Guest Posted December 29, 2005 Share Posted December 29, 2005 STS PLUS is a variation of the famous and excellent STS (Simple Template System) created by Brian Gallagher. The goal is the same: use an html template to modify the look of the shop. How STS and STS PLUS work: Instead of displaying the result of the scripts straight to the browser, STS "captures" it into variables. To each variable corresponds a placeholder (for example "$banner") that can be placed on an html template. STS will then replace all placeholders with the corresponding code and display it in the browser. This involves only few modifications of the osCommerce files while allowing changing the design of the shop by modifying an html page. In its most simple form, only one template is created and it will be used for all pages of the shop. It is also possible to create a template for a specific page, a specific category or a specific product. There were few things I wanted to do better in the STS contribution and it ended up in a quite different structure and code, so I made a new contribution. However, "old" templates can still be used. Main changes: - Group the templates in sets and select the displayed set from admin panel. - Test a set of templates only for admin: test your new templates online without disturbing your visitors. - Turn STS PLUS on/off from admin. If turned off, the normal osC will be displayed. - Turn STS PLUS on only for admin: test your templates online without disturbing your visitors. - Less html in placeholders, so more flexibility for the design work. - Code specific to a page is put into a module. Advantages: use only modules you need => less code processed. Write your own module to integrate a contribution and share the modules with other users. - Module are configurable from admin panel, like you do with shipping modules. - Less code, should be faster. - For the product info page, possibility to have a template only for the content area, while header, columns and footer are coming from the category template. - All boxes are available separately, no need to show specials if you want to show tell a friend box, no need to show best sellers if you want to show product notifications. - Possibility to place php scripts in the templates (like in STS v3). Installation of this contribution is very easy. Please read the doc available with the contribution, I have write quite much there. I will post the link to the contribution after I have add it to the contribution section. Have to start somewhere... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 29, 2005 Share Posted December 29, 2005 You can find STS PLUS contribution here: http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,3893 If you need support for the original STS contribution, you should go there: http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=58541 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snowman Posted December 31, 2005 Share Posted December 31, 2005 Chris I love the sound of this enhanced version Is it compatible with stores already using STS 3? as in is it a straight forward process to upgrade? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 2, 2006 Share Posted January 2, 2006 (edited) Chris I love the sound of this enhanced version Is it compatible with stores already using STS 3? as in is it a straight forward process to upgrade? The upgrade is quite simple: remove STS 3 and install STS PLUS. The list of files modified is not long and the modifications are easy. I don't see any problem with that. For the compatibility, there are few things that have to be checked: - Javascript scripts: in STS 3 there is a separate file, while STS PLUS uses the method of STS 2. I have not seen any problem but it can be, with some contributions. - $footer, in STS PLUS, includes only the copyright information while in STS it includes a full html table with counter, copyright and date. - $banner, in STS PLUS, includes only the banner while in STS it includes a full html table. - The way to proceed with product info templates (like product_info.php_26.html) is a bit different as it is now possible to create templates only for the content part of the page, while header, columns and footer are coming from the category template. It is however possible to make it work like in STS 3, I'll have a look on that and write instructions on how to do it. If you are using $footer and/or $banner, you can modify the file includes/modules/sts_inc/sts_footer.php to be compatible with STS 3. I'll do it in the next version, as I would like to reach a high compatibility level. - Rigadin Edited January 10, 2006 by Mibble Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flyer5 Posted January 2, 2006 Share Posted January 2, 2006 Hi This is an excellent development of STS, I have 1 problem tho' if i create an index.php.html file and place it on the server in the templates folder, then activate it in admin it is ignored, any ideas what i've missed? cheers F5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 3, 2006 Share Posted January 3, 2006 Hi This is an excellent development of STS, I have 1 problem tho' if i create an index.php.html file and place it on the server in the templates folder, then activate it in admin it is ignored, any ideas what i've missed? cheers F5 I don't know how (maybe my fault?) but 2 modules were buggy. I just placed an update on the contribution page. Note: if you use only index.php.html and not any template for some specific category (like index.php_1.html), you do not need to install (in admin) the module for index.php pages, the default module is enough and faster. - Rigadin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_DK Posted January 3, 2006 Share Posted January 3, 2006 Chris, Looks good. Good job! Is there any way to make it so that product_listing.php can be modified with it as well? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 3, 2006 Share Posted January 3, 2006 Does this work with ultimate urls? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flyer5 Posted January 3, 2006 Share Posted January 3, 2006 I don't know how (maybe my fault?) but 2 modules were buggy. I just placed an update on the contribution page. Note: if you use only index.php.html and not any template for some specific category (like index.php_1.html), you do not need to install (in admin) the module for index.php pages, the default module is enough and faster. - Rigadin Spot on Chris, can yu see me smilin'! cheers F5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 4, 2006 Share Posted January 4, 2006 (edited) Chris, Looks good. Good job! Is there any way to make it so that product_listing.php can be modified with it as well? For now the product listing is like in sts v2/v3 and osCommerce in general: it is hardcoded. However, I have also this feature in mind and have an idea how it could work using an html template. Just need time or somebody with more time than me... For an easy way to change the infobox skins, I recommend Infoboxes Skin Manager, you can find it here: http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,1680 - Rigadin net Edited January 10, 2006 by Mibble Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas2003 Posted January 4, 2006 Share Posted January 4, 2006 Hi Rigadin, what about using STS Plus, if I have contributions included like the wolfen featured set, which adds boxes by itself. Can I safely implement STS Plus, without much effort ? Thanks for your reply, kind regards Andreas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_DK Posted January 4, 2006 Share Posted January 4, 2006 Chris, Thanks bro. It looks like I'll be needed to hardcode and dig in the product_listing.php to modify the look & feel. Thanks again.! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 4, 2006 Share Posted January 4, 2006 Does this work with ultimate urls? If you are not using $urlcat_* variables, it should be okay. There are STS users who are also using Ultimate URLs. The problem with $urlcat is that these variables were buggy when I tried them, so they are not (yet) in STS PLUS. - Rigadin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 4, 2006 Share Posted January 4, 2006 Hi Rigadin, what about using STS Plus, if I have contributions included like the wolfen featured set, which adds boxes by itself. Can I safely implement STS Plus, without much effort ? Thanks for your reply, kind regards Andreas I have never used Wolfen Featured Set, but it seems that this contribution modifies only the content of index.php, so there should be nothing to do to make it work. Please tell me if you make it work it or not, I'm interested in this contribution. - Rigadin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas2003 Posted January 4, 2006 Share Posted January 4, 2006 I have never used Wolfen Featured Set, but it seems that this contribution modifies only the content of index.php, so there should be nothing to do to make it work. Please tell me if you make it work it or not, I'm interested in this contribution. - Rigadin Ok, and what about Ultra image addon ? It displays up to 6 more images on the product_info.php. Any problem here ? To be honest - I dont know exactly if I have to implement STS Plus or not. I mainly want to change the look of the infoboxes. As far as I understood the STS (plus) contribs correctly, it is possible to design a template for the position layout of the boxes and the content, but not for the design of the whole site and especially the infoboxes. For that you have to edit the stylesheet or work with another contrib like infobox skin manager, is this correct ?? Regards Andreas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flyer5 Posted January 4, 2006 Share Posted January 4, 2006 (edited) deleted F5 Edited January 4, 2006 by Flyer5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flyer5 Posted January 4, 2006 Share Posted January 4, 2006 Hi The link to Create Account.php produces a 404 error, is this just for me and if ive broke it, any ideas how? I havent changed anything from the clean install other than created a few category index pages. regards F5 ignore me i fixed it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yuande Posted January 5, 2006 Share Posted January 5, 2006 Hello, BRAVO for this evolution of STS, I`m sure Brian Gallagher will approuve it ... I already asked this question but i`m interesting if Wolfen Feature set is ok with STS, i tried ti install it and to make it work with sts but i failed ... the newproduct box didn`t appear on index ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 5, 2006 Share Posted January 5, 2006 Hello, BRAVO for this evolution of STS, I`m sure Brian Gallagher will approuve it ... I already asked this question but i`m interesting if Wolfen Feature set is ok with STS, i tried ti install it and to make it work with sts but i failed ... the newproduct box didn`t appear on index ... If you have followed the install instruction of Wolfen Feature set, the newproduct box is replaced by the featured products box of Wolfen. So the question is: do you see the Wolfen featured products? As mentioned earlier, there should be no problem with this contribution as it involves only the content of index.php - Rigadin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 5, 2006 Share Posted January 5, 2006 Ok, and what about Ultra image addon ? It displays up to 6 more images on the product_info.php.Any problem here ? To be honest - I dont know exactly if I have to implement STS Plus or not. I mainly want to change the look of the infoboxes. As far as I understood the STS (plus) contribs correctly, it is possible to design a template for