sunnybrook Posted July 26, 2006 Share Posted July 26, 2006 I have some really naive questions, if you don't mind answering them please. Firstly, the implication is that osCommerce has to be installed on the hosting service in order to be able to build the store. Can it not be built locally (under W XP) and then uploaded? Next, I have 1) an existing domain that provides information for both non-members and members. Access to the member side is by pw protected folder(s) and consequently it is a universal userid and password. We collect membership fees in various ways (but online we currently using Paypal which we want to replace). The portion of the site that is for members has a small amount of merchandise for sale, e.g. caps, mugs and tshirts with our logo. 2) a domain for a forum (hosted elsewhere) that is accessed (in theory) through the above site, by members only, using personal userids/passwords and 3) another separate site for classified advertising, manually updated and accessible to both members and non-members (non-posting). I am currently updating 1) considerably and I'd like to combine all three, if possible, into one and have a single personal userid/password for access to both member side and forum. Can I use osCommerce as a transparent front-end to 1) above, to effectively (do away with a universal userid/password and) provide personal userids/passwords to the member side that could then also be used for 2) the forum? Also, osCommerce would then effectively become relatively subordinate to the rest of the site material and just provide for collection of subscriptions and sale of merchandise. Is this overkill? Should I be looking at some other method of combining the two userids/passwords and use osCommerce strictly for the subscription/merchandising aspect? Any comments would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 26, 2006 Share Posted July 26, 2006 Firstly, the implication is that osCommerce has to be installed on the hosting service in order to be able to build the store. Can it not be built locally (under W XP) and then uploaded? If you haven't yet done this, download and unzip the files and start reading the PDF called documentation. There's an overview of how to install it. Yes you will have to install it ... and note that you also will need a database with a user name and password. You get those from your host. Note ... you don't design it online. You still design it on your computer with a PHP editor and whatever graphics tools you normally use. When you install it, it can be in any directory you wish. For example yourdomain.com/catalog/ or right in the root of your domain. If you installed your forum yourself, you kinda understand the process already. Can I use osCommerce as a transparent front-end to 1) above, to effectively (do away with a universal userid/password and) provide personal userids/passwords to the member side that could then also be used for 2) the forum? Also, osCommerce would then effectively become relatively subordinate to the rest of the site material and just provide for collection of subscriptions and sale of merchandise. Is this overkill? Should I be looking at some other method of combining the two userids/passwords and use osCommerce strictly for the subscription/merchandising aspect? Generally speaking I would think you would want to sell your merchandise to people whether they are a member of your site or not. Consider having OS Commerce in your root directory, and then having a login button which will take them to the members area. If you aren't charging for membership, you can have all your other member benefits appear once they have created an account and are logged in. I would think that making the user IDs match your forum would be tricky. It all depends how good you are at coding. But it really depends ... are you promoting membership? Or are you promoting sales? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnybrook Posted July 26, 2006 Author Share Posted July 26, 2006 If you haven't yet done this, download and unzip the files and start reading the PDF called documentation. There's an overview of how to install it. Yes you will have to install it ... and note that you also will need a database with a user name and password. You get those from your host. Note ... you don't design it online. You still design it on your computer with a PHP editor and whatever graphics tools you normally use. When you install it, it can be in any directory you wish. For example yourdomain.com/catalog/ or right in the root of your domain. If you installed your forum yourself, you kinda understand the process already. Generally speaking I would think you would want to sell your merchandise to people whether they are a member of your site or not. Consider having OS Commerce in your root directory, and then having a login button which will take them to the members area. If you aren't charging for membership, you can have all your other member benefits appear once they have created an account and are logged in. I would think that making the user IDs match your forum would be tricky. It all depends how good you are at coding. But it really depends ... are you promoting membership? Or are you promoting sales? Thanks for the prompt responses. Without going back to the documentation and re-reading it, my impression was that the first thing it says is to upload the files to the hosting service (not phrased like that but it was my impression) so I assumed that everything had to be done there. I'll go back and read it again, I guess. Unfortunately, I didn't install the forum and, as it has it's own domain, I thought I would just leave it. However, it is just this business of multiple userids and passwords that I find annoying. It is a single universal access to the member side and personal id access to the forum (that is two userids/passwords required). If I retain universal access to the member side then (I assume that) I will have to provide personal id access for merchandising so then there would be three userids/passwords. We are "promoting membership" (we are all owners in a very large timeshare resort but we are not promoting timeshare necessarily, we are providing services to our members, e.g. information on travel, restaurants, tours, etc.) and have a large membership already but it could be significantly larger. As the merchandise is all logo-oriented stuff we're not interested in selling other than to members and the only other thing is collecting membership fees. I thought that by introducing a personal id access to the member side then that could be used for both the forum and the merchandising and I was hoping that the security offered by osCommerce would provide for that and at the same time it it could be transparent except for those parts of the site specifically requiring merchant services. We already have a manually updated Access database that has member info (including email addresses, that I would like to use as userids) and I assume that the forum (YaBB) has a database associated with it. Are there any other groups out there that may be doing this sort of thing? All of the examples on osCommerce's site appear to be fundamentally merchandising sites as opposed to merchandising being an ancilliary function. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jasonabc Posted July 26, 2006 Share Posted July 26, 2006 Firstly, the implication is that osCommerce has to be installed on the hosting service in order to be able to build the store. Can it not be built locally (under W XP) and then uploaded? Not true. If you install Apache webserver, PHP and MySQL on your PC you can build (and run) the store locally. If you don't want to install these separately (which is not for the faint hearted) then download and run XAMPP - this installs the whole lot for you. Jason My Contributions: Paypal Payflow PRO | Rollover Category Images | Authorize.net Invoice Number Fix Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnybrook Posted July 27, 2006 Author Share Posted July 27, 2006 Not true. If you install Apache webserver, PHP and MySQL on your PC you can build (and run) the store locally. If you don't want to install these separately (which is not for the faint hearted) then download and run XAMPP - this installs the whole lot for you. Great, thanks for that, have done that. Now how does.... The structure of osCommerce is: catalog catalog/admin extras Upload the catalog folder which includes the admin folder to your document root (public_html, www, htdocs) using FTP. ....and... Open your web browser and go to http://yourserver/catalog/install/ ...equate to the local environment? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jasonabc Posted July 27, 2006 Share Posted July 27, 2006 I always install OSC manually. Open the catalog folder from a fresh download of OSC and grab all the files and folders (except the install one) and place the whole lot inside the 'htdocs' folder of the XAMPP installation. Browse to http://localhost/phpmyadmin/ and create a database. Run the 'oscommerce.sql' file (inside the 'install' folder of the OSC download.) Insert the correct values into your two configure.php files. Go to http://localhost/ in your browser and see your new store. Jason My Contributions: Paypal Payflow PRO | Rollover Category Images | Authorize.net Invoice Number Fix Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rabbitseffort Posted July 27, 2006 Share Posted July 27, 2006 you can also have the forum as part of osc, I have set this up for quite a few people--if using phpbb it is relatively easy, uses the same database as your osc and the same id and password too "I must admit that I personally measure success in terms of the contributions an individual makes to her or his fellow human beings." ---Margaret Mead--- "The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you'll always be seeking. I've never seen anybody really find the answer -- they think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer. --Ken Kesey" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnybrook Posted July 28, 2006 Author Share Posted July 28, 2006 you can also have the forum as part of osc, I have set this up for quite a few people--if using phpbb it is relatively easy, uses the same database as your osc and the same id and password too Thanks for the tip (also to jasonabc). We are using YaBB currently but I will investigate the database for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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