Guest Posted February 10, 2008 Posted February 10, 2008 Hello. I just spent a week and a half using something called blue voda to make a website. It was easy and came out nice. Now that I'm looking into the paypal shopping cart feature, I'm realizing that it's not going to suit my needs like being able to select or remove features of my products for greater or lesser prices. Being a start-up business, I don't have money to invest in a web-designer, would prefer to learn it myself, and (even if I did have the $) have heard a lot of nice things about osCommerce. I haven't chosen a web-host yet, as I'm pricing them out. My basic current understanding of html is simply creating a website in something like voda or MS publisher, saving it as html, and sending it to the server with ws-ftp switch. I downloaded osCommerce but have NO IDEA of what it is or what to do with it. Is it a website/store by itself? Does it have an interface where you can drag items around or is it all coding? Is everything I've done for the past week and a half scrapped? I'm not looking for someone to hold my hand through the whole process, but just point me in the right direction. Thanks in advance.
Guest Posted February 10, 2008 Posted February 10, 2008 sorry to be there bearer of bad news but oscommerce is its own site pretty much... you need to be hosted (i know of one that charges $20AU a year for unlimited hosting and your own domain included pm me if you need the info) once you get that you need to upload all the files under the osc folder to your server (with a program that enables ftp, i'm using filezilla) once you get to this step i can help you out if you need a walk through on where to upload to etc... but all that said you can link oscommerce to the page you've been working on... (but if its setup as a store... it wont work as oscommerce is its own store program pretty much) hope this helps :)
Guest Posted February 10, 2008 Posted February 10, 2008 Hi Misery_Kitty. Thanks. I don't mind starting over as I've at least gotten my product descriptions and photos and stuff in order. I'm going to start tomorrow, but after uploading the osc package: using the osc demo sight (http://demo.oscommerce.com/index.php) as a reference (which I guess would be the actual site I'd be making?), I would change the "under seige" picture path to one of my own (that i would upload to a file) and change the description/price in html. correct? Are templates easily to customize? For example, on the same demo, if I don't want to have 9 products in that middle-lower box, but only want one larger picture with a detailed description and price next to it...would this be easy to do? Or should I find another template that's closest to what I am looking for?
usernamenone Posted February 10, 2008 Posted February 10, 2008 If you search "free oscommerce templates" you will find a few out there........ Just a caution........ They have hacked code and they are all pretty much worthless if they come from Template Monster..... But the good side to their templates is if you want to take a couple weeks to months to hack into their hacked code and place that hacked code where it should have been placed in the beganing then you will come up with a pretty good looking site............. Hum, hack the hacker to make it right. :blink: Something I found challenging and well worth my time.
Guest Posted February 10, 2008 Posted February 10, 2008 ya know, i just don't think I'm ready for that. but, thanks, I'll make sure to stay far away from their stuff. do the temps you pay for have expirations or can you use forever on one site? I imagine the hacked ones are the free ones? what are they hacked to do?
Guest Posted February 10, 2008 Posted February 10, 2008 no html coding is needed yet... all stores have an admin area where you add products and their images (images are uploaded to the images folder) its not like the html needed to start up a website most of the stuff is in the admin area... and then a lil changing in some files when you add a contribution to your site (check out the contributions under the burgundy community button above) i walked into it think i know html and this will be a breeze too lol... its ok it dosnt hurt as much as you think... just read the installation instructions carefully when adding contributions my suggestion (which i didnt learn till i messed up lol) and many others will tell you the same is make a test store and do everything on that before you add it to your main store (double the work but really really worth it) ahh what else... i think its a matter of opinion when it comes to templates... i hear ripped/hacked (are template are templates that have been ripped from the selling templates and are meant to be the same thing only free... be carefull though some dont have all the files if they dont have the osc folder then its worth nothing but download time and money lol) ones are ok most of the time and others say its not worth the trouble... i think once u purchase one its yours to use all the time. (someone correct me if i'm wrong there??) hope this helps mate :) good luck!! :D
♥geoffreywalton Posted February 10, 2008 Posted February 10, 2008 Start in the knowledge base if you want to understand osc http://www.oscommerce.com/solutions/documentation Need help installing add ons/contributions, cleaning a hacked site or a bespoke development, check my profile Virus Threat Scanner My Contributions Basic install answers. Click here for Contributions / Add Ons. UK your site. Site Move. Basic design info. For links mentioned in old answers that are no longer here follow this link Useful Threads. If this post was useful, click the Like This button over there ======>>>>>.
New 
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.