Introduction and Installation

Introduction
Welcome to CataBlog, a WordPress Plugin that allows you to easily create online catalogs in your blog. CataBlog is designed to be simple and easy to use, not requiring any understanding of html or css, but if you have even the most basic knowledge of these technologies you will be able to do so much more. Please read the documentation thoroughly to gain a better understanding of CataBlog and its features

Installation
CataBlog is rather easy to install, all you need to do is login to your WordPress Admin Panel and go to the Plugins Add New SubPanel. Do a search for the phrase catablog with all the search settings left at their default settings. The top, and most likely only result, will be CataBlog. Simply click the Install link below the title to start the installation of CataBlog into your WordPress Installation.

42 Responses to Introduction and Installation

  1. James says:
    May 12, 2011 at 10:10 am

    why dont u have a video on how to setup an use this program

    Reply
  2. Hikari says:
    May 29, 2011 at 1:45 am

    I installed your plugin to my website. WP Ver 3.1.3
    But, the other members can not see the CataBlog admin panel and they can’t upload the images.
    Please advice how to activate for all members to use CataBlog

    Reply
  3. gulfstrum says:
    May 30, 2011 at 11:55 pm

    Get error when trying to activate on 1 and 1 hosted site:

    Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or ‘}’ in /homepages/37/d2163586/htdocs/site/wp-content/plugins/catablog/lib/CataBlog.class.php on line 21

    Reply
  4. gulfstrum says:
    May 31, 2011 at 12:07 am

    added htaccess file and all is well – sorry

    Reply
    • Zach says:
      May 31, 2011 at 6:32 am

      I assume your hosting company lets you configure which version of PHP you use with your .htaccess file. By configuring your server to use PHP 5, CataBlog no longer gives a parse error. 🙂

      Reply
  5. www.simplephpreviews.com says:
    July 10, 2011 at 12:44 pm

    Do you think you can give my review a look? and tell me what you think?
    simplephpreviews.com

    Reply
  6. Kenny Haggard says:
    July 21, 2011 at 2:58 pm

    Hey Zach,
    On the Jquery slideshow, everything works great except when subimages are involved. It will advance to the next image but the previous function doesn’t work. Tried to search through the blog here and forum but couldn’t find the solution. I’ll be looking through the code some more but if it is a simple fix you know already might save me some time…

    Thanks.

    Reply
  7. Luc Starmans says:
    July 25, 2011 at 7:52 am

    I got these errors:

    Warning: mkdir() [function.mkdir]: Permission denied in /home/deb46861/domains/lucstarmans.nl/public_html/wordpress2/wp-content/plugins/catablog/lib/CataBlog.class.php on line 2125

    Warning: mkdir() [function.mkdir]: No such file or directory in /home/deb46861/domains/lucstarmans.nl/public_html/wordpress2/wp-content/plugins/catablog/lib/CataBlog.class.php on line 2125

    Warning: mkdir() [function.mkdir]: No such file or directory in /home/deb46861/domains/lucstarmans.nl/public_html/wordpress2/wp-content/plugins/catablog/lib/CataBlog.class.php on line 2125

    Warning: mkdir() [function.mkdir]: No such file or directory in /home/deb46861/domains/lucstarmans.nl/public_html/wordpress2/wp-content/plugins/catablog/lib/CataBlog.class.php on line 2125

    Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/deb46861/domains/lucstarmans.nl/public_html/wordpress2/wp-content/plugins/catablog/lib/CataBlog.class.php:2125) in /home/deb46861/domains/lucstarmans.nl/public_html/wordpress2/wp-content/plugins/catablog/lib/CataBlog.class.php on line 299

    Reply
    • Zach says:
      July 25, 2011 at 2:30 pm

      Make sure you have given the correct permissions to said folders so that apache, PHP and WordPress may write to them.

      Reply
      • Settd says:
        September 26, 2011 at 11:00 am

        Having the same error as Luc. Gave full access to the ‘lib’ directory and the ‘catablog.class.php’ file with no success. Specifically what folders and files need what degree of permission?

        Reply
        • Zach says:
          September 30, 2011 at 12:47 pm

          Hi Settd,

          You do not need to give write access to the lib directory or any files inside it. Instead you need WordPress to have write permission for the wp-content/uploads/catablog and it’s child directories. Good luck.

          Reply
  8. Dmitry Samsonov says:
    January 22, 2012 at 1:20 am

    A perfect tool you’re making! Great thanks to you, Zach!
    Started using it a few weeks ago trying to build an e-books library. Some feature requests shown up while customizing:

    1. A kind of %TITLE-PERMALINK% template placeholder to have an ability of redirecting to the catalog item page with full description instead of just direct link for downloading.

    2. For non-just-latin users it would be useful to have an abitity to transcript permalinks into latin chars or to edit them manually (as it is in regular WordPress posts), because links in russian, for example, look weird in browsers, and are badly indexed by serach engines.

