Martin Williams Posted February 22, 2007 Posted February 22, 2007 I currently have a cart set up and live with Zen Cart, which was my first ever attempt at an online store. There are limitations within Zen Cart that I can't accept any longer and the hunt is now on for a replacement system. I've looking at Actinic and that is just horrendously comlicated, everything else I've read comes back to osCommerce, but I was hoping somebody can tell me if the following requirements are possible using this cart. I might be talking in Zen Cart speak but I think both programs are similar?? - Adding Qty's to product attributes (setting up options on products and allowing you to specifiy the qty you require without setting up a new product) - This link best explains the feature or layout I'm looking for. http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo...roductID=472077 If you take a look at the tabs for Manufacturers Information, Warranty etc etc - I want this functionality in my new cart. How could this be achieved in osCommerce - is it a matter of layouts and having them customised, will it require serious hard-coding, is it already an option etc etc. There are many others but from what I can see on the forum and on demo sites, everything else seems possible. Finally - I know you would all recommend osCommerce because you're all using it, but are there commercial solutions that are better in terms of functionality and ease of use - which don't require hard coding for modules. I'm familiar with Joomla and I love the way it handles components and mambots, Zen-Cart was horrific for installing new plug-ins, is osCommerce the same? Hope you don't mind me asking these questions before I start playing with it, but was hoping to get a general idea for these essential requirements before I start getting knee-deep in commerce code!! Many thanks :) Martin
Velveeta Posted February 22, 2007 Posted February 22, 2007 I currently have a cart set up and live with Zen Cart, which was my first ever attempt at an online store. There are limitations within Zen Cart that I can't accept any longer and the hunt is now on for a replacement system. I've looking at Actinic and that is just horrendously comlicated, everything else I've read comes back to osCommerce, but I was hoping somebody can tell me if the following requirements are possible using this cart. I might be talking in Zen Cart speak but I think both programs are similar?? - Adding Qty's to product attributes (setting up options on products and allowing you to specifiy the qty you require without setting up a new product) - This link best explains the feature or layout I'm looking for. http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo...roductID=472077 If you take a look at the tabs for Manufacturers Information, Warranty etc etc - I want this functionality in my new cart. How could this be achieved in osCommerce - is it a matter of layouts and having them customised, will it require serious hard-coding, is it already an option etc etc. There are many others but from what I can see on the forum and on demo sites, everything else seems possible. Finally - I know you would all recommend osCommerce because you're all using it, but are there commercial solutions that are better in terms of functionality and ease of use - which don't require hard coding for modules. I'm familiar with Joomla and I love the way it handles components and mambots, Zen-Cart was horrific for installing new plug-ins, is osCommerce the same? Hope you don't mind me asking these questions before I start playing with it, but was hoping to get a general idea for these essential requirements before I start getting knee-deep in commerce code!! Many thanks :) Martin As far as I know, Zen Cart was one of the original oscommerce forks a long time ago, which would mean that it should include everything that oscommerce does, plus some stuff that's unique to zen cart... That being the case, if Zen Cart can't suit your needs, you may not find them in oscommerce either... As for the quantity options for attributes, it doesn't come by default in osc, however, I think there is a contribution for it available in the contributions section... As for the other features like your tabs and whatnot, I don't think there is even a contribution for that, but you could do it by integrating some of the yahoo user interface kit into your product pages, which does have support for tab viewing like what's in that page... As for the other solutions you listed, Mambo and Joomla are only CMS systems as far as I know, which means they're ideal for article management, but I don't think they support ecommerce, so they're not relevant in this discussion... However, the mambots and whatnot are nice, but there are many plugin modules for oscommerce that will work with very minimal installation steps, it all just depends on what specific functionality you're looking for... Some contributions are harder to install than others... Richard. Richard Lindsey
OregonBum Posted February 22, 2007 Posted February 22, 2007 Richard is right. Zen Cart is a split off of OSC that happened 2-3 years ago. It took the general modules that you have to add into OSC to get general functionality beyond the bare bones cart & made them work nicely together without having to hack the code. Plus, admin features were added to make it easier to turn features on/off instead of hacking through code. I generally prefer Zen Cart to OSC because of that, but have rare cases now & then (because of client choices) where I have to use OSC. So, if Zen Cart isn't meeting your needs, OSC will be tight too.
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