• Installing Shop by Brand
• Migrating Shop by Brand from Magento 1 to Magento 2
• Describing the Migration Process
• Uninstalling Shop by Brand 
• Compatibility
• Introducing Shop by Brand
• Extension Settings 
• Creating Brands
• Brands on the Storefront

Magento 2 Shop by Brand adds a designated page that lists all brands presented in a store. From there, users can navigate to particular brand pages with related products. More to it, the module allows displaying a widget with all and featured brands across different site pages and in various page positions and promote brand-related cross-sells via the 'More from this brand' block.

Installing Shop by Brand

Command Line Installation

1. Backup your web directory and store database
2. Download the Shop by Brand installation package
3. Upload contents of the Shop by Brand installation package to your store root directory
4. In SSH console of your server navigate to your store root folder:

cd path_to_the_store_root_folder

run the following command:

php bin/magento module:enable Aheadworks_ShopByBrand

then:

php bin/magento setup:upgrade

after:

php bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy -f

     5. Flush store cache; log out from the backend and log in again

Composer Installation

If you are installing an extension from Aheadworks for the first time, you need to add our composer repository to your Magento store:

     1. Login to your ssh console and navigate to your store folder:

cd path_to_the_store_root_folder

Run the following command:

composer config repositories.aheadworks composer https://dist.aheadworks.com/

After the command was executed successfully, you can use the composer to install the products.

To install the extension:

     2. Login to your ssh console and navigate to your store folder:

cd path_to_the_store_root_folder

      3. Run the following command to install the latest version of the extension:

composer require aheadworks/module-shop-by-brand

if you need to install a specific version, run this command:

composer require aheadworks/module-shop-by-brand:<version>

When prompted, enter Public Key (Username) and Private Key (Password):

Both Public Key (Username) and Private Key (Password) can be found in My Projects and Licenses in your personal account on our site:

Run the following command to install Shop By Brand GraphQL:  

composer require aheadworks/module-shop-by-brand-graph-ql

 4. Enable the extension:

php -f bin/magento module:enable <Module_Name>

Next, register the extension:

bin/magento setup:upgrade

Recompile your Magento store if you are in the Production mode:

bin/magento setup:di:compile

To verify that the extension is enabled, run this command:

bin/magento module:status

Clean store cache, by running the following command:

bin/magento cache:clean

Log out and Log in the backend again.

composer require hyva-themes/magento2-aheadworks-shop-by-brand

To upgrade the extension:

     5. To update or upgrade an extension:

Download the updated extension file. Take note of the module-name and version. Export the contents to your Magento root.

If a composer package exists for the extension, run one of the following.

composer update aheadworks/module-shop-by-brand

Updater per version:

composer require aheadworks/module-shop-by-brand:<version>

Run the following commands to upgrade, deploy, and clean the cache.

php bin/magento setup:upgrade --keep-generated
php bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy
php bin/magento cache:clean

Migrating Shop by Brand from Magento 1 to Magento 2

What should I know before migrating the Aheadworks Shop by Brand for M1 to Shop by Brand for M2?

1. The Magento Data Migration Tool is required to be installed prior to starting the migration.
   The migration script relies heavily on the Magento Data Migration tool. Understanding how it works will be useful during the migration process.
2. Backup the Magento 2 databases before performing the migration. This way, you will be able to revert any changes.
   Shop by Brand migration might involve rewriting database tables, backup is advised.
3. All attached files (such as brand-related images) should be migrated manually.
   More information on manual migration can be found in the Magento instructions on manual migration.

Video Guide

A similar migration process is described in the educational Video Guide on the Aheadworks Youtube channel. Don't forget to enable subtitles for the video to follow the data migration process.

Migration Process

Below you can see the migration guide with a more detailed, step-by-step description.

 1. Log into your Magento server as a file owner and navigate to the directory where you have your Magento 2 store installed. For example:

cd /var/www/my_magento2_store/

2. Install the Magento Data Migration Tool.

 3. Download the Shop by Brand migration distributive and unpack it to the required location.

 4. Copy the contents of the Shop by Brand migration distributive to the Magento Data Migration Tool's main folder.

 5. Edit the config.xml file in the Magento Data Migration Tool

6. Run the migration script in the console

bin/magento migrate:data [-r|--reset] {<path to config.xml>}

bin/magento migrate:data -r vendor/magento/data-migration-tool/etc/aw_rma/config.xml

 7. Data migration is complete. Make sure to manually migrate the attached files and images.

• Copy all files to the m1store_root/media/aw_shopbybrand folder;
• Move the copied files to the m2store_root/pub/media/aw_sbb/brand folder.
• The result is m2store_root/pub/media/aw_sbb/brand/aw_shopbybrand.

Describing the Migration Process

php bin/magento module:disable Aheadworks_ShopByBrand
php bin/magento setup:upgrade

app/code/Aheadworks/ShopByBrand

php bin/magento module:uninstall Aheadworks_ShopByBrand

Compatibility

The supported PHP version depends on the Magento version. Please refer to the release notes for your Magento version.