    3. Custom product descriptions fields in addition to raw description

    The first two items are really not the complicated things to implement I suppose, greatly improving usability of the plugin for libraries!

    I’m ready to participate in testing these (or not olnly these) features.

    Reply
  9. Ted says:
    January 27, 2012 at 4:05 pm

    I have the current version of WordPress, your current version.
    What my problem is, how do I have a page with just a listing of the ‘Catagories’ and when they click on a catagory, it then goes to that page with a list of items available?

    Thanks for your help

    Reply
    • Zach says:
      January 27, 2012 at 5:14 pm

      Ted, you will have to make the pages yourself, manually, one page for each category along with the page that contains all the category links. If you want to use the “Public” option which makes a page for each catalog item you may turn it on in CataBlog Options Admin Panel.

      If you want to use a more automated system you may look into the WordPress Menus feature. By logging into Admin and going to the Appearance > Menus page you can open up the Screen Options (upper-right of page) and choose to show CataBlog Categories if they are not immediately visible. BTW, Menus may be used as a Widget in a SideBar as well. Good luck.

      Note: A CataBlog Widget and CataBlog Categories Widget will be available in an upcoming release.

      Reply
  10. Aman says:
    March 2, 2012 at 8:43 am

    How Can I add a new Category in Catablog? I mean multiple categories. Is that possible?

    Reply
    • Zach says:
      March 3, 2012 at 1:47 pm

      Simply create a catalog item by uploading a photo and then edit that item in the CataBlog Library Admin Panel. There you will see controls for adding, deleting and setting categories.

      Reply
  11. Bobby says:
    March 27, 2012 at 2:25 pm

    I setup a catalog page with a few products. I also setup the buy now button linked with my paypal account. I have a post that has protected content. When they click buy now on the catalogs page, and pay through paypal, I want them to be able to be given access to that post automatically, or at least given a link to that post in their email. Is this possible?

    Reply
    • Zach says:
      March 27, 2012 at 3:30 pm

      Yes, it is possible to have PayPal forward the user to any page you want after a successful checkout. I believe the configuration is done on the PayPal side, with a parameter set in the buy now button. As far as what happens on the page you load after a successful checkout, that is up to you. CataBlog cannot facilitate this interaction for you, I will give consideration to adding some feature like that in the future though. Thanks and good luck.

      Reply
  12. Gina G says:
    April 13, 2012 at 7:44 pm

    Hi, I’m attempting to create a catalog using the ADD NEW under the Catablog admin panel. After the images are up loaded, I am prompted to enter link info, price code as well as other parameters. If I try to move on without filling all these out, I get a popup saying error. I guess I need the most elementary of tutorials, could you post a link if it exist. I have searched your site but have been unable to find. Thanks!

    Reply
    • Zach says:
      April 14, 2012 at 1:56 pm

      Hi Gina, a few quick questions. What is the error message in the pop up? Also what web browser and operating system are you using, including version numbers. Did you try opening the Screen Options panel in the upper right and unchecking the fields you don’t need, i.e. price, link, product code, etc.

      Reply
  13. Stacie says:
    June 20, 2012 at 10:09 am

    Hi Zach,

    Just wanted to show you my finished website which has implemented your great Catablog plugin on numerous pages, check out- Case styles, Signature large, small, medium cases, custom cases, Case Options, About Us, Slim’s Shop and others.

    http://www.slimscustomcases.com

    Without your plugin I am pretty sure none of it would have been possible or as easy to complete. Thank you for your hard work and support! I highly recommend this plugin!

    PS- I wondered if there was any way to make my catablog responsive so that the images resize to different browsers? If not thats fine, it still look ok and one small strange issue I have is on this page- http://slimscustomcases.com/case-styles/slims-signature-cases/slims-small-harmonica-cases/
    For some weird reason the first image, when clicked, opens to page not found? I have tried re uploading the image but to no avail? I can’t seem to work out what I have done wrong here maybe you can enlighten me?

    Reply
  14. stacie says:
    July 6, 2012 at 7:04 am

    Hi again,

    Hoping to catch you at a less busy time. I have a major problem and the one i wrote above still.

    I have only just, after a month, checked my website in IE8, and my galleries are a mess. They are all over the place. Titles are next to the images instead of underneath and spread out instead of in a neat grid. I have tried to sort this out myself all week without success. Please, please, could you help.

    Many thanks

    Reply
    • Zach says:
      July 9, 2012 at 10:32 pm

      Hi stacie, you seen to have invalid HTML, I am not surprised that IE8 cannot play nice with your html markup. I would advice you to fix these errors and then try IE8, here is a link to your reviews page, which I assume is made by CataBlog and displaying poorly.

      W3CValidator Test of slimscustomcases.com/reviews/

      This problem is most likely not due to CataBlog itself. I would also make sure you are adhering to strict html guidelines, like no block html elements inside inline html elements.

      Another issue could be your site’s CSS code, but before messing with that I would get your html code straight.

