how do i start up and build my own site

[andrew1978]

hi i have no experience in web site building etc can someone tell me or show me the direction of how do i go about starting my own oscommerce website/shop?

[♥altoid]

hi i have no experience in web site building etc can someone tell me or show me the direction of how do i go about starting my own oscommerce website/shop?

 

Andrew, when I started out with osC, I was about in the same situation you were. It takes a lot of work on your behalf, unless you want to hire someone to do the work for you. It's better to do it yourself I think.

 

For starters I'd read through a bunch of topics here on osC to get a feel for what's going on. It might seem overwhelming but give it time to absorb what's being said and what's going on.

 

If you want to move forward you should find a good website host that supports osCommerce and has an installation utility that will set up your basic site for you.

 

Once that's done, before you do anything else, come back here to osC and find the forums that deal with security. Here's a good one.

 

Go through that thread and follow the advice given there. Once that's done, you can start thinking about getting ready to sell.

 

Good luck.

[AspWeb]

Hi,

What about language to use? is Asp ok ?

How does it work, download the software, upload to a host (btw does godaddy support oscommerce?)

i want to program the whole thing myself but usually program with asp and sql/my sql database

is there maybe a step - by -step guide?

what do you mean by

If you want to move forward you should find a good website host that supports osCommerce and has an installation utility that will set up your basic site for you.

which site do you suggest? thanks

[MrPhil]

What?! No, osC is written in PHP, not any of the ASP languages. Just make sure your host plan you buy supports PHP (most do, at no additional cost, unlike ASP). If you have a choice, use a Linux machine with Apache server -- much better and much cheaper than Windows/IIS. However, if you want to use ASP for other projects, you might want to be on Windows/IIS anyway (you should be able to run a PHP application like osC). You could even build an ASP-based site, with a link to osC installed in its own (sub)directory.

 

What do you mean by "I want to program the whole thing myself"? osCommerce is prewritten and complete, ready to run. Of course you are free to modify it any way you see fit, but you don't need to. If you want to write an e-commerce site from scratch in ASP.something, go ahead, but it's a lot of work for what you get in return! The suggestion that puzzled you is saying that a good website host offers PHP, offers MySQL, supports SSL certificate installation, and has the horsepower to host a busy site without going four casters up. Many hosts offer something like "Fantastico" or other application libraries that can install osCommerce with "one click". Be aware that the versions offered may be somewhat behind the times, so you may be better off in the long run getting a copy from this site and manually installing it. You'll need to do a lot of security-related patching, anyway, and it will give you a good view of what's in your store. "One click" installations are meant for novices who have no idea what's going on. At best, use one to explore osC and get the lay of the land, and then dump that store and do a manual install of the latest version.

[AspWeb]

Thanks MrPhil

so do i need to know how to program in php to use osc?

when i said want to program whole thing - is bec altoid wrote:

If you want to move forward you should find a good website host that supports osCommerce and has an installation utility that will set up your basic site for you.

 

so i wanted to say i don't want site that will set it up for me, i want to set it up myself

am i making some sense? totally new to this and trying to see if it's something that i can do..

thanks

[MrPhil]

You don't need to program anything, and thus don't need to really know PHP. However, you need to be able to follow instructions on how to set up (edit) the configure.php settings files. It's just replacing names and filepaths within quoted strings; nothing fancy. The instructions for security patches assume you're capable of following instructions and using a simple editor.

 

If you don't want a "one click" setup (e.g., Fantastico), sure you can install it yourself. You need to be familiar with your web account layout, how to get around, how to edit files, how to upload/unzip/move/rename files, etc., but that's not programming. Either way -- via "one click" or via manual setup -- you are free to look at and even modify the code and associated files. That's the beauty of Open Source applications. Nothing is hidden from you either way. The suggestion to use a "one click" setup was just because it would be easiest for someone not familiar with the installation process. It does all the busywork for you, and then you can explore at your leisure. If you're game and able to follow instructions, you can do it manually, starting with the .zip file (and phpMyAdmin or some other MySQL manual interface). Either way, you'll need to go in and make security patches, and upgrades for PHP 5.3 and MySQL 5 (if applicable).

 

Part of setup, after you've got your sample store running and want to customize it to your text, etc., is to edit language file strings to put your own text in your store. Be aware of how PHP delimits strings -- a very common screwup is to fail to escape embedded apostrophes (single quotes) within a string, e.g., ...and don't forget to check out our specials... should be ...and don\'t forget to check out our specials... That's not really "programming", but you do have to take care.

 

For more advanced usage, you can install "add-ons" to modify your code. At some point, whether because a file has become too modified for the installer to find where to do its thing, or because you want to make some custom changes, you will have to become somewhat proficient in PHP programming. PHP is almost identical to C or C++, so if you have some familiarity with those languages, it should be a snap to figure out PHP.

[andrew1978]

hi i have no experience in web site building etc can someone tell me or show me the direction of how do i go about starting my own oscommerce website/shop?

 

 

thanx steve for the reply i generally got the feeling that i could download from this site and create my own site i see the download part and when i go onto development server and i go to online merchant v2.3 etc i thought i could down load there to get myself started but when i unzip the file im stuck on what to do i thought oscommerce was a webhost aswell as building my own website it does seem very confusing

[MrPhil]

i thought oscommerce was a webhost aswell as building my own website it does seem very confusing

No. You supply a suitable website (hosting environment), and osC supplies the software you can install on that website. It doesn't host anything for you. There are plenty of instructions around for step-by-step how to install and configure -- it's not done for you. At least, there are instructions for up through 2.2 RC2a. I don't know what shape the instructions are in for 2.3, if you got it through github. I think you can use most of the 2.2 RC2a instructions, but there may be some changes, and a lot of the security patches have already been applied.

[andrew1978]

No. You supply a suitable website (hosting environment), and osC supplies the software you can install on that website. It doesn't host anything for you. There are plenty of instructions around for step-by-step how to install and configure -- it's not done for you. At least, there are instructions for up through 2.2 RC2a. I don't know what shape the instructions are in for 2.3, if you got it through github. I think you can use most of the 2.2 RC2a instructions, but there may be some changes, and a lot of the security patches have already been applied.

 

 

thanx for the reply i understand now u can tell im new at this lol im going to have to see if i can find a reliable decent web host

 

kind reguards

andrew