Help Needed

[Giftbox]

I just installed Os Commerce for the first time and I need some help. I have my items in the catalog but I can't for the life of me figure out how to change the Index page or any of ther other information. I still have the basic page. How do I cange these? Also can you get templates to use with this cart? If so where can I find some? Please help!

 

Thanks

[Guest]

You might want to look in the osCommerce documentation section for help on all, but for now... you can change the text on your mainpage at: includes/languages/english/index.php

 

define('TEXT_MAIN', 'text here');

 

and heres a quik overview on the layout I wrote:

 

Redesigning your osCommerce pages can be a daunting project if you don’t quite understand how the pages are rendered.

Most webmasters new to PHP designs have a tendency to look for one page that controls the layout, much as it’s done in html. This is where it might get confusing.

The layout for your osCommerce cart pages is made up of different sections. Each one of these sections is part of the page you see in your browser.

A basic list of your page elements is as follows:

 

Header – catalog/includes/header.php

Footer - catalog/includes/footer.php

Left side boxes - catalog/includes/ column_left.php

Right side boxes - catalog/includes/ column_right.php

 

The above listed files are used for the basic layout of all your pages. If you look at your cart pages in your catalog root folder, you will notice that each one of them references these files in their content as a required file.

 

Example- <?php require(DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'footer.php'); ?>

 

This PHP statement is telling the page to render the contents of the file footer.php in the browser. So when you look at your page, you will see your footer.

If you were to remove this string, you would no longer have footer, and the contents it contained.

 

Language files

All of the language files located in: catalog/includes/languages determine the text that your visitors see on your pages.

The text is defined, one time, in the language file for use on all your pages where they are called to be viewed.

 

Example- define('HEADER_TITLE_CREATE_ACCOUNT', 'Create an Account');

 

So, wherever you see an echo string with a predetermined variable, the text that was defined for that variable will be shown.

 

Example- <?php echo HEADER_TITLE_CREATE_ACCOUNT; ?>

 

This will instruct the page to display the words “Create an Account” wherever the echo command is located.

So you probably ask, “Why not just write: Create an Account?”

 

Well the answer is simple, with a defined variable, you can change the one instance of “Create an Account” to “Would you like to create an Account?” in your language file, and the change would reflect on all your pages in one shot!

 

 

The osCommerce pages are made up of different elements to create the “whole”. Now that you know a little about how the pages are rendered, it is possible for you to adjust, modify, exclude, and add to your osCommerce cart layout!

 

 

As far as templates, there are many solutions out there, use your google search :)