118 replies to this topic

[zprod69]

aarongriffin, on Dec 7 2004, 04:11 PM, said:

I have a varied background - originally a designer, then moved into information architecture.  I recommend the use of templates for standardizing site elements - this simplifies navigation and use for the customer.  Which in turn results in increased sales.  Good design principles should be applied to all aspects of the site, but in my mind it makes sense to create standards for your site which remain constant.  That can also help you reinforce your brand.  All of this is subjective; the above is just my opinion.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

yes i do understand  I am trying to bring art to the design of my pages
....it is just a question of  language . design is used at all sauces!

[the don]

HI,

I HAVE AN OSCOMMERCE WEBSITE WWW.DVDTROOPER.COM.

I WANT TO CHANGE THE LAYOUT OF MY WEBSITE AND I SEE THAT THEIR ARE MANY TEMPLATES THAT YOU CAN DOWNLOAD FOR FREE.

THIS IS REALLY COOL AS YOU CAN DOWNLOAD TEMPLATES OF DIFFRENT COLOURS AND STYLES.

OK NOW MY QUESTION IUS THIS.  HOW DO YOU INSTALL THESE TEMPLATES????

FOR EXAMPLE IF YOU LOOK AT MY WEBSITE THE TEMPLATE IS ALL GREY, I WANT TO CHANGE THIS TO A BLUE OR RED TEMPLATE AND I HAVE DOWNLOADED BOTH.  I JUST DO NOT UNDERSTAND HOW I INSTALL THIS TEMPLATE.

CAN ANYBODY HELP ME???

[adam777]

http://www.oscbooks.com

Check it out

[gderoo]

as for oscommerce templates then I know a good place to start from.
They offer a collection of OSC templates. Pro designs I would say.

Edited by Christian Lescuyer, 16 January 2005 - 04:34 PM.

[Xtreme-Agency]

I am not sure I understand completely the strategy of Oscommerce for some of the functionalities or modules.


Since they have so limited resources (no new releases after a year) , I do not think they should try to develop everything from scratch but on the contrary try to select good application filling the blank


There are already several GNU templates  engines like smarty or even some .



I think it would be faster to integrate oscommerce  with existing applications as module (like mambo  does)

the advantage to integrate with other known applications is that developers may have worked already with some of them in past projects and would be more familiar and tempted to adopt a shopping cart.


The oscommerce stategy does not seem to recognise that very good other applications exist and could be integrated to save time and bring very good components.

If you follow that line of development, the next time you need to have a forum module, they will start a development from scratch instead of integrating with phbb or invision.


same for the ads. instead of trying to integrate for example with phpnewads which is a very flexible ad system , they just added their little module which lacks a lof of functionalities.

I could go on and on.

We could integrate with a very good newsletter/mailing list program instead of having a very limited module actually.

Have a look at all the open source application on hotscripts.com, i am pretty sure we could extend dramatically the power of oscommerce by integrating with some of them.

I would understand that Oscommerce developers would like to develop everything from scratch if they had 10,000 developers on their team. it is definitely not the case.  not releasing a single version after a year shows the problem.


Thus I would really try to reassess my possibilities:  is it better in the long term to integrate with other applications and release a version every 6 months with great functionalties or does oscommerce wants to do everything internally and release a version every 3 years ?


(of course I do not include all the contributions and the private developers. in my mind , they can not be considered part of the development team since in most of the cases, they  do not have the time to follow the code standards of the latest applications, thus giving tremendous headeaches just to install some of them. and even worse if trying to upgrade to the new code level of MS3)


I was very hopeful about oscommerce  but I am less and less convinced that the development team can do everything on their own and they do not seem to be interested to push the application forward.


just my personal comments

[oscsector]

Any idea when this new version will be released?

[peufeu]

Ricght now I use STS template, it's ugly.

Here is what I'd do :

Separate all logic from presentation. Right now the code is a mess. For instance, on a typical page, instead of 1000 lines of php mixed with HTML you should get :

- classes to get the data (category tree, products list, cart, specials), outputting a set of normalized data structures
- classes to present the data

Then, one could have several  generator classes (think : products generated by manufacturer, by search, by category...) and several presentation classes (1 column, 2 columns, images only...), then it's mix'n'match.

There are embryoes of this in the products_listing modules et al, but well.

Presentation classes could be smarty classes, or could be implemented in PHP.

Semantic HTML would be used, using CSS context properties, which gives smaller and better HTML.

And some means of control should allof, for instance, to not display the cartbox on the shopping cart page

[snakerboy]

- Valid XHTML/HTML templates with CSS to control the layout.
- Seperate the PHP from the templates as much as possible.

[wjpatterson]

Maybe using pre-built template engine like Smarty will be a good idea to save coding efforts.

[Beezign]

One of the reasons I've decided to use OsCommerce is because it stated that templates were part of it on the features... then after searching the installed version on my website I realised that the version for templates hadn't been released yet!

When is MS3 going to be out with template support?  I wanted it last week

I love the idea of templates.  It means that you can easily change the look of your site with out too much hinderance (oh yeah I know stylesheets do the same - but they should be used WITH templates.

One thing I like about any site is user interaction.... so perhaps allowing the users to choose a template they like for the site would be a good option too - a good example of this is php-nuke.  Templates with nuke are easy to create and it doesn't distract from originality if you feel creative enough to make your own.

[richtestani]

cannuck1964, on Nov 27 2004, 02:32 PM, said:

Well a template system for osC....wow!!

One thing I would suggest is that the box class be dropped or totally re-written, so each box can have a unique look and be able to place the box, on the left, center, right side of the page.

