
In case you are a Todhost customer you should input your full email account name as username, your email address password, your domain name as hostname and set the port to 25. You may leave the SSL Security to No.
When you are ready with your settings, please click on the Save Config button on the top right corner of the page.
