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osCommerce

The e-commerce.

Newbie question on developing a commercial site


hubcat

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Greetings all,

 

My wife is starting a new business and since I'm more technically inclined than she, I've been elected (she was the only voter...) to develop the web site. I've never developed anything on the web and I'm just trying to get an understanding of the tools I'm going to need and how I'll be using each.

 

I loaded the trial version of Dreamweaver MX 2004 (seemed to be a good piece of software and it got good reviews) and have been playing around with it for a week or so now. The site will be selling goods, so I started looking into shopping cart software packages next. I wasn't sure exactly how the interaction between what I was going to be coding in Dreamweaver differed from the coding in a shopping cart software package, so I decided to load osCommerce (it also got good reviews) and see what it was all about.

 

I now have Apache, PHP, MySQL and osCommerce loaded on my system and as I play around with the sample catalog that was created, I have a glaring question. Will I need Dreamweaver to help develop the site or can I use osCommerce to create the whole site? I'm not sure if all shopping cart software packages are as robust as osCommerce, but it seems from my initial delving into the package, that there is a potential that I can use osCommerce to create the entire site. I guess a little background on the site might be in order.

 

My wife wants to sell women's clothing. The majority of the site will revolve around the products (being able to sort various ways, see pictures, etc.), but there are a few other pages like an About Us, Links and maybe a Customer Service page. One of her goals is to ensure the site looks very professional.

 

Before loading osCommerce, my impression was that I would use Dreamweaver to develop the site and that the shopping cart software was just a plug-in type thing that I would integrate later. I'm not so sure now. Maybe I need to use Dreamweaver to modify the sample code from osCommerce or maybe I can create the site by just using the Administrative tools. I just don't understand enough yet.

 

So, any insights that could be provided to help speed up my understanding of what I should be using would be greatly appreciated!

 

Forever learning,

Jeff

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If you know your way around php and dreamweaver, then you can't get much better.

What i do suggest though is that you bookmark these forums, as you will visit them time and time......and time again.

This should be your first and last stop when designing your site, as the people on here are very helpful, and even more knowledgeable.

The contributions are a huge help too.

 

This place is the best place in my opinion, for a shopping cart unless you wish to pay somebody ?1,000+ to make you one.

 

Steve

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No, you don't need Dreamweaver to develop a catalog with osCommerce. I believe a number of people (including me) do use at least some of Dreamweaver's tools to manage their catalogs, but that is certainly not necessary.

 

All you really need is a good code editor and an FTP client. Utilities such as phpmyadmin and Beyond Compare are also very useful.

"Buy the ticket, take the ride..." -HST

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Hello,

 

Steve offers some very good suggestions. I might a couple of remarks, Dreamweaver is a development tool and OSC is shopping cart software. So your initial assumption that you could use Dreamweaver to create a shopping is correct, it would take a whole bunch of work though. Now you will be using Dreamweaver to maintain and modify what has already been started in OSC. I know all that might sound fairly obvious but I wanted to make sure you weren't thinking you could now throw Dreamweaver away and just use OSC to build the site. OSC gives you a big head start but it won't truly build anything for you.

 

Its also true that OSC compares favorably to many commercial shopping cart applications and its free to download. However while you don't have to pay for the software, do be prepared to pay with your time and effort. Now I don't say that to scare you off, rather simply to get you in the proper mindset that now because its free open source you have the ability to build a site that both you and your wife can be proud of. It will take effort and occasionally banging your head on your desk. But it can be a fun journey and a satisfying one :)

 

Be well,

 

Tina

If you're not having fun you're not doing it right

 

Teach a person to fish rather than give them a loaf of bread or however that saying goes.

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No, you don't need Dreamweaver to develop a catalog with osCommerce. I believe a number of people (including me) do use at least some of Dreamweaver's tools to manage their catalogs, but that is certainly not necessary.

 

All you really need is a good code editor and an FTP client. Utilities such as phpmyadmin and Beyond Compare are also very useful.

 

This is also true, you don't need Dreamweaver specifically any editor including Notepad will work. I happen to like DW because it gives a good balance between the visual and the coding tools. If you use the visual side it doesn't insert a lot of unwanted code like other products.

 

Tina

If you're not having fun you're not doing it right

 

Teach a person to fish rather than give them a loaf of bread or however that saying goes.

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Thanks gang for the helpful replies!

 

Tina, my main question was in fact whether I could just use OSC to build the site, so I'm glad you gave me the not-so-obvious-to-me answer to that question. :) It sounds like I'll be using what OSC has as a foundation and I'll have to adjust their code to fit my needs -- maybe creating a different index.php or index.html Home Page that will look like what I want and call the other pages we'll need. I guess I'll go purchase Dreamweaver then (and a book on PHP!) and start delving into OSC more.

 

Peace all,

Jeff

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I'd suggest that you put a bit more thought into how you can modify osc to look like you want it from within, rather than make a page externally and try to paste it onto osc. It might be good to develop that page as a goal to shoot for as you modify the stylesheet, and the tables within osc pages to get it where you want.

 

I was in exactly the situation you were in, and initially at least, my responsibility was only for the backend of the shop. One of my wife's friends worked on the front end design, I believe she used Dreamweaver too. I wound up doing all of it eventually, and I did have to redo the pages Michelle had done with dreamweaver, as it made changes that did what she wanted, but were not elegant in terms of the stylesheet, and the site as a whole. If I had kept it the way she had it, I would have had a ton of changes to make anytime I wanted to modify something.

 

I knew very little when I started, and I've used wordpad for most of my editing. I also used google to find online resources for things like image editors to change colours and image sizes, to figure out how to work with MySQL, and to find colour charts with html codes, etc.. I was also warned about running my home computer as a server while it was physically connected to the net, as it is pretty much wide open unless you really know your way around network security, so anytime I run the server, I disconnect the cable first.

 

These forums are the best resource going though, especially if you learn the ins and outs of the search. User jcall made a thread in tips and tricks that is very good in this regard!

 

Jeremy

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Thank you, Jeremy! I can see that I have much to learn. This has been a great starting point and I appreciate all the feedback I've received.

 

So much reading, so little time...

 

Bright Blessings,

Jeff

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