Cross-Link Products with Blog Posts, News and Topics
AutomaticRelatedProducts connects nopCommerce catalog products to blog posts, news items and topics, rendering product blocks on those content pages and related news or blog blocks on product detail pages. Admins attach products from the content editors or a central grid, choose the widget zones used for placement, and let the storefront filter and cache the result automatically.
What It Does
- Product tabs on content editors — a Products tab is added to the Blog Post, News Item and Topic edit pages.
- Reverse product tab — the Product edit page lists every blog post, news item and topic that references it.
- Central relationship grid — an admin list page shows every link, filterable by entity type: Blog, News, Topic or Knowledgebase.
- Product picker with duplicate protection — the standard nopCommerce product search popup supports multi-select, skipping products already linked.
- Display order control — each relationship's display order is edited inline in the grid.
- Storefront product blocks — related products render on Blog Post, News Item, Topic and Knowledgebase Article pages.
- Storefront content blocks — related news items and blog posts render on Product Detail pages.
- Configurable widget zones — a checkbox list of zones, read from WidgetZones.xml, sets the placement for each block.
- Per-page item limits — separate limits apply to products on content pages, blog posts and news on product pages.
- Automatic filtering — ACL, store mapping, availability dates and language determine which products, news and blog posts appear.
- Per-store overrides — every display setting can be set differently for each store in a multi-store installation.
- Output caching — blocks are cached per store, language and entity, with product blocks also keyed by customer role.
- Activity logging — customer activity log entries record each relationship update and delete.
- Debug log file — a downloadable and clearable log records plugin activity for troubleshooting.
How It Works
- Install the plugin; a Products tab appears on the Blog Post, News Item and Topic edit pages.
- Attach products through the product picker popup, or manage links from the central relationship grid.
- Select the widget zones and per-page item limits for each block type in the configuration page.
- Shoppers see related products on content pages, and related news or blog posts on product detail pages.
- Each block is filtered by ACL, store, availability and language, and cached automatically.
Specs & Requirements
- nopCommerce — 5.00, 4.90, 4.80, 4.70, 4.60, 4.50, 4.40, 4.30, 4.20, 4.10
- Plugin type — Misc: a widget plugin rendering into configurable widget zones
- Store setup — choose widget zones and per-page item limits in the configuration page; set per-store overrides for multi-store installs
