Announcement Bar user manual – PrestaShop module

Module page: Announcement Bar PDF · 146 KB

1. What this module does

The module adds a narrow bar above your shop header for promotions and notices: "Free delivery this weekend", "Orders placed today ship on Monday", "Black Friday −20% — See the offer". You can run up to three messages at once, each in every language of your shop, with its own colours, an optional link and its own start and end dates. When several messages are live, the bar shows them one after another. Customers can close the bar, and it stays hidden for the number of days you choose.

Works with PrestaShop 1.7.8, 8.x and 9.x (PHP 7.2.5 or newer), with the Classic and Hummingbird themes and with multistore.

2. Installation

  1. Download the module from My account → Order history at addonspresta.com.
  2. In your Back Office, open Modules → Module Manager and click Upload a module.
  3. Drop the ap_announcementbar_v1.0.1.zip file and wait for the confirmation.
  4. Click Configure on the module card.

After installation the bar is not visible yet: all three messages are switched off until you write and switch on the first one.

3. How it works

The bar is placed in the displayBanner hook, which the Classic theme (PrestaShop 1.7.8, 8 and 9) and the Hummingbird theme (PrestaShop 9) show at the very top of every page, above the header. The Classic theme leaves this hook out of its simplified checkout header, so on the checkout page of Classic the bar is not shown. It uses your theme's fonts; the colours come from each message.

Every time a page is displayed, the shop checks which messages are switched on and inside their dates. Dates are read in the shop time zone set in International → Localization. A message with no text in the visitor's language is skipped for that language. If no message is live, the bar is not displayed at all.

With one live message the bar simply shows it. With two or three, it shows each one for the number of seconds you set, without any animation. Rotation pauses while the mouse pointer or the keyboard focus is on the bar. Small arrows let visitors move between messages; visitors whose system asks for reduced motion get no automatic rotation and use the arrows.

When a customer closes the bar, their browser remembers it (in local storage, no cookies) for the number of days you set. The memory is tied to the current messages: when you change a message, the bar comes back for everyone.

The module does not change PrestaShop tables, does not set cookies and does not connect to addonspresta.com or any other server.

4. Features and settings

Open Modules → Module Manager → Announcement Bar → Configure. The Help box at the top links to this manual and to the module page at addonspresta.com, in the language of your Back Office. Under it, notices tell you when the bar is hidden, when a message is waiting for its start date or has ended, and when text and background colours are hard to read together.

Message 1, 2 and 3

  • Show this message — switches the message on or off without losing its content.
  • Text — plain text, up to 200 characters, in each language. It is required in the default language when the message is switched on. Leave it empty in another language to show nothing there.
  • Link URL — optional. A full address starting with https:// or a page of your shop starting with /, such as /en/content/1-delivery. Other kinds of links are refused.
  • Link label — optional, for example "See the offer". With a label, the text is followed by the link. Without a label, the whole message becomes the link.
  • Background colour and Text colour — hex colours such as #111111 and #ffffff (the defaults). A notice warns you when the contrast is below 4.5:1, the minimum for comfortable reading.
  • Start and End — optional date and time in the shop time zone, for example 2026-11-27 08:00. An end date without a time means the end of that day. Leave them empty to show the message as long as it is switched on.

Bar behaviour

  • Rotation interval — how long each message stays before the next one, from 2 to 60 seconds (default 5).
  • Customers can close the bar — adds a close button.
  • Hidden after closing for — number of days the bar stays hidden in that browser (default 7). With 0 it is hidden only until the customer closes the browser.
  • Show on — all pages, or the home page only.

5. Multistore

Settings are saved for the shop or shop group selected in the Back Office header. Select All shops to set the same messages everywhere, or a single shop to give it its own messages, colours and dates. A customer who closes the bar in one shop still sees it in the others. In the All shops or group context only an employee who manages every shop of it can save. One licence covers every shop of the installation.

6. Uninstall

Module Manager → Announcement Bar → Uninstall removes the bar and all its settings and messages. To keep them, use Disable instead.

7. FAQ and troubleshooting

The bar does not appear. Check the notices at the top of the configuration page: at least one message must be switched on, have a text in the visitor's language and be inside its dates. If you chose Home page only, look at the home page. If you closed the bar yourself, open the shop in a private window. Then clear the cache in Advanced Parameters → Performance.

A message appears too early or too late. Dates follow the shop time zone in International → Localization → Configuration, not the time of your computer. If your shop uses a full-page cache (for example Varnish or a caching module), the bar changes only when that cache is refreshed.

I changed the text but a customer who closed the bar does not see it. The bar comes back as soon as the page shows the new text. If you use a full-page cache, clear it.

The bar is not at the top of the page in my theme. The bar uses the displayBanner hook. Some themes do not show this hook or show it in another place; in that case your theme developer can add {hook h='displayBanner'} at the top of the header template.

Can I change how the bar looks? Yes. Copy views/templates/hook/bar.tpl to themes/<your-theme>/modules/ap_announcementbar/views/templates/hook/ and edit the copy, then clear the cache (Advanced Parameters > Performance > Clear cache). You can also add CSS for the .ap-announcementbar classes to your theme.

8. Updates and support

Updates are free for life: download new versions from My account → Order history at addonspresta.com and upload them like a new module. Your settings are kept.

Support is included for 12 months from your order: write to mail@addonspresta.com or use the contact form at addonspresta.com (Monday to Friday, 10:00–16:00 CET; we usually answer within 2 business days). Please include your PrestaShop version, the module version and the steps that lead to the problem.

Back to User manuals

Back to top