My first store - very impressed with osCommerce

[chnet]

OK, so I've got 20 years in the busines behind me, but wow, this was a dream to set up. What impresses me the most is that for every question that popped into my head I immidiately found the answer here. How to display category titles instead of he "let's see what we have here" message. How to change he catalog root page so I could get rid of "Wha's new" and replace with my on text, including tables and flash elements. How to change "Top" to "Home". Etc.

 

Really really happy. I think I could get my next site up and running in an afternoon (with an empty catalog!) wih no problems whatsoever.

 

Anyway, please take a look, I would appreciate your comments!

 

http://www.makingmovies.tv

 

David, Geneva, Switzerland

[boxtel]

OK, so I've got 20 years in the busines behind me, but wow, this was a dream to set up. What impresses me the most is that for every question that popped into my head I immidiately found the answer here. How to display category titles instead of he "let's see what we have here" message. How to change he catalog root page so I could get rid of "Wha's new" and replace with my on text, including tables and flash elements. How to change "Top" to "Home". Etc.

 

Really really happy. I think I could get my next site up and running in an afternoon (with an empty catalog!) wih no problems whatsoever.

 

Anyway, please take a look, I would appreciate your comments!

 

http://www.makingmovies.tv

 

David, Geneva, Switzerland

 

very nice all those moving objects but only viewing your index causes my browser to eat up 70% of cpu.

I have seen worse but whenever a site makes me run that amount of browser-side logic, I bail.

[chooch]

interesting concept and congratulations on that but work needs to be done to improve it.

 

the header is good with a nice logo but the footer and column left/right stock effect is a no-no

 

you have 'click to enlarge' show up whether it is enabled or disabled on product info

[chnet]

very nice all those moving objects but only viewing your index causes my browser to eat up 70% of cpu.

I have seen worse but whenever a site makes me run that amount of browser-side logic, I bail.

 

Thanks for the comment, but I don't really understand what you mean? When you say "viewing your index" is that the index.htm page? the catalog front page? an index of products in a category?

 

The site is all about film and animation, so I'm basically obliged to fill it with moving images. The vigettes of film footage are converted from AVI into in small WMA then imported into Flash to make the best quality possible and the smallest filesize. I tried to keep the pages "light" but they are about as light as they can be.

 

As for the 70% cpu, I don't get anything like that here. If I empty the cache and reload a page I get a 21% hit and it loads quickly (ok I'm on fibre). In any case, the question is whether Joe Public studies the % processor usage ...

 

THANKS very much for the feedback, keep it coming !!!

[chnet]

interesting concept and congratulations on that but work needs to be done to improve it.

 

the header is good with a nice logo but the footer and column left/right stock effect is a no-no

 

you have 'click to enlarge' show up whether it is enabled or disabled on product info

 

Thanks for the compliments and for taking the time to reply :-D This is great community here.

 

Could you please expand? Why is the footer a no-no? And what should I do with it? And the columns left and right. It aleady took me an age to work out how to customise them thus far! LOL!

 

I am presuming you mean that these 3 elements should have the same look as the middle section at the outset? Blocked in blue with white text? or somesuch? FAncy pshing me in the right direction (please).

 

Again, thanks for taking the time ...

All the best

[rebugger]

my favourite part was that loud sound effect on loading the site (at 1am & with speakers turned up) >_<

 

most ppl remove the date & hit count from the footer.

 

get SSL for your site so customers can be comfortable entering their personal info when creating an account.

there's a good tutorial on SSL here somewhere. explains what it is, why you need it, and how to install one.

 

you could consider creating a left & right margin, bringing the site in on the sides. (i think that was what chooch was getting at earlier). for example in styleshhet.css in the BODY section you could do this:

margin: 0px 190px 0px 190px;

play around with that & you'll see what we are talking about.....

 

there are a number of button contributions that can help you dress it up a little.

 

you'll need to fill out the shipping, privacy, and terms & conditions policies. i think there's a few posts around here on template policies. if not, take a look at a few of the stores in members' profiles.

 

using images in place of text for the info boxes (eg. categories, quick find) always looks nice.

and, you can use images in place of text for 'my account', 'cart contents', etc.

 

if you have no reviews, consider hiding that box until you have some.

 

ok, hope that's a help.

j.

[chnet]

my favourite part was that loud sound effect on loading the site (at 1am & with speakers turned up) >_<

 

most ppl remove the date & hit count from the footer.

 

get SSL for your site so customers can be comfortable entering their personal info when creating an account.

there's a good tutorial on SSL here somewhere. explains what it is, why you need it, and how to install one.

 

you could consider creating a left & right margin, bringing the site in on the sides. (i think that was what chooch was getting at earlier). for example in styleshhet.css in the BODY section you could do this:

margin: 0px 190px 0px 190px;

play around with that & you'll see what we are talking about.....

 

there are a number of button contributions that can help you dress it up a little.

 

you'll need to fill out the shipping, privacy, and terms & conditions policies. i think there's a few posts around here on template policies. if not, take a look at a few of the stores in members' profiles.

 

using images in place of text for the info boxes (eg. categories, quick find) always looks nice.

and, you can use images in place of text for 'my account', 'cart contents', etc.

 

if you have no reviews, consider hiding that box until you have some.

 

ok, hope that's a help.

j.

 

Mucho thanko !!! I'm gonna look into this lot right now. I get totally what you mean.

 

My biggest challenge right now is layout on the "Special Effects" items. Vol 2 is the one I'm working on, if anyone would care to take a look :-D

[rebugger]

Mucho thanko !!! I'm gonna look into this lot right now. I get totally what you mean.

 

My biggest challenge right now is layout on the "Special Effects" items. Vol 2 is the one I'm working on, if anyone would care to take a look :-D

 

you could remove the hidden right column completely, then you could use this space, or bring the left & right margins?

 

there's a lot of unused space between the 'add to cart button' and the end of the product description. i think it looks better in volume 1, where you don't have to scroll further to see this button.

[chnet]

you could remove the hidden right column completely, then you could use this space, or bring the left & right margins?

 

there's a lot of unused space between the 'add to cart button' and the end of the product description. i think it looks better in volume 1, where you don't have to scroll further to see this button.

 

:-D while you were replying I was being a busy bee. So I moved the right column nav over to the left already, and removed the footer info as you suggested, and this gave me LOADS more space to play with. More importantly it brought a new balance to the layout which, graphically/layout speaking, was terrible. Now the product info for Special Effects Vol 02 fits very nicely indeed. V happy. So is the customer.

 

BTW - Doing all the "product description" in dreamweaver and cutting & pasting into OSC admin. Tried using the embedded editor but it freaks at the tables. Should I carry on as I am using DW?

 

Also developing to 1024 x 768 BTW

 

Thanks again

[rebugger]

BTW - Doing all the "product description" in dreamweaver and cutting & pasting into OSC admin. Tried using the embedded editor but it freaks at the tables. Should I carry on as I am using DW?

 

Also developing to 1024 x 768 BTW

 

Thanks again

 

sure, if it's working for you, stick with using DW, you'll probably get the job done quicker.