How to add new Brands in OpenCart, get manufacturers carousel module.

We glad to greet our readers on the pages of this blog.

Today we have an intention to continue speaking about OpenCart – the unique open source shopping cart system. In our previous article “How to make a translation of a website with the new OpenCart theme installed” we told you about translation of your site based on the OpenCart. At this time we would like to talk about another important question — how to get manufacturers carousel module in Opencart.

So read below.

Carousel Module (slider with brands) is originally installed in the default OpenCart version. You can see it in the bottom of main page:

If you’ve installed your own theme and don’t see this block, you need to install it in admin: Extensions -> Modules -> Carousel.
The next step is to add your own manufacturers, because for now there are only default brands. You should go to admin -> Catalog -> Manufacturer -> Insert to do this. For example,

After that you have to set this brand to some products on your site.
Go to any product’s editing page in admin: Catalog -> Products. We do this, for example, for default product “Apple Cinema 30″”. Tab “Links” and first field “Manufacturer”. Now type the first letter of your brand’s name and choose the brand:

As a result at least one product will have your new brand “Hugo Boss”. You can see also that this brand’s appeared on your storefront — link: http://your_site_link/index.php?route=product/manufacturer (you can find this link in the default OpenCart template in its footer menu -> title “Extras” -> item “Brands”)

When you click on it, you will see all products with this brand. There is only one product in our example. You should save this link. (for example, index.php?route=product/manufacturer/info&manufacturer_id=11). It will be helpful for us later.

So you have added the new brand. You have completed the addition of the product to it. But, nevertheless you don’t see this brand on your main page in the slider with brands. All images will be the same, even if you refresh the page for many times. The reason of this condition is the work of Carousel Module with the definite banner (in the default case with the banner “Manufacturers”).

In order to see your own image in the Carousel Module you needn’t to add a new brand in the admin only. You should also add this brand to the one of default banners or create your own banner.
We would recommend not touching the default banners but creating your own one. In this way you will always be able to come back to default settings, if something get wrong.

To create a new banner, go to admin: System -> Design -> Banners -> Insert.

Now you need to paste the link, which we recommended you to save, into the field “Link”.
New banner is completely done.
Finally, you should set this banner in Carousel Module. Go again to: Extensions -> Modules -> Carousel ->. Choose the new created banner in the field “Banner”. Come to Frontend where you can see the one new brand “Hugo Boss”. When you click on this image, you will see the product with this brand. The same procedure has to be done concerning each new brand.

So we wish you not get tired when adding new brands to your OpenCart theme.
See you later on the pages of the “Learning Sessions” rubric.

Tonytemplates team