WordPress Plugin 2.0 - WAY BETTER!

EDIT:

This plugin was not created directly by us and it is pretty old.
It will more likely have problems in running in current WP 4.
We are leaving this post here for reference, but know we are no longer supporting this version at all.
Also, the API itself evolved a lot since this version: so it's also better not to consider this the best possible code to use as inspiration, in case.

We have created a new Woocommerce based one instead. If interested, please get in touch for a quote.

EDIT 2:
There is now a specific page about our official plugin. All details here:
http://www.realtimedesigner.com/wpintegration/

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We've completely rewritten the WordPress Plugin for RTD. It's much simpler, has new features and is more flexible than before. All the API calls are live so any future changes in your RTD are instantly reflected in your WordPress product pages. The plugin uses SHORTCODES rather than complex confiuration pages. The new shortcodes can be placed anywhere in a page so that you can easily control the look of your site.

You can get the files here (EDIT: this is the latest version):
http://support.realtimedesigner.com/docs/auto_post_from_api.4.11.13.v1.zip

About The RTD WordPress Plugin
RTD is a very powerful DESIGN ONLINE, PRODUCT CONFIGURATION and PRICING SYSTEM but lacks some of the styling and navigation features of many website creation tools. WordPress is one of the most popular website creation tools - often called a content management system (CMS) because it handles your website as an integrated system rather than a bunch of individual pages. The RTD WordPress Plugin combines the two into an orchestrated environment for producers of customized products.

GETTING READY
Before You Begin, You'll need a website with WordPress already installed. WordPress itself is free from www.wordpress.org. We chose the $8.99 option from GoDaddy hosting for our first try since we were new to WordPress. Installation of WordPress is a single click. If you have your own server, you will need MySQL installed, but installation is still very easy.

STEP 1 - Get your API Credentials
In order to use the RTD API, you'll need some special codes so that your WP can talk to RTD but others can't get into your system. In a separate browser tab from WordPress, open up the RTD admin panel and click on MANAGE API CREDENTIALS > GET CREDENTIALS. There's 3 fields that you will copy/paste into Wordpress in the next step.

STEP 2 - Initializing the API
Once WordPress is installed on your site, you'll need to unzip the contents of the Auto_post_from_API.zip file and place all of the files in the wp-content/plugins/ folder of your website. Now log in to your Admin Panel for Wordpress. Click on PLUGINS on the left menu. You should see an option for "Auto Posting API Products" on the side menu bar. Click "ACTIVATE". If you do not see the plugin in wordpress, check to be sure you installed it in the proper folder.

You should now see RTD API PRODUCTS listed near the bottom of the left menu. Click it and then click API SETTINGS. Copy and paste the RTD credentials obtained earlier into the WordPress screen and save your changes.

The previous version of the plugin used configuration pages. This new version makes use a technique called SHORTCODES. Shortcodes are much simpler because you simply insert a string of text into the body of your WordPress page and the link to RTD data is done behind the scenes.

STEP 3 - Loading Your RTD Products into WordPress
The most basic function of the plugin is the create product pages in WordPress for each of the products you have in RTD. Begin loading your products by clicking the RTD API PRODUCTS link on the lower left menu. A list will be shown of products that were previous imported. Click "CLICK HERE TO IMPORT PRODUCTS FROM RTD" to import new products. You can select any or all of the products in your RTD site - simply put a checkmark next to the products you wish to create in WordPress. Once a product has been imported you can not select it again. After you have selected which products you wish to load, click the PUBLISH tab and complete the process.

You can view the newly created products by clicking on the PAGES > ALL PAGES link on the left menu. Each product will have its own page. You may have to through several pages to find any particular product. Once the product is located, click EDIT.

STEP 4 - Placing ShortCodes in WordPress
By placing shortcodes into the body of each product page, you can invoke various API calls to link directly to the RTD designer and database. The list of RTD Shortcodes can be seen in WordPress by clicking the RTD API PRODUCTS . SHORTCODE LIST link at the lower left of your screen. The following shortcodes are available:

[RTD_online_designer] This is the "design it now" button for each product. It requires a link to a button image.

[Price_Calculator] This will invoke a popup for the RTD Instant Pricing Tool. It also require a link to a button image.

