Using osCommerce back-end only?

[rafeb]

Major newbie here.

 

This is a very impressive application, but maybe it's more than I need or not quite appropriate for my needs.

 

I don't really want to use osCommerce to display the products on my site nor do I want to use it for product browsing. The existing website does that already. Mostly I'd like to "hook" the existing website to osCommerce to use its shopping-cart, ordering, order-tracking and and SSL functions (ie., tie-ins to PayPal, etc.)

 

In other words, visitors to my site wouldn't see any of the osCommerce stuff unless/until they click "Add to Cart" on a specific page of the existing site.

 

Am I barking up a tree here? Is osCommerce the right tool? And if so, maybe some hints on how to proceed. If not, maybe a hint as to a more appropriate tool (PHP application) for what I'm after.

 

TIA. rafe bustin

[mork]

Yes it is possible to do what you are seeking, but the better question might be why? :)

 

You might consider using OSC to also list your products. With a little effort, it could be customized to match however your products might currently be displayed.

 

Why juggle 2 systems?

 

The other thought I had is that you could hardcode the URL's for adding items to baskets in your 'other system' - rip out a bunch of OSC (or at least rip out what OSC would display) to prevent users from fishing further into the OSC system. Not sure if this will make sense to anyone, but it does in my head.

 

If you know your way around PHP/HTML, either way should be relativley straight forward. However, if you don't know either PHP or HTML you might be pulling your hair out for a while trying to make things right.

 

If you only know HTML, you could get away with either solution if your willing to hunt down HTML which is embedded in PHP.

 

Anywho, I'd recomend implementing OSC as a whole - including categorizing and listing your products.

[loxly]

Am I barking up a tree here? Is osCommerce the right tool? And if so, maybe some hints on how to proceed. If not, maybe a hint as to a more appropriate tool (PHP application) for what I'm after.

 

TIA. rafe bustin

 

Your current site is lovely, but would require major modification to use osC as a backend. I would recommend building the whole thing in osC. I am working on a Photo Gallery modification for osc, if you are interested in assisting you can email me privately at [email protected] Even if you can't help with coding issues, I would like to ask you some questions about your current set up and offer some suggestions. (free php stuff!)

 

Debbie

[tresseh]

As Loxly has stated, it would be a major task to implement OSC as a backend to your site, and would be far simpler to use OSC as your base site, and implement the other functions your site performs into OSC, rather than vice versa.

 

Most of the work is already done - you have your 'categories' already setup, title/description/images already taken care of, the transition to OSC would be a very simple one for anyone that knows a little about PHP.

 

Your additional content pages can be hard-coded into OSCommerce as static pages, and you will benefit from OSC's automated features - such as reviews, category tree tracking (breadcrumb) etc, and features provided by any of the 800-odd contributions available.

 

If you think you will struggle to do this by yourself, there are many freelancers who will be able to do this for you with ease, perhaps you could invest a little into getting your site sorted professionally?

 

Not as much fun ;) but at least the end result will be exactly what you want.

 

HTH