For many OpenCart modules vQmod is required so if you didn’t understand so far what it is you can find out in this very easy and quick install guide.
vQmod™ (aka Virtual Quick Mod) is an override system designed to avoid having to change core OpenCart files. The concept is quite simple. Instead of making changes to the core files directly, the changes are created as xml search/replace script files. These script files are parsed during page load as each “source” core file is loaded with the “include” or “require” php functions. The source is then patched with the script file changes, and saved to a temp file. That temp file is then substituted for the original during execution. The original source file is never altered. This results in a “virtual” change to the core during execution without any actual modification to the core files.
Very easy and very useful too. So there are some important things you need to know about vQmod and those are:
- DO NOT DELETE THE INSTALL FOLDER!
- YOU MUST RUN THE INSTALLER EVERY TIME YOU UPGRADE OPENCART!
- THERE IS NO DANGER OF RE-RUNNING THE INSTALLER!
The installation is very simple.
1. Download the installation files
Visit the offical vQmod web page and download the latest version for OpenCart.
2. Upload files to your server
Using your favorite FTP client upload the ‘vqmod‘ folder to your root directory on the server, assuming that your OpenCart is in the root directory. If it is in a subfolder then upload vQmod to that subfolder.
The vqmod folder and the vqmod/vqcache folders must be writable (either 755 or 777 file permissions). Also be sure that index.php and admin/index.php are writable.
3. Visit the vQmod folder URL via web browser
In your web browser’s address bar type the URL of the vQmod installation folder. It should be something like this:
www.youropencartwebsite.com/vqmod/install
If everything is OK you should see the success message:
Using FTP, verify that there are new ‘vq‘ files in the vqmod/vqcache folder.
That’s it! I hope you installed it without any trouble.
DISCLAIMER: I used the domain name youropencartwebsite.com only for the sake of this tutorial and ease of understanding the process described here. I do not own this domain and mentioning it in this post is for identification purposes only. Use of this domain name does not imply endorsement.
