delboy Posted December 21, 2005 Posted December 21, 2005 hi everyone, firstly i have to say this is one of the best softwares iv seen. my main problem is i dont have any knowledge of backround maintenance on websites. i.e linkages and scripting/programming. i get really confused with FTP and file permissions aswell. i have just installed a web based store. i have the folowing question as stupid as it may seem lol: -how can i access the user details and passwod management of customers. i.e. if i want to see a customers password as the administrator how do i do it? -when i goto back up manager it says please fix configure.php or something, and says create backup folder. yet once i have created one it doesnt update it, still comes out with the error? -where is configure.php???? what does it actually do other then the stated lol, does it have to be made separately?? - i saw a list of php files, are these dormant files waiting to be activated...e.g. create button and assing the password forgot.php??? -how would i know if ANYONE can access my admin or not???? if so how can i modify this??? final question is how do i change the layout of the actual site? e.g. i mean usually im familiar with HTML in frontpage and dreamweaver. but thats using the actual index.html....whereas the is no file to edit in the oscommerce..or is there??? im really stuck please help.... best pres wud be to have someone maybe msn peer support me with questions etc....so that i can get live tutorial and advice best regards and thanks for help in advance, and a merry xmas and a happy new year!!!! wbr derrick trotter!!!!
masat Posted December 23, 2005 Posted December 23, 2005 Well since no one has replied I'll take a stab at telling you why. From the description you gave of your experience your are trying to take on way to big a project for your experience level. Yes you can do it but get ready to do some heavy duty reading and researching and put in a whole lot of time because you have alot to learn and a long way to go. I won't take up your time here. Just about every question you asked has been answered here in this forum. Use the search. Do some research, get into the code and be sure to back up often. The easiest way to get a site going is to pay someone to do it the next easiest way is to invest a lot of time to learn on your own. When you come to the forum for help refer to one topic, stick to the point and work it through it. Folks will help but you are asking way to much in one sitting. Take Care and Good Luck with your project. How do you know when you know what you want to do for the rest of your life?
ozcsys Posted December 23, 2005 Posted December 23, 2005 The best place to start is the knowledge base, a lot of your questions are answered there. As for customer passwords you cannot access them, they are encrypted. The Knowledge Base is a wonderful thing. Do you have a problem? Have you checked out Common Problems? There are many very useful osC Contributions Are you having trouble with a installed contribution? Have you checked out the support thread found Here BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP!!! You did backup, right??
Guest Posted December 24, 2005 Posted December 24, 2005 You can install the Master Password contribution if you want to login as a particular customer. -jared
PhpNurd Posted December 24, 2005 Posted December 24, 2005 Is it available for download ? I tried searching, but couldnt find it.
Guest Posted December 24, 2005 Posted December 24, 2005 Hi there I too was a noob like yourself and I too had no help and no experience of anything web wise at all so you actually have one up on me knowing dreamweaver etc... I actually installed osc through my hosting company and this has saved me a lot of setup issues but back to your questions... I installed osc about a month ago and have been on a fast upward learning curve since then, I'm definately no expert but I'll help in any way I can - so to answer your questions: Fisrt off OSC standard install MS2.2 is where I assume you're at. OSC is a great piece of software and is easily modified through either use of contributions or through editing the php files manually yourself however if you're no programmer (like me) then I think the contributions are a godsend (which is stuff other people have added to provide functuionality to osc) you can find these on this website by looking at the contributions page and most of them contain instructions on how to install them. You will have to get used to editing source code though rather than the usual dreamweaver style of a graphic interface for editing. As php is not recognised by dreamweaver or golive as a visual display language. Php actually generates alot of the HTML/Javascript used by your browser to display the pages of the site dynamically whilst you surf your site as my limited understanding goes. I assume also that you can access your webspace and are aware of simple things like the root server folders etc and know what I mean when I talk about these things - even using dreamweaver you had to know this kind of thing - you should have also had some information on this provided by your hosting company? Your configure.php file is actually a file that osc uses to set itself up and it's located in the yourstore/includes/configure.php folder the message you will probably be getting is to do with permissions?? and to rectify this you can go into the admin section of osc and use the file manager tool to set the permissions of the configure.php file to read only. This should be self explanatory once you get to file manager. Permissions are just about who can access the file and what rights do they have when accessing the file a very simple example would be like on a windows xp system or Mac os system you create a user account for the system and you can assign administrator privileges to these accounts which means that that user will have unrestricted access to all files and folders on that system. Permissions are allocated on a file by file basis and every operating system in the world uses them in one form or another. Permissions are created for the Group, the Owner, and Everyone else. The 3 permissions themselves are Read, Write and Execute and can be used in varying combinations for each of the Group/Owner/Everyone attributes. (hope this sheds some light on permissions its not a full explanation for that you would have to do a search on permissions on google.) Who can access your admin folder, will I assume be determined by your permissions setup on the admin folder again the same method used for editing the permissions on the configure.php file can be used to edit the permissions on admin folder. (this is what you mean right?) as far as I'm aware your admin tool can only be accessed by you as osc knows which IP address you are using??? someone else please let me know if this is the case. All the php files for osc are needed for the store to run. php is a scripting language for servers which (forgive me if I get this wrong) provides a way for servers to execute scripts behind the scenes so to speak, unlike HTML in dreamweaver it cannot be interpreted by web browsers directly ( as far as I'm aware) so it has to be on a web server to be interpreted then a web browser can understand the instructions being passed to it from the server. (this explanation is very simple and not wholly accurate in any way) FTP File transfer protocol is just a method for uploading or downloading files from one place to another and is not strictly neccesary to use osc, you can use a prog like dreamweaver/golive to edit and manipulate the php files and the HTML elements within the php scripts, however be warned there are pitfalls to this in the way dreamweaver and golive handle links on pages and they can also cock up php files and permissions as well. Having said that I'm using golive to edit my site and have had no probs at all so far. One thin I will say is do not use the admin file manager to mess around with the content of your php files as there are known issues with the file management utility on osc namely buggering up your site, i had a few of these so I know what I'm talking about. As previously stated you cannot access password details for customers these are encrypted however they can generate new passwords if they need without any issues so don't worry about people losing passwords as the procedure for creating a new one is painless. As far as changing the appearance of the site goes you can either edit the code manually and I'm sure this site will help out with any specific probs you have, or you can use the contributions, or a third altenative would be to install a Template system. I currently use STS simple template system and this is a contribution which is excellent and lets you edit an HTML template instead of editing php source code. You can find the STS contrib on the Contributions page. Just download and install. Now a final note to anyone else reading this post - I am aware that my knowledge is limited and that the info listed above is not strictly accurate however I feel every little helps.
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