iBlog Q&A

iBlog brings a simple, modern and straightforward blogging experience to OpenCart. Both for store owners and readers.

It features SEO URLs so search engines can find and fall in love with your site content. In this Q&A session, we will discuss some of the most common questions we get asked about iBlog.

How do SEO URLs work with iBlog?

First, you have to make sure that the SEO URLs are enabled from the OpenCart System Settings. You need to go to System > Settings and then click on the Server tab. Scroll down to the Use SEO URLs field. This needs to be set to Yes.

Once you are done there you can use the post functionality available in the posts, the blog Slug. 

Can clients comment on my blog? How does this work?

Yes, iBlog comes with a built-in comments system which can be enabled and disabled from the module admin at iBlog > Post View > DisqusComments Status.

We use Disqus as a comment system integration for the module, which gives you a ton of options. Check out some more info on Disqus and their awesome commenting system here.

Can I add widgets and modules to my blog posts and categories?

You can customize your blog in any way you want using the OpenCart layout system. To keep things organized you can create different layouts by going to Design > Layouts and clicking on Add New.

Give your new layout a name, for example iBlog Post, with module/iblog/post as a Route. After that, you can assign widgets and modules to customize the layout you just created, using the standard layout positions in OpenCart.

The available iBlog layouts are:

• iBlog Post with Route module/iblog/post
• iBlog Listing with Route module/iblog/listing
• iBlog Category with Route module/iblog/category;
• iBlog Search with Route module/iblog/search; . (In OpenCart 2.3.x, the route should be changed form "module/iblog/..." to "extension/module/iblog/...".)

Is there a way to style iBlog to match my theme? 

Yes, you can style iBlog using our CSS sections in the module. There are three different Custom CSS fields in the control panel:

• iBlog widget
• iBlog post view
• iBlog listing page

The custom CSS for the iBlog widget accessible from iBlog > iBlog Settings > Blog Widget > Custom CSS which allows you to apply CSS styles to the iBlog widget.

The second one is the iBlog post view, accessible from iBlog > iBlog Settings > Post View > Custom CSS. The styling added here will be applied only on the post view page, the article page.

The third one is the iBlog listing page, where all the posts are listed. It is accessible from iBlog > iBlog Settings >Blog Listing > Custom CSS. You can add different CSS code based on your preferences.

Important: In order to be able to edit the styles you would still need to have CSS knowledge.

Is iBlog compatible with a multi-store setup? Can each store have its own blog?

Yes, iBlog supports multi-store setups. Each of the stores will have its blog configured from separate settings which you can change from the top right corner icon which lists your default store under the module admin settings.

Can I change the name of Blog to something else?

Yes, you can easily change your link from blog to whatever you would like instead. The way to do this is via the iBlog Admin > Blog Listing > Menu Link Title. 

Can I use multilingual slugs for SEO URLs for the blogs?

Unfortunately no, since the default OpenCart system does not allow multilingual slugs for now.