Prestashop – some things documentation would solve

I recently set up my first Prestashop-based ecommerce site and while I am thrilled with the results, I thought I should take a moment to document a few things that really stumped me until I figured out where I needed to look.  Prestashop is a great ecommerce tool.  It’s quick and easy to customize and the “ajaxification” makes it look really slick.  It has great features – some of which are hard to find on other free shopping carts (wishlists, attributes for products with infinite combinations, check payment and more).

What it lacks is documentation. Or to be more specific: documentation in English.

You see Prestashop is not only very young, it is also natively French.  The great thing is, though, unlike many other shopping carts this one was built with multiple language support from the beginning.  BUT, it is still woefully lacking in the actual documentation area. With that in mind, I thought I’d note a few items that I have had a heck of a time figuring out – mostly minor details – but things that I need to remember.  Maybe this list will be of use to someone else as well.

Renaming “Cheque” to “Check”

I was banging my head on the desk trying to figure out how to get all references to “cheque” renamed to “check” for weeks.  I tried copying the Cheque module and renaming all references to “cheque” “check.”  I tried simply renaming it in the active module.  Neither worked.  I posted on the Prestahop forum asking about this. No response. I scoured the web looking for blog posts, something, anything!

Then, while I was looking for something else entirely, I went to the Translations tab.

Lo and behold you can replace the spelling of ANYTHING in Prestashop there. I was floored.  It is so simple, but I had no idea that was where to look.

Default Country is France – How do I change that?

This one is so silly.  It IS there, but for some reason, I have a hard time remembering where to find it.  I think because it is below the fold on the screen. As this is a French product the default country on all the address forms is France.  To change that, in the Back Office, go to Shipping> Countries. Scroll down and change the Default country to whatever you need.

Changing the Footer Links

You have to actually edit the footer.tpl file in the footer module.

Information Block Links – Why won’t new links appear?

You have to go to Modules>Info Block > Configure

More….

There are more, but I can’t think of them at the moment.  I’ll add to the list when they occur to me.  Feel free to add to the list in the comments.