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PHP-eSeller

A PHP shopping cart application for selling digital downloads as well as physical goods

Backing up a database using phpMyAdmin

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This desciption is applicable to all the applications PHP-eSeller, PHP-SecureArea and PHP-KeyCodes.

You should backup your database at regular intervals. You will then be able to restore the database if something goes wrong.

phpMyAdmin is the name of the program that you can use to manipulate databases.  It is usually provided as part of you control panel from your hosting company.

1.  Log into your web server control panel to access phpMyAdmin

2. Select ‘Databases’

Backup 1

3. Now click the name of your database.

Backup 2

4. The next screen will show you all the tables inside your database.  Click the ‘Export’ tab on the top set of tabs.

Backup 3

5. Look at the left box at the top of the Export section. All the tables in the database you selected are in that box.

Backup 4

* If you have other programs that use the database, then choose only those tables that correspond to your install. In the case of PHP-eSeller, they will be the ones with that start with “ipn_”, with PHP-SecureArea they are the ones that start with “sec_” and with PHP-KeyCodes, they are the ones that start with “key_”
* If the database is being used only by the one program, then, leave it as is (or click ‘Select All’ if you changed the selection)
* Ensure that SQL is checked.

6. In the SQL section, tick the following boxes:

* ‘Structure’
* ‘Add DROP TABLE’
* ‘Add AUTO_INCREMENT’ and
* ‘Enclose table and field names with backquotes’

7. In the DATA section, leave the boxes inside this section unticked, but make sure to keep the checkbox next to the “DATA” heading checked.

Backup 4

8.  Tick the ‘Save as file’ option, and leave the template name as is.

Backup 5

9. Now click ‘Go’ and you should be prompted for a file to download. Save the file to your computer.  Depending on the database size, this may take a few moments.

10. You have now backed up your database.   If you wanted, you could download a backup in each of the compression formats. Your choice. For example: None and “zipped”

Remember : You have not backed up your files or images.  Only the database itself.

PHP 5.3 and Depreciated Functions

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Version PHP 5.3 has a number of functions that are depreciated and earlier versions of PHPeSeller, PHPSecureArea and PHPKeyCodes will display warning messages identifying those depreciated functions when installed on PHP 5.3.  It will still work as the functions are still there although they will be removed in PHP 6

To overcome this for earlier versions of the applications, in the error.php file just use

error_reporting(E_ALL & ~E_NOTICE & ~E_DEPRECATED);

This will stop the depreciated warning messages being displayed.

IPN History and selling digital downloads

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PHP-eSeller when used with PayPal uses IPN to control the digital downloads to the customer.

If you log into PayPal you can check what IPNs have been sent out, you can check if your application has recieved and sent back a response (it should be respopnse code 200) and you can even resend an IPN.

These are available in your PayPal account under History -> IPN History.

Shipping and PayPal

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There is a facility built into PHP-eSeller that allows you to set shipping for physical goods.  This allows you to set shipping according to the overall shopping cart value.  To use this you just activate it in the admin section of PHP-eSeller.  The calculations will be applied to the physical items only.

If you do not want to use this facility, you can use the PayPal shipping calculations.  In which case the shipping will again be based on the physical items and not the digital items.  You may prefer to use the PayPal shipping calculations depending on what you requirements are.

Sell digital downloads using Google Checkout

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You can now use Google checkout as well as PayPal to sell your digital content with PHP-eSeller.

You need a Google checkout account which will identify your merchant codes.

Enter these into the admin area of PHP-eSeller and then select the tick box that enables Google checkout in the shopping cart. The shopping cart will then display both the PayPal and Google Checkout buttons.

Google checkout also has a sandbox test area which is easy to use and work with.

In someways Google checkout gives a better customer experience than PayPal.

Sell digital downloads with PayPal and Google Checkout

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PHP-eSeller is a PHP / mySQL application that you install onto your web site and interacts with PayPal or Google Checkout to automatically sell digital files.  When the customer makes a purchase, the process of delivering the files is automatic and so provides a 24 /  7 solution.

Once PHP-eSeller is purchased, there are no additional fees for the application, except fees that you pay to PayPal and Google Checkout.  The purchase of PHP-eSeller is a one time purchase.

It can be used to see any type of digital download.  See

http://www.withinweb.com/phpeseller/usersites.php

which lists some of the sites that are using the application.

How to set up an external smtp service

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This describes how to set up the SMTP email for use with PHP-eSeller, PHP-SecureArea, PHP-KeyCodes.

You may find that you web server is not sending out emails as well as you would like.  Shared web servers sometimes have issues with how quickly the email is sent out and the headers in the emails.

To use an external SMPT service all you have to do is change the config.php file.

If you look at the config.php file there are some settings near the bottom of the page which should explain it.

$smtpuse    =     false;                                     //set to true if you are going to use smtp
$smtphost    =    “smtp_server_host_here”;    //The smtp host that you are using
$smtpusername     =     “smtp_user_name_here”;        //Your smtp username
$smtppassword    =    “smtp_passord_here”;             //Your smtp password

You change the smtpuser to true and you need a host name, username and password for the SMTP service.

Update to csv import file for PHP-eSeller

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The csv import script has been updated to include a fuller range of product item fields. This now covers more or less all the fields in the product item list.

The fields are :

item_number
item_name
mc_gross
item_title
item_description
item_description_full
maincategory
subcategory
folder
filename
filename_small_mp3
item_image
pagetitle
metadescription
keywords
sortorder

The new file a_csv_import.php can be obtained by emailing us and replaces the file in the admin section. The file is applicable to all versions of PHP-eSeller that has the import script.