[BG_Colors] Background Colors - For some products such as shirts you may wish to display the shirt colors available in the product description page. Using this shortcode, you can display color swatches of all the product background colors defined for that product in RTD. Parameters are number of columns as well as width and height in pixels for each color swatch.

[FG_Colors] Foreground Colors - Like background colors, you can display a grid of the imprint colors you have available for each product. The parameters are the same as the BG_Colors.

[Fonts] If a product has specific fonts that are critical to designs placed on it, use the Fonts option of the plugin. In most cases we recommend creating a separate page called "Our Fonts" to display the wide array of fonts that you use on the bulk of your products. Be careful not to display too much info on your products pages. Parameter for this shortcode is number of columns.

[Clipart] RTD comes with a huge clipart gallery exceeding 10,000 items. The WordPress plugin will only display the first 100 Clip arts. It is not intended to be an entire gallery of clip arts but rather display a very limited set of clip art for specialized products. Parameters for this shortcode are as well as the width of the clip art images in pixels and number of columns to display.

[General_Templates] The general templates for a product can be displayed on the product page using the General Templates option of the plugin. Each template thumbnail is displayed and is linked to preload that template in the design window of RTD. Variables for this option the width of the template thumbnails in pixels and number of columns to display. A list of categories and sub categories is generated and the templates are shown when the user selects a category.

[Product_Templates] The product templates for a product can be displayed on the product page using the General Templates option of the plugin. Each template thumbnail is displayed and is linked to preload that template in the design window of RTD. Variables for this option the width of the template thumbnails in pixels and number of columns to display.

[Price_Matrix] For most people, the most complicated concept of the RTD WordPress plugin will be the Pricing Matrix. This feature allows you to display a table containing sizes, number of colors and pricing. The pricing matrix is very powerful and works identical to the same function inside the RTD built-in catalog. Rather than displaying your pricing matrix in its entirety, this feature allows you to define what combination of sizes and colors are shown in the table and it then automatically looks up the price for each whenever the page is loaded. Special codes must be supplied to the RTD which describe how to build such a table. You can read more about the PRICING MATRIX SPECIAL CODES in RTD by going to the MANAGE DEFINE PRODUCTS and EDITING a products LONG DESCRIPTION. The special codes used by RTD are placed into the WordPress custom field named "wp_price_matrix_input_table" found below the product page description frame. If your site does not show this box, click on the SCREEN OPTIONS link in the top right of your screen and turn on CUSTOM FIELDS by placing a check mark next to the option. Keep in mind that you must place the shortcode into the body and a properly formatted pricing matrix special code in the custom variables field for this feature to display properly.

Tip for Fastest Setup
Copying/pasting blocks of text between products is much quicker than typing shortcodes into each product. Most users will find that a couple versions of the shortcode text will work for all their products.

Tip for Styling
Each of the options has only a couple variables. You may wish to style your data beyond these basic elements. Each of the options has its own ID's defined so that you can style them using CSS. Please search the web for "STYLING WORDPRESS USING CSS" for more information on customizing your site to your satisfaction.

Please send your comments. We're looking at adding features and porting this concept to other CMS systems.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 12/24/2015 04:50AM by Alex.

Ahhh!!! awesome. I am still on the first version and did some hard coded edits to the plugin so I probably can't upgrade to 2.0 as I am too far in and have almost all my products created with the first version. Can't wait to see someone use the 2.0 version.

Alex,

I uploaded the plug in through my Wordpress admin side and entered the API credentials. When I click on "Click here to import products from API" I can not get any products to show up. I copied and pasted the 3 lines of code for API. Any suggestions?

I am not the developer of this API, but as a veri first thing I'd doublecheck if you're importing the credentials correctly.
A common cause could be, for example, pasting also a trailing space along with the copied string. Be sure you're pasting trimmed strings.

2nd, could be your site cannot resolve the API address.
to try that, open the RTD_functions.php file and change this line:

$API_page = "http://designer.realtimedesigner.com/api.php";

with this:

$API_page = "http://209.190.121.211/api.php";

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2013 12:45PM by Alex.

