I'm a total noob - and I can't find any "catalog" directory

[Arctander]

The site is setup on BlueHost and they offered OSC as a SimpleScripts install option. I was able to set it all up without any hiccups, put in some products, and though haven't setup the e-commerce merchant yet, we've already had some PayPal orders.

 

However, I wanted to improve some of the functionality and have been looking into add-ons. So far, the add-ons are telling me to modify the index.php in the /catalog directory - but I don't have a catalog directory. Is it possible that install was simply atypical and now the directory is under a different name?

 

And not to be a greedy noob, but I would love suggestion for add-ons that might perform the following functions:

1) Allow a single product to have multiple options, ie. color choices (ideally with small images)

Note: I see that can be done in attributes, but it looks incredibly clunky, and as some products have dozens of colors.

 

Thanks in advance for any help (and feel free to point me to a topic that discusses this, I haven't been able to find any and after 20 minutes I figured I'd just register and start one.)

[npn2531]

The term catalog directory is used to distinguish the catalog level files from the admin directory. There really is no folder called 'catalog'.

Think of the 'catalog directory' as every file and folder on the same level as the admin folder. For example the file product_info.php is on the same level as the admin folder, thus product_info.php is by default consider to be in the catalog directory. Essentially the catalog files are the files the customer sees.

 

It is just used as a convention, it just sounds better to say 'catalog directory' than to say 'not in the admin folder'

 

PS - don't start a new folder called catalog, it will just confuse things needlessly. Also catalog directory and catalog folder are the same thing.

 

PPS - the options, multiple options thing is really worked out well in OSCommerce. And there are lots of contributions to modify it. It's seems clunky because it takes getting used to. It's clunky in other shopping carts as well. Think of it as flexible and adaptable rather than clunky. It works quite well on the customer (or 'catalog') side.

Edited October 20, 2012 by npn2531

[♥14steve14]

If your store is installed in the root folder of your hosting ie you access your site by using www . whateveryoursite. com you just need to ignore the catalog folder. If your store is installed in www. whateveryourstore/ store . com then you have the catalog folder. Do not create a catalog folder in you do not need one.

[Arctander]

Thanks for the replies guys. I wasn't going to make a new directory for it, but just wasn't at all sure where to look for it.

 

@@npn2531 - when you say "the options, multiple options thing is really worked out well in OSCommerce" - I'm not sure what you're referring to. I looked for an Add-on called "multiple options" but came up blank. Can you clarify?

 

If you are referring to the default options with the products, as my client is selling beauty products - such as nail polish, some of the items have dozens of color options (with all kinds of weird names) so I really would like a way to set it up so that each product has its own drop down list for the colors. The way that the default system is setup, after I put in a few brands, and their dozens of colors, well... it could become an enormous list with 100s of colors to sort through. Unless I'm again missing something.

 

Thanks again guys.

[npn2531]

I'm just tossing out terms, when I say options and multiple options. I only use one option on one of my products, so I'm not the best one to ask about that.

[♥14steve14]

How about using options as images.

[npn2531]

Google 'oscommerce multiple options' or some such, you will come up with tons of tutorials and info. You can probably do what you need from the standard OSCommerce install. In any case, OSCommerce is probably the easiest cart to modify, plus with so many people using and writing contributions for OSCommerce I would be surprised if no one has posted a solution to this somewhere.

 

Here are a couple of nice tutorials on options:

 

clubosc dot com/sorting-options-and-attributes-in-2-3-1 dot html

 

joomlarocket dot com/oscommerce-tutorials/oscommerce-adding-product-attributes dot html

[Arctander]

Many thanks again for the replies and information.