View Full Version : Need Cart Now - Temp Solution... help
Greetings,
I've been out of code for about 2 years now, just getting back into it heavy again. I've never been great with PHP but I'm determined now to master it.
Small Problem: I need a temporary shopping cart solution that's easy to customize. (and I mean easy in the easy sense, not in the not-too-hard-if-you're-einstein sense.) I need to go ahead and set this up while I work on OsCommerce. OsCommerce is a lot larger and more sophisticated that I was hoping, but I'm looking forward to the challenge.
I'm only going to have about 250 products in my online store and I need an easy temp solution, php package, paypal cart, ect. Anything will work temporarily, long enough to get the CEO off my back while I focus on OSC.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. When it comes to PHP, I'll take all the hints and tips you'd like to share.
Thanks.
Tommy Jordan
Tjordan:
http://neonlights.com/store/catalog/index.php
It has taken me two days (total time) of installation, modifying & customizing, and I have my OSC ready to populate. Honestly, It is not that difficult. I had very little knowledge of osCommerce structures before getting started.
Your short term solution of putting in 250 items in the quick and dirty cart, and then long term solution of working on OSC doesn't make much sense to me. I think it would be a waste of energy (IMHO).
Certainly, your boss should understand that it is easier and less costly to do it right the first time.
Sorry, I don't have a quick and dirty solution to offer, but I honestly think you can pull off customized OSC in equal time.
(I forgot to mention) My PHP skill level is nearly moot. I can't code from scratch. I understand FTP, paths, and PHP absolute basics. I can spot code location and modify what is there.
Indeed - you can have a functional store with osCommerce within a day or two, if all you care about is replacing default text with your own. And that sounds about what you're looking for.
True. I can see the opportunity to put more time into it depending on what a person wishes to achieve.
Dabrowski
5-18-04, 06:14 PM
Honestly, It is not that difficult. I had very little knowledge of osCommerce structures before getting started.
(I forgot to mention) My PHP skill level is nearly moot. I can't code from scratch. I understand FTP, paths, and PHP absolute basics. I can spot code location and modify what is there.
brs.2,
Thanks for being so forthcoming about your experience. I am getting ready to set up a site and I was hoping to get more insight into osCommerce. The customization factor is pretty good? Did your store come out pretty much how you expected? Or did you make a lot of sacrifices to work around limitations?
What is the situation with the merchant account? Is that built in to osCommerce, or did you set it up yourself, or do you not accept credit cards, or is it something like PayPal?
Thanks for your help.
The customization factor is pretty good? Did your store come out pretty much how you expected? Or did you make a lot of sacrifices to work around limitations?
The customization factor was quite satisfactory. I can't give some kind of a scale rating because I have very little to compare it to. I'm happy with the way it shaped up. I've done CGI web stores in the past, and this was a great deal easier than those.
Did it come out the way I expected?? Well, I'm not sure I had any set expectation. It was just one of those "go with the flow" developments. Developing it was like playing. I didn't make any sacrifices along the way. OSC is a feature rich application.
What is the situation with the merchant account? Is that built in to osCommerce, or did you set it up yourself, or do you not accept credit cards, or is it something like PayPal?
Actually, it is more of "what is your merchant account situation" and then configure OSC to adapt to your needs. You can configure a pay pal account into it or something else like authorize.net. It is highly configurable.
If that is not enough, then I suggest checking oscommerce.com. They have a contribution section, where people have given back to OS some tid bits. They have a section just for merchant account processing. If what comes standard into OSC isn't good enough... it's not the end of the world. *smile* I like that feeling.
Thanks for your help.
Quite welcome. That is what this forum is for. *smile*
I also would like to thank those who came to my rescue during my OSC customization. I'm not done yet. I just had to give some fore-warning. *chuckle* ;)
how about xt-commerce (http://www.xt-commerce.com/) ?
TITIRIT: Looks cool. Have you worked with it at all? How do you like it? Do you have a sample link we could look at?
Here's a link to several different commerce related scripts done in PHP:
http://php.resourceindex.com/Complete_Scripts/Shopping_Carts/
(some cost money... some don't)
i never used it, but i know some ppl that did and they liked it.
you can find examples (link to active shops) on the site.
With respect to credit cards - you can simply have osCommerce collect the information and provide it to you for processing separately, or it can connect to a number of payment gateways that will handle the transaction for a fee.
I tend to be a visually oriented individual, so after I heard all the comments about how it should be easy to do, I decided to look for a way to make OsC work in MY frame of mind, kind of a meeting in the middle if you will.
What I found was that Adobe GoLive has a very nice interface for working direcly in the php. You don't get a true wysiwyg interface, but it reads all the table code and drops in a "PHP" box everywhere there is a php include. This allows the editor to "see" where the header.php file is because it's located in the top of table. I'd encourage anyone to try it out.. it's helping me a LOT.
Macromedia Dreamweaver MX does this too.
toastmaster
5-21-04, 04:47 PM
One word: http://www.zen-cart.com/ (ok, that's several words!).
A fork of OsCommerce and so much more developed even in it's infancy. It's all "drop in folders and go" to extend functionality and all modifications go into seperate files away from the core code, so that when it comes to upgrade time, you just dropped the new files in without having to mess around (mostly!). It even has an "easy upgrade" tool so that if there ARE any database changes between versions, it does it all for you. Can you see OsCommerce doing that??
And it's free open souce, of course.
It even has an "easy upgrade" tool so that if there ARE any database changes between versions, it does it all for you. Can you see OsCommerce doing that??
Yes, actually - it does. But that's for the database - it doesn't handle other changes.
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