the position layout of the boxes and the content, but not for the design of the whole site and especially the infoboxes. For that you have to edit the stylesheet or work with another contrib like infobox skin manager, is this correct ?? Regards Andreas - STS and STS PLUS are used to easily change the place of the elements by designing templates. You can change the place where a box is displayed, but you can't change the design of the box itself. To change the infobox design, like adding a shadow, the best is the Infobox Skin Manager. - Except for the product info page, you can't change the main content of the page. - For Ultra Image, no problem as long as you don't use a product info template. If you do, you have to create a new template variable with the Ultra Image code in it, and place this variable on your template. There is an example on how to it in the file sts_user_code.php. I hope it helps. - Rigadin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas2003 Posted January 5, 2006 Share Posted January 5, 2006 - STS and STS PLUS are used to easily change the place of the elements by designing templates. You can change the place where a box is displayed, but you can't change the design of the box itself. To change the infobox design, like adding a shadow, the best is the Infobox Skin Manager.- Except for the product info page, you can't change the main content of the page. - For Ultra Image, no problem as long as you don't use a product info template. If you do, you have to create a new template variable with the Ultra Image code in it, and place this variable on your template. There is an example on how to it in the file sts_user_code.php. I hope it helps. - Rigadin Ok, you mentioned Infobox Skin Manager. I heared the Skin Manager is making the site slow - what about the Infobox Customizer ? Perhaps I will try to implement STS Plus today, I'm not sure if I have the time to. But if I will report, if the Wolfen Featured Set is working, but dont wait for it. Regards Andreas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 9, 2006 Share Posted January 9, 2006 (edited) New version 4.0.5 is available on the contribution page. The changes are: - Corrected $templatedir and $templatepath, they were always empty. - Added possibility to create templates for the manufacturer page. - Better compatibility with templates created with STS v2 or v3 (so far I have not found incompatibilities) To Andreas2003, about infoboxes: - Infobox Skin Manager (ISM) is using a slightly modified version of the class "boxes", I don't think that the code itself slows down the site. Perhaps the jpg files created by this contribution are too big and can influence when loading the first page. - I have never used Infobox Customizer, but it looks like everything is like in base osC except that you can give own CSS style and corner images to each box, so it will still be painful to add shadow effect for example, and not faster than ISM. - Anyway, one day STS PLUS will have html templating for infoboxes. It is already working in beta version, - Rigadin Edited January 10, 2006 by Mibble Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerTobi75 Posted January 9, 2006 Share Posted January 9, 2006 Hi, what a great contribution! Thanks for sharing this ;) Well, I tried to use $productname$ within a template for product_info.php but all I got is $productname$ and not the expected Product Name ;( The Module is activated, so I did not know what is wrong?! Regards, Tobi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 10, 2006 Share Posted January 10, 2006 Hi, what a great contribution! Thanks for sharing this ;) Well, I tried to use $productname$ within a template for product_info.php but all I got is $productname$ and not the expected Product Name ;( The Module is activated, so I did not know what is wrong?! Regards, Tobi STS PLUS is a bit different than STS for the management of product_info templates. 2 ways to make it work: 1) STS PLUS way: you have a main template in sts_templates/test/ folder with the placeholder $content, and a content template in the folder sts_templates/test/content/ which contains your $productname$ and other placeholders, but without header/columns/footer. The content template will replace $content on the main template. You can name your content template product_info.php.html and it will be used for all products. Look chapter 3.9.1 and 3.9.2 of the doc (v4.0.5) to see how the templates are chosen according to product and category ID. 2) STS way: since STS PLUS v4.0.5 you can enable a "compatibility" mode in the product info module that will allow you to create a sts_template/test/product_info.php.html template with $productname$ in it. Depending on how you want to design your shop, the 1st method can save you design time as well as parse time. NOTE: if you use content template, you have to put <?php DEFINE ('STS_CONTENT_END_CHAR', '$'); ?> in your template if you want to use a '$' at the end of the placeholders. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DerTobi75 Posted January 10, 2006 Share Posted January 10, 2006 Hi, 2) STS way: since STS PLUS v4.0.5 you can enable a "compatibility" mode in the product info module that will allow you to create a sts_template/test/product_info.php.html template with $productname$ in it. Depending on how you want to design your shop, the 1st method can save you design time as well as parse time. NOTE: if you use content template, you have to put <?php DEFINE ('STS_CONTENT_END_CHAR', '$'); ?> in your template if you want to use a '$' at the end of the placeholders. thanks for your fast reply! I tried the second method, but it still shows $productname$ ;( Tonight I try to get the 1st method working. Regards, Tobi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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