Tutorial on installing plugins on Nopcommerce

Plugins or extensions are a set of codes that are recognized by the CMS in the form of files and add functionality to a CMS in a modular way.

Nopcommerce CMS has many extensions and plugins that you can use to increase the functionality of your online store. The use of plugins is essential to create an online store.

Imagine if you plan to not install any plugins on your store then you need to add all these functionality that plugins provide to your store using programming.

It will definitely be very difficult for you to program all these features that Nopcommerce plugins provide easily. Also, the cost of building such features into a Nopcommerce site is definitely not low, and your programming codes may never work as well as plugins.

Especially in the case of payment and settlement plugins, we always suggest our customers to use only the payment gateway plugins provided by the gateway itself so that there are no problems with payment security in their online store.

Installing the plugin on Nopcommerce

There are several ways to install the plugin on Nopcommerce CMS that you can choose one of these ways using the type of access you have to a Nopcommerce site.

Also, if you use the API to connect to your online store's management panel, you may be able to install and activate a plug-in or module on your store through your software.

In general, installing and activating the plugin on Nopcommerce CMS is very simple and easy, and if you are a little familiar with other CMS, you can easily launch your desired plugins on your Nopcommerce store.

Install the plugin using the admin panel

1. In the beginning you have to buy the plug-in you want, or if this plug-in is available for free, download it without paying. As for downloading plug-ins, we always suggest using trustworthy websites so that you don't have any problems in the future.
2. When downloading plugins, always pay attention to the plugin version. The desired plugin must match your version of Nopcommerce. Otherwise, the plugin will not be installed on your CMS.
3. In the case of some plugins downloaded from the NopNop site, the hashed values of the downloaded file are written on the front of the products and we suggest you use these values to ensure the authenticity of the downloaded file.
4. Referring to your website or online store and authentication, click on the Admin option or management panel. You can also do this by adding the word "/admin" to the end of your domain address.
5. Then select the settings option from the side menu of the management panel. Of course, according to the translation of this section in previous versions of Nopcommerce, the name of this option could be configuration.
6. From the settings section, click on the local plugins option to access the "YourStoreName.com/Admin/Plugin/List" link. In this section you can see a collection of plugins available in your store.
7. To add a plugin, click the Upload Plugin button at the top of the page. Then click the Browse button through the page that pops up to you.
8. A window will appear through which you will have to choose your plugin. Note that Nopcommerce CMS only supports Zip files to upload the plugin.
9. Once you choose the plugin you want, the site will start uploading your plugin to the host. If everything goes well; Your plugin may appear in the local plugins list.
10. In this case, simply click on the install button in front of the plugin so that the desired plugin name is included in the list of ready-to-install plugins. In this case, you need to restart your store so that your chosen plugin is installed and activated on your CMS.
11. To restart your store, you can use the "Relaunch the program to apply the changes" button. Of course, there are other ways to launch new Nopcommerce stores, but using the "Relaunch the program to apply the changes" button is faster than in other cases because its operation does not include all sections of the store.

Some add-ons have separate settings for activation and to activate these add-ons you need to go to their management section and activate them by adding the purchased license to the add-on.

If the plugin you want to install is bigger, you can connect to your site's FTP, or if you have a dedicated host, connect to your server remotely and save the desired plugin file in "\wwwroot\Plugins" " Copy

So, to install the plugin, you can refer to the local plugins section in your CMS and use the "Review Plugins" button at the top of the page to refresh the list of plugins and plugins. in available on the site. Then proceed to install the plugin.

Install the plugin using access to the host

1. After downloading and verifying that the plugin is correct, connect to your site host remotely or copy the desired plugin to the "\wwwroot\Plugins" path through the host's management panel.
2. Then unzip the copied plugin.
3. There is a file in NapCommerce CMS where you can install your desired plugin by entering your plugin folder name in it. This file is located in the path "\wwwroot\App_Data".
4. Enter the name of your plugin in the "plugins.json" file in the "PluginNamesToInstall" field. Please note that your plugin name must be placed between two brackets "[ ]" in front of PluginNamesToInstall.
5. Then you have to restart your website to install the plugin. For this, you can also get help from iis.

This method is usually used when your site is unavailable for any reason and you want to install a plugin.

An error occurred while installing the plugin

Plug-ins may not install correctly for various reasons. If this is the case, then you probably did not perform one of the installation steps correctly or at least one of the installation steps encountered a problem.