Alex,

I replaced the code above but still no luck. I am using Godaddy to host and have Wordpress 3.5 installed. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Thanks

I don't, at least because I don't know the internals of this plugin nor I'm a WP user at all.
Let's wait for Mark: he is in touch with the WP plugin developer and he tried to install it on a fresh WP install himself.
He may have some better suggestion.

We are using WP 3.4.2 but I don't think the version should be critical since we aren't delving too deep into WP. Since we're new to this, the best solution will be to have the developer peek into your site directly if you don't mind. Please email me the login info for your site... ftp and wordpress admin


email is mark.gering at realtimedesigner.com


Mark Sr.

I put a fresh install of WP on a test subdomain. Installed the new plugin, everything goes smooth till i try and hit the "click here to import products from API" link.

Nothing happens. Tried it in FF, chrome & IE

We've got the same report from another user but he hasn't replied yet. We are ready to take a look but our own installs went fine.

We are using WP 3.4.2 but I don't think the version should be critical since we aren't delving too deep into WP. Since we're new to this, the best solution will be to have the developer peek into your site directly if you don't mind. Please email me the login info for your site... ftp and wordpress admin - you can change the passwords after we figure out the issue.


email is mark.gering at realtimedesigner.com

Thanks
Mark Sr.

Admin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> We've got the same report from another user but he
> hasn't replied yet. We are ready to take a look
> but our own installs went fine.
>
> We are using WP 3.4.2 but I don't think the
> version should be critical since we aren't delving
> too deep into WP. Since we're new to this, the
> best solution will be to have the developer peek
> into your site directly if you don't mind. Please
> email me the login info for your site... ftp and
> wordpress admin - you can change the passwords
> after we figure out the issue.
>
>
> email is mark.gering at realtimedesigner.com
>
> Thanks
> Mark Sr.

Mark,

I sent you the information a couple days ago and just resent it.

Let me know if you did not get it.

Thanks

Larry

I also sent mine this morning.

The Wordpress plugin has been fixed and we're getting good input. The link above has been updated with the latest code.

Things suggested so far are
1) delete the forced product image from RTD and allow the image to be shown as a shortcode
2) allow color names to be shown

We are working on these and hope to have an updated version soon.

Mark Sr.

Is there a way to only "import" / "display" certain general or product templates? or, a way to disclude certain templates?

Not beyond what RTD already does. You can control which template categories apply to each product in RTD then when WP calls for the templates, only the appropriate ones will be shown. If you want to do something beyond that, please explain how you envision it.

Mark Sr.

well, we've got lots of general templates, some are the same template, just with different bg pictures. So we would want those certain templates to only show up with certain products. Just thought it would be easy to do a short code that would only pull certain template categories like this:

[General_Templates Int.IDs=2193,2142,2180,2188,2179,1904,2182 cols=3 width=200]

Yeah - we can probably do that with a shortcode but can't it already be done in RTD using

CONFIGURE PRODUCT > GENERAL TEMPLATE FILTERING ???

You can select categories and even apply word filters based on the template names.. You can put code words in the template names so that they can be filtered with this tool.

Mark Sr.

ah ha, sorry, wasn't familiar with that.... and you're right, works perfectly.

something that might be nice is the ability to group the fonts. Serif, San Serif, Script, Decor... etc. I realize you could do this by messing around with the show order, but that's a little bit of a pain editing them one by one.

It's there too....

Go to LIBRARY GROUPS > DEFINE FONT GROUP

Add a new group for the default font group perhaps call it "COMMON FONTS". then select several of the fonts and save.

Now add another new group - perhaps SERIF FONTS, select SUPER CATEGORY "common fonts" and select all the serif fonts and save again.

Now add another new group - perhaps SANS SERIF FONTS, select SUPER CATEGORY "common fonts" and select all the sans serif fonts and save again.

Now add another new group - perhaps DECORATIVE FONTS, select SUPER CATEGORY "common fonts" and select all the decorative fonts and save again.

Lastly, to use these settings with your products, assign the COMMON FONTS group to all your products - either by configuring fonts for each product or if you are confident of your abilities, use MASS CONFIGURE TOOLS.

When a customer selects the font tool, he will see all the fonts in the COMMON FONTS categroy with links to switch to the other font group.

Mark Sr.

well, looks like i need to re-familiarize myself with the admin panel, lol

thanks for the tip ;)