X-Cart: StackPath CDN Setup Guide

According to X-Cart's help wiki: "Setting up a CDN for your medium to large X-Cart site will help improve its loading times across the world by delivering static content from the [StackPath] server located closest to your customer."

This article will walk you through how to perform a static assets integration, which does not support the use of the StackPath Web Application Firewall (WAF). If you’re looking to maximize security by using our CDN with the WAF, please refer to the CDN & WAF integration guide.

In each section of this tutorial, swap site.company.stackpathdns.com in the code with your Edge Address and yourdomain.com with your actual domain name. Also, replace ideal_comfort in the code with the name of your skin if you're not using the Ideal Comfort skin.

Before you begin, we highly recommend you test the performance of your site using Google Page Speed or Pingdom Tools. You can test your site now and after setting up the plugin for a before and after performance comparison.

This tutorial assumes you are using X-Cart 4.4 and later and have already gone through the steps to create a StackPath Site.

Fixed Skin Path

1. Open the core X-Cart file called smarty.php.

   It's located in root directory of X-Cart.

2. Find these two lines:

   ​$smarty->assign('ImagesDir', $xcart_web_dir . $smarty_skin_dir . '/images');
           $smarty->assign('SkinDir', $xcart_web_dir . $smarty_skin_dir); 

3. Replace them with this code:

   // WCM - StackPath Integration
           if ($_SERVER['HTTPS'] != 'on')
           {
           $smarty->assign("SkinDir","http://something.stackpathcdn.com/skin/ideal_comfort");
           $smarty->assign("ImagesDir","http://something.stackpathcdn.com/skin/ideal_comfort/images");
           }
           else
           {
           $smarty->assign("SkinDir",$xcart_web_dir."/skin/ideal_comfort");
           $smarty->assign("ImagesDir",$xcart_web_dir."/skin/ideal_comfort/images");
           }

4. Verify StackPath is properly integrated.

Dynamic Skin Path

If you want your skin path assigned dynamically, follow the steps in this section.

1. Open the core X-Cart file called smarty.php.

   It's located in root directory of X-Cart.

2. Find these two lines:

   ​$smarty->assign('ImagesDir', $xcart_web_dir . $smarty_skin_dir . '/images');
           $smarty->assign('SkinDir', $xcart_web_dir . $smarty_skin_dir); 

3. Replace them with this code:

   // WCM - MaxCDN Implementation
                   if ($_SERVER['HTTPS'] != 'on')
                   {
                   $smarty->assign('ImagesDir', "http://something.stackpathcdn.com" . $smarty_skin_dir . '/images');
                   $smarty->assign('SkinDir', "http://something.stackpathcdn.com" . $smarty_skin_dir);
                   }
                   else
                   {
                   $smarty->assign('ImagesDir', $xcart_web_dir . $smarty_skin_dir . '/images');
                   $smarty->assign('SkinDir', $xcart_web_dir . $smarty_skin_dir);
                   }

4. Open /include/templater/plugins/function.load_defer_code.php and find this line:

   $cacheWebFile = $var_dirs_web['cache'] . '/' . $label . '.' . $md5Suffix . '.' . $type;

5. Replace it with this code:

   if ($_SERVER['HTTPS'] != 'on') 
                   { 
                   $cacheWebFile = "http://something.stackpathcdn.com/var/cache" . '/' . $label . '.' . $md5Suffix . '.' . $type; 
                   } 
                   else 
                   { 
                   $cacheWebFile = $var_dirs_web['cache'] . '/' . $label . '.' . $md5Suffix . '.' . $type; 
                   }

6. Open /include/func/func.files.php and find this line:

   ​global $config, $sql_tbl, $xcart_dir, $current_location;

7. Add this new code below it. (DO NOT replace.)

   ​if ($HTTPS) 
                   $current_location = $current_location; 
                   else 
                   $current_location = 'http://something.stackpathcdn.com';

8. Open /include/templater/plugins/function.get_category_image_url.php and find this line:

   return func_convert_amp(func_get_image_url($category['categoryid'], 'C', $category['image_path']));

9. Replace it with this code:

   return return str_replace("domain.com ","something.stackpathcdn.com",func_convert_amp(func_get_image_url($category['categoryid'], 'C', $category['image_path'])));

10. Open /skin/common_files/modules/Banner_System/banner_rotator.tpl and find this line:

    src="{$content.image_path|amp}"

11. Replace it with this code:

    src="{$content.image_path|amp|replace:'domain.com':'something.stackpathcdn.com'}"

Test if Stackpath CDN is integrated correctly

Checking if CDN enabled is really simple. 

1. Purge the browser cache or use a Private or Incognito window.
2. Open the website
3. Right-click anywhere on the page
4. View source code
5. Check the source code for the Edge Address

Test speed and SEO after Stackpath CDN is enabled

At this time, you should perform another speed test by using Google Page Speed and Pingdom Tools.

Compare the before and after tests and note that it can take one to seven days for your site to reflect the performance improvements of a CDN. Both of these test sites also will give you SEO recommendations that you can follow.