Control and ease of implementation are key here, so that most people will have a simple control system for moving, removing, and layout looks for each box.

Use of box tops and bottoms should be built into the system, so both boxes and modules can have this feature available with ease of use.

As well, I would suggest an admin tool which will allow users to upload a complete layout and one button to install the layout, and one button to use the layout.

As for what should the new layout look like? well you started a thread on this already, and I really do not feel it is an important issue, when compared to the functionality of the system.

Last, I would look to a dynamic button selection system.  Now that the Gifs, will be available to the public without additional licencing soon (if not everywhere now).  A system which would allow you to pick which button to use could be done via a dynamic generation system, which would give more flexability and allow buttons to be created with ease.....
Just a few thoughts.....

cheers,

Peter M.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I've been doing this very thing myself. I've pretty much dessected the entire OSCommerce site and removed all tables, and replaced with CSS.

I've rewritten the CSS file to allow control over each box-allowing visible and inivisble boxes.
I also made catagories into lists, as well as the cart box.

It's still in beta but here is the link

http://www.grindhousedesign.com/catalog/

Rich

[Mark Bowen]

Hi there,

Just wanted to add my two pennies worth.
At the moment I use the 'Simple Template System' as it allows me to design the page pretty much however I wish. I then have to admittedly change a few lines in PHP files for other certain small layout issues but on the whole I think that this way is exceptionally easy to use.

I think the design and the code parts of a template need to be completely taken away from one another. I am not too sure how you would do the code but I think that the way STS handles it is fantastic. Just give people simple variables that they can place into a template wherever they want and then it automatically parses in the data for them. To also allow different page designs for certain parts of the site is a must aswell. That way people could easily design a template and pop in the parts they want. This would hopefully allow more designers to create fantastic designs and be able to upload them without having bucket loads of coding knowledge but also when the design is uploaded will allow the coders to be able to change the general output of the code to change some of the layout aspects aswell.

So pretty much (without sounding rude!), never the twain shall meet but both can still exist together.

I think the idea of different templates would be great aswell. Whether or not the customer should be allowed to pick them begs to be seen as when I buy items from an online store I'm not really too bothered about changing the look anywhere as near as much as if it was a forum which I might pop into everyday.

I think it would be very easy to implement as all you would need is a simple 'templates_config.php' file that would have possibly a couple of variables in there :

1 - $path_to_skins = "catalog/my_skins";
2 - $default_skin = "mainSkin";

This would then make the cart look into the specified folder and use the files it finds in there.

Sorry for ranting on but they are just my ideas on it.

I very much look forward to seeing whatever is thought up and if it is anything at all like the rest of the osCommerce package then it should be absolutely amazing. Does anyone have any ideas when this will all happen? Also will mods like 'Simple Template System' still work with the Milestone 3 version of osCommerce?

Regards,

Mark Bowen

[Hierophant]

Unfortunately, STS adds an entirely new layer of processing for every page load. What it does is parse the original output from OSC and redraws everything. This is creating everything twice and parsing large screens. While it might be used for ideas, a better system is needed for resource hungry large shops.

[killer-g]

I´m also using STS since it give´s you quite ab bit of flexibility.
But still I have to edit some HTML in nearly 40-50 files to really get another look into the system. (for ex. freakyphones.de / shop.dasdepot.com or mediaprojekte.de)

I´m using Mambo too, and i´m impressed how they solved their template-Problem in their new version 4.5.1.
They have css + layer-Tags to manage an overall layer of the design and you´ll find table tags just inside the specific modules/components.

I think OSC should go that direction to.

[berkedam]

killer-g, on Jan 25 2005, 01:30 AM, said:

I´m also using STS since it give´s you quite ab bit of flexibility.
But still I have to edit some HTML in nearly 40-50 files to really get another look into the system. (for ex. freakyphones.de / shop.dasdepot.com or mediaprojekte.de)

I´m using Mambo too, and i´m impressed how they solved their template-Problem in their new version 4.5.1.
They have css + layer-Tags to manage an overall layer of the design and you´ll find table tags just inside the specific modules/components.

I think OSC should go that direction to.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You didn't check the phone + projektesite in some real browsers like Mozilla or Opera, did you

[killer-g]

i know there are some problems... i checkt with firefox/safari(some probs here).
but that is part of the OSC problem. you really have to search a lot to find those bit´s and pieces in different locations and since i don´t get paid for those 2 projects you have to make a compromise between style and the time you spend on it.

I´m not to lucky about that and will check again with opera. Thanks for the hint.

[berkedam]

killer-g, on Jan 25 2005, 12:42 PM, said:

i know there are some problems... i checkt with firefox/safari(some probs here).
but that is part of the OSC problem. you really have to search a lot to find those bit´s and pieces in different locations and since i don´t get paid for those 2 projects you have to make a compromise between style and the time you spend on it.

I´m not to lucky about that and will check again with opera. Thanks for the hint.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

osC problem?
The problems are because of the changes, a standard osCommerce shop does not have those problems. Payment has little to do with it.

[edgimar]

I vote for Smarty templates.   They are very fast, simple to use and understand, powerful and extremely flexible.  They even have a plugin system for adding additional template features.

Take a look for yourself...
http://smarty.php.net/

[killer-g]

Quote

osC problem?
The problems are because of the changes, a standard osCommerce shop does not have those problems. Payment has little to do with it.

yes right the standart does not have those prob´s. but it is boring standart, that is not really attraktive nor very flexible. That´s why we are having the diskussion in this thread.
If we would have an easy to use template strukture you could implement cool style much faster(time is money) and that would make OSC even more popular.

That´s what the guy´s from mambo did and they are very successfull.

[snakerboy]

Rich, where can I get that template?