need some some advise

[kdobbins]

ok i am no where near a programmer i am figuring this out as i go along. i have muttered my way thru adding a few contributions such as the side login thing and the catagories table on the front page and i also added a WYSIWYG editor for the product information. i also added a flash logo at the top.

 

now comes the question. i am not a creative person nor do i have a lot of the programming experience to just make a lot of changes. i am wanting to get some input as to what would make this site fit the target audience and make it look more unique and less stock.

 

Woodcraft-store.com

[K3D]

I don't think you will get many comments because your site is very stock.

 

My first suggestion would be to lose the flash thing. Why have something that moves constantly drawing users attention away from the main body of your site to the top left corner of their screen.

 

I am not too keen on your yellow on grey colour scheme. Maybe my expectation for a woodcraft store would be to have dark mahogany infoboxes with beechy or creamy background or something.

 

Try finding some nicer buttons/graphics to replace the stock ones in the contributions section if you are not up to creating your own.

[kdobbins]

the color scheme is awful i was jsut trying to figure out what did what and changing stuff. the input you provided was exactly what i was looking for (my expectation for a woodcraft store would be to have dark mahogany infoboxes with beechy or creamy background or something) i am not exactly a creative person and was wanting that kind of input. i appreciate it

[♥peterpil19]

In changing the way your store looks, the stylesheet.css file is going to be your best friend.

 

Here is a link which describes the stylesheet: Stylesheet Link

 

Try some wood-like colours, like dark browns! You can even use images instead of colours with the stylesheet, so if you find any wood-like gradients they will really go nicely!

 

Next, in terms of where words, titles etc are located, have a look in catalog/includes/languages/english.php, and also catalog/includes/languages/english/index.php.

 

In one of those two files you will find where the really annoying "welcome guest, would you like to log yourself in, or would you prefer to create an account?" is located.

 

I agree with the above post about the flash, it really detracts attention from the main part of the page.

 

The main thing though is to have fun. I started with no programming experience too. The first time I looked in the osCommerce directory on my server, I had a heart attack beause I didn't expect there to be so many files!!! After a couple weeks, you will begin to know what files are located in which directory, and whch ones you should be touching and which ones you should be leaving alone.

 

Anyway, all the best with your site! Keep up the good work!

 

--Peter

[K3D]

I recommend installing firefox browser and subsequently the web developer extension. This lets you edit the style sheet 'on the fly' so to speak. Any changes made whilst doing this are obviously not saved to the server.

 

Once you are happy with your stylesheet changes, copy and paste them into your real stylesheet.css file to save the changes.

[kdobbins]

thank you all so much

[kdobbins]

ok i have been playing with a lot of it and i have been reading all of the informaiton i could find and bought a book about creating an osc shopping cart to give me a start once i get the idea kind of sorted out i am going to start adding my contribs. i started completely over and am going to try to do this a bit better. i know that the header is basically empty i am working on the banner that will fill the top.

 

 

k3d thank you so much for the firefox idea it made my life 100000 times easier.

 

please take a look at it now and let me know what you think about it at this point as far as colors and initial layout.

 

http://www.woodcraft-store.com