Embedding WordPress Blog into OS Commerce Store

I published my first tutorial on embedding WordPress into OS Commerce. At the time, I was relatively new to working with OSC, so I was unaware of the many different template modules available for the software. Through the comments on my post, I learned that the OSC install that I was working with used the Basic Template Structure (BTS). However, people inquired about adjusting my tutorial for use with the Simple Template System (STS). Still more persons asked questions pertaining to default installs of OSC MS2.2.

 Keeping all of these comments in mind, this month I put together a
default install of OSC MS2.2 with an integrated WordPress blogWhat follows is a step-by-step tutorial (with the novice in mind) showing you how to do this. For the many people who are looking for an effective way to integrate OS Commerce and WordPress, I hope this tutorial proves to be a valuable and effective contribution to the OSC Community.

1. First, you will need to install OSC MS2.2 on your web server. This tutorial will assume that your OSC install is located in the default location for a typical OSC install: http://yourdomain.com/catalog/.
2. Next, install WordPress in the /catalog/ directory (i.e. http://yourdomain.com/catalog/wordpress/). Once you’ve installed WordPress, login to your WordPress admin and set Options > General > Blog address (URI) to “http://yourdomain.com/catalog/blog.php” (Note: If you would prefer to have your blog file named something other than blog.php, be sure to set this value accordingly and rename the file that you upload in step 4).
3. Now, just after the opening comments of the /catalog/includes/application_top.php file, add the following PHP code:

   // turn off WordPress themes and include the WordPress core:
   define('WP_USE_THEMES', false);
   require('./wordpress/wp-blog-header.php');

4. Next, download these two files (blog.php and stylesheet.blog.css) and place them in the root of your OSC install.

 Additional Refinement: Displaying Blog Headlines on your Catalog Homepage
For added functionality, here are instructions for including a WordPress static page and blog headlines on the homepage of your OSC store:

1. Before making this edit, you’ll want to make a backup of your default OSC homepage by renaming the file /catalog/index.php to index.ORIGINAL.php
2. Now, download this new index.php file and upload it to your /catalog/ directory. This new index file will display your last 4 blog headlines in a column on the right of the page body. Plus, the value for TEXT_MAIN found in /catalog/includes/languages/english/index.php will display in the left column of the page body.
3. In addition, starting on line 292 of this new index file, I have a switch inserted that will check for the presence of Vito Tardia’s Improved Include Page WordPress Plugin. If you install Vito’s plugin in WordPress, you can edit the iinclude_page() function call on line 294 to include the contents of any WordPress static page by simply editing the page ID in the function’s arguments.