We list some of the most common reasons for errors when installing plug-ins; And we suggest that you check the following things first when there is a problem installing the plugin:

1. Check if the downloaded version of the plugin matches the version of your online store.
2. Check that the file you downloaded downloaded correctly and was placed on your host when you uploaded it.
3. Your host has the right amount of hardware (hard drive size, RAM and CPU) to scan and install the plugin.
4. Your host is always available and doesn't become unavailable when you load the plugin.
5. The plug-in does not contain any malicious code and was downloaded from a reliable source.
6. The plugin supports the ASP.NET version and database version available on your site server.

Apart from these cases, if you encounter an error, we suggest that you consult a developer for a more detailed examination of the installation process and the problem that occurred in your online store.

All types of NapCommerce plugins

Like many other CMSs, NopCommerce CMS has many and various plugins. Below, we will introduce some types of these plugins of this powerful store builder.

Of course, we only intend to introduce this set of plugins here, but you can get more information about them by referring to the page of each of these plugins.

Payment plugins

Payment plugins include all the elements through which you can create payment options for your site's users. It can almost be said that this category of plugins is one of the most requested types of plugins for building any store.

It doesn't matter which CMS or which software you use to present your products, surely every shop that operates online must be connected to a payment gateway to settle its customers' accounts.

Of course, there are many ways to settle the accounts of customers and users of an online shop in all shops. For example, payment plugins include the following:

• Payment at the time of delivery
• Paying in person at the store
• Payment by bank cards
• Payment by transferring digital currency to the wallet of the site
• Payment extensions in installments
• Payment through credit from other stores

Mobile applications

Nowadays, many users use their mobile phones to use online stores. For this reason, online stores make every effort to display all site elements responsively in different resolutions.

Naturally, site speed and the type of its codes have a big impact on a site's page views. These points have caused online store owners to refer to the site's URL for customers using their mobile phones; Design mobile applications.

The design and structure of these applications differ depending on how powerful the Nopcommerce CMS is at executing the programming codes, and it is best that you speak with a developer consultant about using these applications.

The most powerful applications used for mobile phones are applications that connect to your site or online store via APIs. These applications exchange less traffic with your site's server, and as a result, the application's speed will be much higher than your site's speed.

Building such applications for small, low-income shops can cost a lot, because in addition to a programmer who is fluent in ASP.NET, you need to have another programmer working on mobile applications.

On the other hand, the issue of security and efficiency of mobile applications is also being discussed. Perhaps it is very important and vital for you as an online store owner that your application can be installed and updated on all mobile phones with any operating system.

Or on security, as you know, Nopcommerce is the best, if not the best; It is definitely one of the most powerful and free CMS available, which is offered as open source and has high security compared to other CMS.

If you have presented your online store on the Nopcommerce CMS platform, your store is highly secure, but using applications that have security bugs can cause problems on your site.

For smaller stores, we suggest optimizing your site's codes for viewing on different devices instead of using mobile phone apps.

User interface plugins

UI plug-ins include plug-ins that add graphical functionality to your online store's user environments. Obviously, excessive use of these plugins will slow down your site.

Try consulting a programmer to use these plugins. You may be able to apply the desired changes with a simple change in your site's codes.

UI plugins are also important to a store, but many of the changes these plugins make can be done with simple programming codes. For example, instead of using the HTML Wiget plugin, you can make changes directly in your online store codes.

Or, for example, by hiring a programmer, you can create the desired slider on your NopCommerce website, but by downloading a slider plugin, you will only get limited functionality of a slider.

Of course, the programming option is more expensive and much more time-consuming than using ready-made plugins that add a feature to your store, but usually, if the programming is done professionally and well, the result it will be more favorable than the ready one. plugins made. .

The NopNop site always tries to apply its changes to the sites in the most optimal way so that visitors do not face a lack of speed when visiting the site.

To make changes to your NopCommerce site, you can contact the NopNop programming team for free and consult with us on the changes to your site.

Shipping and delivery plugins

Shipping and delivery plugins are a set of plugins that build shipping functionality for your store. For example, imagine your product has the option of being sent to customers via different methods.

For example, you want a specific product to reach customers in major cities via air and land transportation. In this context, shipping and delivery plugins offer you the ability to send to customers according to the functionality you need.

So far, a total of about 50 plugins have been officially introduced for Nopcommerce CMS from nopcommerce official website, and by installing these plugins, you can provide various services to your customers.

Add-ons for sending and delivering goods to your customers include the following two categories:

• Shipping carriers
• Order fulfillment

Security plugins

Although the powerful nopcommerce CMS has a lot of security, the presence of security plugins and extensions can increase it; They offer you many features in the field of site security.

Security plugins are not only used to increase security on sites, some of these plugins are used to manage and monitor site users.