Making live auctions work in a CMS-embedded online store

The challenge

An online retailer wanted to add live auctions to its catalogue. Its shop was not a standalone store: it ran as a component inside a Joomla website through a bridge, which let the retailer keep its content site and its catalogue in one place. The retailer bought our auction extension, but after the first install the auction options did not appear in the admin menu or on the product edit screen.

The extension had been written for a standalone store, and its modifications did not load in the embedded setup. The retailer needed auctions working inside the existing site without rebuilding the shop or giving up the combined content-and-store arrangement.

What we did

• Installation on the live server. We installed the auction extension on the retailer's own server so it could be tested against the real theme and bridge component.
• Compatibility rework. We converted the extension's modifications from vQmod to OCMOD so they would load inside the embedded store, and adapted the header and product templates to suit both the theme and the bridge. The rework took about a working day.
• Hand-over notes. We sent a list of the files we had changed and showed where to adjust details such as the countdown timer colours. When the retailer later moved the installation to a new directory, they had what they needed to redo the configuration themselves.
• Follow-up fixes. Months later, on a store running a newer 2.1 release, the place-bid and add-to-cart behaviour was not working as expected. We fixed it, pointed the retailer to the Buy Now and Auto Bid settings that control those buttons, and supplied a backup copy of the module folder for their records.

Tech stack

PHP, OpenCart 2.0 and 2.1, Joomla 3, JooCart bridge component, OCMOD, vQmod