Explanation of osC operation required.

[reyn]

I would like a presence on the web for my new florist shop said the wife, oh that's easy said I, won't take very long. Big mistake! I have been looking at osCommerce and it's loaded/derivitive versions for two weeks now, read the faq, looked at the contributions, read lots on this board, viewed lots of sites and I am still perplexed how to start.

a. do I use one of the two template systems?

b. should I limit myself to as few contributions as possible and try and keep everything as standard as possible?

c. is osC too much shop for a local florist?

d. what are cPaths and sids

e. why when I download my osC Demo (without mods) local site to my C: drive do I get thousands (2578) of html pages and no php pages with names like (products_new2b3c.html) what is going on here. nb: to the person who is going to say "if you don't understand that then you have no business here" I reply in advance "I am here to learn, but need a bit of a kickstart".

There is some dynamic production of the html pages going on here, what I would like to know is how it all works, is there a description of this somewhere yet to be unearthed,

a flow chart would be nice, a reasonable description would suffice, a pointer to where to RTFM would be appreciated. I am sure lots of guy's and gal's modify the look and feel of their sites without requiring knowledge of the 'workings' I am equally sure that there are others like me that want to understand what is happening behind the scenes. If someone who knows what they are talking about could spare the time to post an answer, I think a lot of people would appreciate it.

Thank You

Frank

[boxtel]

I would like a presence on the web for my new florist shop said the wife, oh that's easy said I, won't take very long. Big mistake!  I have been looking at osCommerce and it's loaded/derivitive versions for two weeks now, read the faq, looked at the contributions, read lots on this board, viewed lots of sites and I am still perplexed how to start.

a. do I use one of the two template systems?

b. should I limit myself to as few contributions as possible and try and keep everything as standard as possible?

c. is osC too much shop for a local florist?

d. what are cPaths and sids

e. why when I download my osC Demo (without mods) local site to my C: drive do I get thousands (2578) of html pages and no php pages with names like (products_new2b3c.html)  what  is going on here.  nb: to the person who is going to say "if you don't understand that then you have no business here" I reply in advance "I am here to learn, but need a bit of a kickstart".

There is some dynamic production of the html pages going on here, what I would like to know is how it all works, is there a description of this somewhere yet to be unearthed,

a flow chart would be nice, a reasonable description would suffice, a pointer to where to RTFM would be appreciated. I am sure lots of guy's and gal's modify the look and feel of their sites without requiring knowledge of the 'workings' I am equally sure that there are others like me that want to understand what is happening behind the scenes.  If someone who knows what they are talking about could spare the time to post an answer, I think a lot of people would appreciate it.

Thank You

Frank

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

a) no, you do not need a template

B) yes, in the beginning, keep it as standard as possible till you know the basics

c) never

d) cPath is just a variable defining the category structure Sids are unique numbers assigned to every visitor to your site. Like a unique key so you can keep them apart

e) OSC is PHP written. there are no HTML pages because PHP creates them when your visitor requests them.

 

best advise, get a book on php and dynamic webservers. And read the forums, ALL of them.

[Guest]

a) no, you do not need a template

B) yes, in the beginning, keep it as standard as possible till you know the basics

c) never

d) cPath is just a variable defining the category structure Sids are unique numbers assigned to every visitor to your site. Like a unique key so you can keep them apart

e) OSC is PHP written. there are no HTML pages because PHP creates them when your visitor requests them.

 

best advise, get a book on php and dynamic webservers. And read the forums, ALL of them.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Just install it on a test server and put it to the test.

 

Make all of your mistakes there :)

 

You'll quickly learn how it works.