Introducing Shop by Brand

The Shop by Brand extension has the following key features:

• A page listing all brands presented in a store;
• Dedicated pages with brand logos, descriptions, and featured products;
• A customizable 'More from this Brand' block on brand-related product pages;
• A brand widget showing all and featured brands (can be put anywhere in the store);
• Enhanced product pages with brand logos and descriptions (added automatically);
• The integration with Layered Navigation by Aheadworks adds a brand filter to the navigation panel;
• PWA ready, GraphQL and Web API support.

Extension Logic

The module allows you to organize purchases by brands. The brands represent dedicated pages that feature brand logos and descriptions and list all related products. This helps customers easily find the items of a particular brand.

The predefined brand logos and (optionally) descriptions are automatically added to the relevant product pages, this way, promoting the brand. In addition, a brand widget featuring all and featured brands can be placed anywhere in the store (in terms of particular brand pages and page positions). The 'More from this brand' block with brand-related products can be added to all product pages of the corresponding brand.

Extension Settings 

Before using the extension, you need to proceed to the extension settings page that can be found in Stores → Configuration → Aheadworks Extensions → Shop by Brand.

General and Product Page Settings

The 'Brand Product Attribute' option under General defines the attribute to be used throughout the brand creation process.

The 'Product Page' settings define how brand-related product pages will look like.

• Display Brand Info on Product Page - defines if the brand information should be displayed on a product page:
  • Don't display;
  • Before short description;
  • After short description;
  • Before product options.
    
• Display Brand Description - defines if only a brand logo without description should be displayed on the product page.

'More from this Brand' Block

This section controls the properties of the 'More from this Brand' related product block available within the extension. The block can only be displayed on product pages related to a particular brand. If enabled, it is placed automatically on all product pages.

• Enable "More from this Brand" Block - defines if the related product block is enabled;
• Block Name - defines the name of the block displayed for customers;
• Block Position - allows adjusting block placement on the product page:
  • Before native Related Products block;
  • After native Related Products block;
  • Content top;
  • Content bottom.
    
• Block Layout - allows adjusting block layout:
  • Products aligned in single row;
  • Products aligned in multiple rows;
  • Slider.
• Max Products to Display - defines the number of related products displayed in the block;
• Display "Add to Cart" Button - defines if the "Add to Cart" button should be displayed below related products in the block, allows customers to add products directly from the block;
• Sort Products by - defines the sorting order of the related products in the block:
  • Bestsellers;
  • Newest;
  • Price: from high to low;
  • Price: from low to high;
  • Random;
  • Position.

SEO

The 'SEO' configuration section defines if the 'noindex' attribute should be added to pagination to prevent SEO penalties.

Once done with the settings, click on the Save Config button to apply the configuration.

Creating Brands

Converting Attributes into Brands

The Shop by Brand extension allows you to convert the existing attributes into brands. As we said earlier, only attributes of the drop-down type can be converted.

Here you can create attribute values that can later be set as your brands while adding new brand pages.

Brand Pages Grid

To create a new brand, navigate to the 'Brands' grid in Catalog → Shop by Brand by Aheadworks → Brand Pages.

The 'Brand Pages' grid contains the following columns:

• ID - an ID of a brand;
• Logo - the brand's logo;
• Brand Name - the brand's title;
• URL Key - the URL address of the corresponding brand page;
• Website - the website(s) the related brand page(s) should be displayed on.

To add a new brand page, click on the Add New button.

Adding a Brand Page

The 'New Brand' page comes with the following settings:

• Brand - allows selecting the brand product attribute defined in the 'Brand Product Attribute' field of the general extension settings;
• URL Key - allows defining the brand product page's URL;
• Logo - allows uploading the brand's logo;
• Featured Brand - defines if the brand is featured - displayed atop of the other brands.

Below the 'General Information' settings, you can define the brand's description per store view using the 'What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG)' editor. The 'Content' section of the page also includes the 'Meta Title' and 'Meta Description' sections useful for SEO and the 'Store View' selector if you run multiple stores and need to adjust your brand page separately for each store view.

Add Products Mode

Add Products dropdown - choose whether to add products to the brand page Manually or By rule. The Rule component determines If a specific attribute has a specific value and then includes the product on this brand page.

Managing Brand Products

You can add any number of products from the catalog to brand pages. Once you've created a new brand page, the dedicated 'Brand products' grid becomes available. It allows selecting the required items either one by one or massively.

In order to find a particular product, you can search it by ID, Name, SKU, Price, Category and Visibility. Moreover, you can change the display order of brand-related products on the page by manually specifying the appropriate values in the 'Position' column. Respectively, the item with the '1' value will go first in the list.

When done setting up a new brand page, click on the Save button.

Brands on the Storefront

Shop by Brand Category

If required, you can create a dedicated brand category.

To do this:

1) Create a new category and configure it as you need;

2) Navigate to Content > Widgets and add the new widget of the 'Brands' type;

3) Set the layout updates for the widget to make sure it is displayed in the required category.

After all the required parameters are configured, you will get something like this:

Brand Page

Each brand page features brand descriptions and logos you previously set. Below the brand's description, customers can find products related to the corresponding brand.

Product Pages

Products belonging to a particular brand can have this brand featured on their pages. You can either display a brand logo or a brand logo plus brand description.

Brand Widget

A widget featuring all brands presented in the store can be placed in any required page position as well as across different store pages. To add the widget, go to Content → Widgets and find it in the list of all Magento 2 widgets.

Product Page