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customization of osCommerce from design perspectiv


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Hi,

I've formed a company to retail jewelry over the internet. Initially we decided to use yahoo merchant solutions. I like the services that they provide except for the fact that their checkout-flow seems completely disconnected from the look of the entire site. They take full control of the checkout process & there is not much customization that can be done. There are a few other things that I didn't like about them. But anyways, here I am to evaluate the alternatives & osCommerce seems like a very promising option.

 

I have a designer who is working on the look of the storefront etc. The tool used is macromedia dreamweaver. I would be working with a php, mysql expert to use the pages provided by the designer and make a database driven site. By that I mean, storing the product details etc in mysql, and using php to generate dynamic pages.

 

I understand that osCommerce provides excellent administration tool backend. But is it possible to achieve the flexibility that I need for the designing part. Is it possible to use dreamweaver (frontpage etc) in the fashion that I described above? Or is it the case that customization and design of the site is not very intuitive and straightforward with osCommerce?

 

Thanks for your help. Looking forward to hearing from you.

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sts_template is a good templating system for OsCommerce,

or AutoTheme is a good alternative,

 

Auto Theme being there easier of the two to grasp.

 

AutoTheme Home Page

 

I cant remeber where i got sts from, but look in the contributations. Im sure its lying around in there somewhere.

 

Hope that helps.

Regards.

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Stay away from these Template Systems - they are more trouble than they're worth.

 

What you need to do is take osCommerce (front-end) and integrate your design. In other words, rather than try to fit osCommerce into your design, fit your design into osCommerce. It's not difficult, but does take some knowledge of PHP, HTML and osCommerce itself.

 

There is nothing you cannot do - have a look in the "My Store" area of the Forum and in the "live shops" listings for examples of both good and bad designs.

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Stay away from these Template Systems - they are more trouble than they're worth.

 

What you need to do is take osCommerce (front-end) and integrate your design.  In other words, rather than try to fit osCommerce into your design, fit your design into osCommerce.  It's not difficult, but does take some knowledge of PHP, HTML and osCommerce itself.

 

There is nothing you cannot do - have a look in the "My Store" area of the Forum and in the "live shops" listings for examples of both good and bad designs.

 

Thanks Burt!

 

"fit your design into osCommerce" - that I believe is the right approach. I'm checking out the "My Store" area. Just to give you an idea.. the kind of portal that i like to build is similar to www.bluenile.com or www.ice.com

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Stay away from these Template Systems - they are more trouble than they're worth.

 

What you need to do is take osCommerce (front-end) and integrate your design.  In other words, rather than try to fit osCommerce into your design, fit your design into osCommerce.  It's not difficult, but does take some knowledge of PHP, HTML and osCommerce itself.

 

There is nothing you cannot do - have a look in the "My Store" area of the Forum and in the "live shops" listings for examples of both good and bad designs.

 

 

You speak the truth burt -

 

Think of it this way osc is a template - why would you want to add another template on top of it ?

 

Take osC which is outstandingly flexible in what it allows you to do to both the front and back end - modify it so it looks as you want - and as you seem to have a team of developers with the requisite skills this should not be a problem

 

In terms of dreamweaver, frontpage etc etc - use what you like best - the real power of this product comes not from the mod tools you use, but from the design and business vision you have.

 

Charles

A kite flies highest AGAINST the wind !

 

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, a lover in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming ~ WOO HOO!! What a ride!"

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Hi, and welcome to the forum.

 

I've formed a company to retail jewelry over the internet. Initially we decided to use yahoo merchant solutions. I like the services that they provide except for the fact that their checkout-flow seems completely disconnected from the look of the entire site. They take full control of the checkout process & there is not much customization that can be done. There are a few other things that I didn't like about them. But anyways, here I am to evaluate the alternatives & osCommerce seems like a very promising option.

A wise decision.

 

 

I understand that osCommerce provides excellent administration tool backend.

Yes, and even better in MS3 (still under development)

 

 

But is it possible to achieve the flexibility that I need for the designing part.

It's the most flexible cart in the world, unless you decide to spend many, many thousands extra on a custom framework.

 

 

Is it possible to use dreamweaver (frontpage etc) in the fashion that I described above?

I personally use and recommend Dreamweaver MX. (And also Zend Studio for debugging, and non-graphic/layout developments)

 

 

Or is it the case that customization and design of the site is not very intuitive and straightforward with osCommerce?

Develping an application with dynamically generated contents is not as intuitive as standard HTML. And I'm afraid that WYSIWYG + Drag&Drop are not available. This applies to all programming languages/frameworks capable of developing an E-Commerce application. The only *close* exeption I can think off is MS Visual Studio .NET, but that's not an appropriate disscussion in this forum.

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"fit your design into osCommerce" - that I believe is the right approach. I'm checking out the "My Store" area.  Just to give you an idea.. the kind of portal that i like to build is similar to www.bluenile.com or www.ice.com

 

Both of those are nice designs. I had seen BlueNile before, but never seen Ice. Both of those types of designs would be fairly straightforward to implement into osCommerce.

 

What I generally do is this;

 

Take the completed HTML page and visualise it split up into the component osCommerce areas: Header, Footer, Column Right, Column Left, Main Content. Now I can see (in my mind) the amount of work I need to do to integrate it...

 

You can see an example of what I'm doing on my own new site look in my Blog:

http://blogs.oscommerce.com/burt/index.php...owentry&eid=116

 

It's not difficult to most things - but it can be a painful experience on your first go. My best advice to anyone is to think "outside the box", and to jump in to the osCommerce Waters. You'll either Sink rapidly or Swim...

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having checked out a few sites in the 'my store' area, i feel it should be possible to customize the design, but i wouldn't know how easy/difficult it would be until i actually work upon it.

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I, too, am about to create a couple of online shopping carts, and would love to go the osCommerce route because of its flexibility and cost.

 

The main problem that I have with osCommerce is the fact that in order to make it blend in with an already designed website (or one that will be designed) it seems like you have to know PHP. I am just curious to know if anyone of you can gauge how difficult it would be for someone who knows HTML and some basic CSS to alter osCommerce in PHP? Just wondering if this is worth it for me to attempt or if I should go the route of paying for something like Yahoo, etc.

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