asherr6 Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 Please accept my apologies off the bat, I have no clue how to do any of this. I am desperately trying to figure it out on my own and failing miserably. I havent done anything with my website yet. I have installed oscommerce and that is it. I tried looking at the configuration page ( i guess, it has on the left side a hand full of option like configuration and catalog etc). I am trying to sell sunglasses and any help would be great. I guess my first question would be if oscommerce is a site building tool or just a shopping cart. Do i have to use some other service to build my site and us oscommerce just for the shopping cart? Any suggestions and please remember I am a complete novice at this. Thanks guys so much for you time. Asher Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 Asher, Welcome to the forum ! OSC is usable almost right after you install it, however there are many popular add-ons that users implement to get the most out of their store. Out of the box you need to do the following: 1) Remove the default data in the catalog 2) Add your categories and products to your catalog 3) Configure a payment module (how you would like to receive payments) 4) Configure a shipping module (how you plan to ship your products) That is the BASIC MINIMUM to do and you can begin selling products. However, you will find OSC more enjoyable and useful if you decide to use the contributions. Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrPhil Posted January 19, 2010 Share Posted January 19, 2010 I guess my first question would be if oscommerce is a site building tool or just a shopping cart. Do i have to use some other service to build my site and us oscommerce just for the shopping cart? To follow up @DunWeb's answer, osC is not a general "site building tool". If you are looking to add other things besides a shopping cart, you'll need to use other tools. With some hand-coding of PHP files, you could extend osC to have other, non-shopping-cart pages, but that's probably more work than it's worth. Out of the box, osC is a complete, self-contained site dedicated to selling things. If you want to do other things (add a forum or chat room, add a gallery, etc.), you should install all these canned programs, as well as osC, in their own subdirectories under your site root. Leave just your general site files (error documents, .htaccess, favicon.ico, etc.) and your home page ("Welcome to XYZ Enterprises", links to store, forum, gallery, etc.) in the root /. Install osC into /store, a forum into /forum, etc. That way will keep all your major systems cleanly separated from each other, so you can install/modify/delete them without their getting in each other's hair. You would have a link from your home page to each of the installed applications. If you're more comfortable using a site builder tool to create your home page and any custom applications, that's fine. Just don't use such a tool to mess with installed applications such as osC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asherr6 Posted January 19, 2010 Author Share Posted January 19, 2010 Thanks for the support so far. I think I'm starting to understand alittle better. I'm going to play with it tonght I'm sure I'll be back tomorrow:). Do you guys have a site I can visit to get an idea what to expect. Thanks again guys Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 20, 2010 Share Posted January 20, 2010 Asher, You can click the liveshops link at the top of this page to see what others have done using OSC. Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asherr6 Posted January 20, 2010 Author Share Posted January 20, 2010 Asher, You can click the liveshops link at the top of this page to see what others have done using OSC. Chris I looked at a few of them, but are they only using osc? Do you guys know if you can use another site builder and still use osc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 20, 2010 Share Posted January 20, 2010 Asher, You can use Dreamweaver, Frontpage and others........BUT, as Phil stated they will only alter your landing page. You could install STS (Simple Template System) into your OSC store and create your own template with that. Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asherr6 Posted January 20, 2010 Author Share Posted January 20, 2010 Alright guys I have been trying to accomplish something, even a header and i got nothing. Is there a publish button on osc, or something you have to do to make it appear on the website? Is there a way to edit the appearance? I havent even seen a place to type the header of my website. Again I'm sorry about the newbness I know its extremely annoying. Thanks again guys. Asher Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 20, 2010 Share Posted January 20, 2010 Read this: How Do I.... Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asherr6 Posted January 20, 2010 Author Share Posted January 20, 2010 Read this: How Do I.... Chris the link isnt working. Am I making this harder than it really is? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asherr6 Posted January 20, 2010 Author Share Posted January 20, 2010 Ok well I've finally done alittle editing here and there, but osc doesn't appear on the website. When you click the online catalog it says page is under development.. Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrPhil Posted February 25, 2010 Share Posted February 25, 2010 osC is not a site building tool like Dreamweaver. It is a collection of files to be installed on your site, via an FTP client or your hosting service's "control panel". There is no "publish" button in osC. You have to use separate tools (FTP client or control panel) to upload from your PC (if that's where your files are) to your site. There is no "WYSIWYG" mode to set up your osC store. You have to get out of the "WYSIWYG edit on your PC and publish" mindset -- it's totally inapplicable to osC. Sorry for not getting back sooner, but today is the first day that the system let me see your replies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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