      Reply
  15. BridgetB says:
    September 5, 2012 at 2:47 am

    Hi, I’ve just updated to the latest version but get an error when I reactivate the plugin:

    Warning: copy(/wp-content/uploads/catablog/templates/archive.htm) [function.copy]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /wp-content/plugins/catablog/lib/CataBlog.class.php on line 2920

Warning: fopen(/wp-content/uploads/catablog/templates/default.htm) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /wp-content/plugins/catablog/lib/CataBlog.class.php on line 3027

Warning: fwrite() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in /wp-content/plugins/catablog/lib/CataBlog.class.php on line 3028

Warning: fclose() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in /wp-content/plugins/catablog/lib/CataBlog.class.php on line 3029

Warning: copy(/wp-content/uploads/catablog/templates/archive.htm) [function.copy]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /wp-content/plugins/catablog/lib/CataBlog.class.php on line 3091

    There is no “templates/” directory in “wp-content/uploads/catablog” so of course no archive.htm or default.htm.

    Can you help please?

    Thanks! 🙂

    Reply
  16. BridgetB says:
    September 5, 2012 at 10:29 pm

    OK well … I created those files and directory and no longer get the error so hopefully all is good.

    Cheers!

    Reply
  17. MattD says:
    September 20, 2012 at 7:26 am

    Is there not a way to embed youtube videos into a catablog post? I’ve tried a couple of different plugins and the embed code from youtube itself and neither seem to be working for me.

    Reply
    • Zach says:
      September 21, 2012 at 7:45 pm

      Yes, please use a plugin such as viper video Shortcode plugin and enable Shortcode rendering in CataBlog options description panel. Then just add the appropriate Shortcode to the appropriate catalog items description.

      FYI, you can save a script or embed HTML tag into a WordPress content field for security reasons.

      Reply
  18. Cemlyn says:
    January 21, 2013 at 6:03 am

    Hi

    I found your site, and therefore your plugin, after a failed attempt of using NextGen and searching for Best Gallery Plugins and finding the article “http://www.tripwiremagazine.com/2012/11/wordpress-gallery-plugin.html”. I love the way Next Gen displays the photos with the Album and Gallery functionality. Problem with NextGen is that linking does not work. I am about to start reading through all your documentation and wonder if you could steer me in the right direction.
    I want to use your plugin to display a category listing with thumbnails on the Home page. I will have a featured image for that Category. I want that image to have the Category name either above or below the image. Clicking on the image opens up the whole Category. Clicking on any image within the Category goes to the product page of that image. Can I do all of this with your plugin? (I know I have to add the product link manually) I’m hoping that your answer will be a resounding ‘YES’ as I am a little stuck at the moment.

    I have 2 more questions.

    If I upload photos which have been set to 600 x 800, does your plugin create all the necessary thumbnails automatically or do I have to upload specific thumbnail sized images.

    2. I see you have sub image feature. This could be quite useful for me. A product plugin I use actually grabs all the images associated with a product and loads them into WordPress Media Library. Is there any way I can grab these images direct from the Media Library rather than having to download into a folder on my PC and uploading into your plugin? I am already doing a manual operation to get a higher resolution photo download, doing another manual operation just adds to the time load.

    Sorry my first comment has ended up being very long. I have great hopes your plugin will do all I need with the photos on my site.

    Reply
    • Manuel says:
      January 27, 2013 at 12:02 am

      Hello Cemlyn, in accordance to your questions!

      I want to use your plugin to display a category listing with thumbnails on the Home page. I will have a featured image for that Category. I want that image to have the Category name either above or below the image. Clicking on the image opens up the whole Category. Clicking on any image within the Category goes to the product page of that image. Can I do all of this with your plugin? (I know I have to add the product link manually) I’m hoping that your answer will be a resounding ‘YES’ as I am a little stuck at the moment.

      Yes you should not have a problem achieving your request.

      If I upload photos which have been set to 600 x 800, does your plugin create all the necessary thumbnails automatically or do I have to upload specific thumbnail sized images.

      Yes once you set up the correct settings you will achieve your desires.

      Is there any way I can grab these images direct from the Media Library rather than having to download into a folder on my PC and uploading into your plugin?

      Do you mean selecting the images uploaded into WordPress before using this plugin?

      Kind regards

      Reply
  19. Ryan says:
    February 14, 2013 at 7:53 am

    How do I make the gallery as my homepage of my website?

    Reply
  20. Eduardo Ornelas says:
    June 13, 2013 at 4:04 pm

    hi… i want to show 10 items on each section, how can activate the navigation or how can i do that.. im new in this world of wordpress.

    Reply
  21. stephanie ballard says:
    January 31, 2018 at 2:12 am

    hello i have catablog installed and since the new upgrade of word press my plugin has stopped working i get nonce error when trying to upload images to the library if possible could you help me as i really like your plugin and dont want to have to try find another one that does the job as easy as your plugin does

    Reply

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