Installing/managing Contributions - Best Practice?

[Guest]

Hello,

 

first of all: I am a newbie to OSC but i have used and configured a lot of CMS systems before (this is my first web based shop system)

 

When looking into the contributions i noticed that most of them require to modify the original sources of the system or the database but do not offer some kind of installer (and deinstaller)

 

When installing a contribution, how can i be sure that it works with other contributions already installed on the system? What will i have to do if i install a new version of OSC, will i have to re-apply all manual modifications again? Without installers/deinstallers that can be a real pain, i think.

 

How do others handle that?

 

Thanks in advance,

Ralf

[trogette]

Yes there's a lot of core code modification. I install each contribution on a 'vanilla' installation of OsCommerce on my testbed server on my computer here (using the XAMPP package) and then use code comparison software (winmerge is a good one, I prefer beyond compare 2 as it does ftp and folder comparison too) to work it in with other contributions, either individually or with my copy of my live site, which I then compare to my live site via ftp. All contribution code is marked to be easy to find. Sometimes contributions overlap and require changes to the same individual lines of code (usually sql statements) and I do those in a code editor.

 

If you're going to do any amount of serious coding with OsCommerce 2.2 a good comparison tool is essential IMO. Oh and I shouldn't have to tell you to back up at every opportunity, lol.

Edited June 2, 2007 by trogette

[bkellum]

Yes there's a lot of core code modification. I install each contribution on a 'vanilla' installation of OsCommerce on my testbed server on my computer here (using the XAMPP package) and then use code comparison software (winmerge is a good one, I prefer beyond compare 2 as it does ftp and folder comparison too) to work it in with other contributions, either individually or with my copy of my live site, which I then compare to my live site via ftp. All contribution code is marked to be easy to find. Sometimes contributions overlap and require changes to the same individual lines of code (usually sql statements) and I do those in a code editor.

 

If you're going to do any amount of serious coding with OsCommerce 2.2 a good comparison tool is essential IMO. Oh and I shouldn't have to tell you to back up at every opportunity, lol.

Good points Tracy...I totally agree. :thumbsup: