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WTF? How do I do anything with this!?


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I am no code monkey but am no slack jawed mouth breather either. I have worked with 2 other shopping cart/ecomm products in the past. One was virtumart and one was a boxed product that came from a hosting company I was using (Midas). I have also created numerous websites with flash, slideshows, forms and other "dynamic" elements. I have decided to give this thing a try and I cannot figure out how to do anything.

I want to of course change the colors to match the rest of the site I have made.

I want to add the same header and background that the rest of my site has.

I want to make the osC page the same width as the rest of my site.

I want to be able to add/change categories, add my prod pics and descripts.

I want to be able to choose which elements I want to show on the site; no Whats New?, no New Products For January etc.

 

I'd like to be able to do all this without searching endless forum threads and without having to edit/code pages in PHP with no way to visually check my work and without having to download and install a new module every time.

 

While I am wishing I'd like to be able to create a simple HTML shell and then place in just the elements from osC that I choose, mainly products, pictures, prices and cart.

 

Do I have the wrong product here or what?

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While I am wishing I'd like to be able to create a simple HTML shell and then place in just the elements from osC that I choose, mainly products, pictures, prices and cart.

 

osCommerce is a highly complex but simple to use (standard functions) PHP shopping cart system. You cannot just "place in just the elements from osC" into basic html. osCommerce is not just a cart system but a complete site too.

 

You have to learn the code and the basics of PHP .. html is something that is placed within osC not the other way around.

 

If you want a highly modifiable solid cart system that can be made to operate and look as you want it, and you are willing to learn it then osCommerce is for you.

 

If you are just an html coder and have no knowledge of PHP and no willingness to learn PHP/Osc then you are better off with a simple html cart with PayPal or Google "buy now" buttons.

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If you are just an html coder and have no knowledge of PHP and no willingness to learn PHP/Osc then you are better off with a simple html cart with PayPal or Google "buy now" buttons.

 

Fair enough. I am not opposed to learning anything new. I have devoted the better part of two days to getting started with this and it seems unnecessarily confusing and frustrating to still have no idea where to start. Let me confirm that there is not a visual editor for osC. If not then let me also confirm that the only way to edit the look of pages is to open different .php files in one of the many .php text editors available and edit the right parts (hopefully) and save and return them to the server and then take a look and see?

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It's not as hard as it first seems .. honestly :)

 

Once you get a handle on the way the file structure works it suddenly clicks into place (prior to that it can look like hieroglyphics).

 

I would suggest however reading the documentation links as virtually all of the initial difficulties are handled there.

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Fair enough. I am not opposed to learning anything new. I have devoted the better part of two days to getting started with this and it seems unnecessarily confusing and frustrating to still have no idea where to start. Let me confirm that there is not a visual editor for osC. If not then let me also confirm that the only way to edit the look of pages is to open different .php files in one of the many .php text editors available and edit the right parts (hopefully) and save and return them to the server and then take a look and see?

 

You might want to start by looking at the stylesheet.css. Almost all of the colours / fonts / decoration / borders for the pages are defined in there.

 

The way it works is broadly that the stylesheet contains a bunch of snippets of code, each on sets out a particular style. This is referred to as a class. The .php code will make the object appear on the page, and you'll see each object is given one of these class attributes to define what it look like.

 

For example this piece of code from the stylesheet.css file;

 

TD.tableHeading {
 font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;
 font-size: 12px;
 font-weight: bold;
}

 

Will cause any element with the class 'tableheading' to use those attributes - for example if you open the /modules/upcoming_products.php file, you'll see about 1/3 of the way down this code;

 

<tr>
		<td><br><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2">
		  <tr>
			<td class="tableHeading"> <?php echo TABLE_HEADING_UPCOMING_PRODUCTS; ?> </td>
			<td align="right" class="tableHeading"> <?php echo TABLE_HEADING_DATE_EXPECTED; ?> </td>
		  </tr>
		  <tr>
			<td colspan="2"><?php echo tep_draw_separator(); ?></td>
		  </tr>
		  <tr>

 

There is declared the tableheading class, so that element will assume those attributes.

 

The majority of your customisation can be done through that file. The other things you'll want to do will be fairly familiar - the .php files contain the html code for each element, so you can chop and change those directly.

 

You won't learn it all in 2 days though - one of the tasks you will have is to become familiar with OSC, not the code. That'll take you a while longer.

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