1 reply to this topic

[fincosat]

Hi!

I need help how to edit my oscommerce site


Fincosat

[Glcustoms]

fincosat, on Aug 29 2008, 07:20 AM, said:

Hi!

I need help how to edit my oscommerce site


Fincosat

First of all read most of everything you see in the menus up top. Learn this site. Learn to search the forums using its search function and google, there are a ton of repeated questions on here, and you will see that many go unanswerd for the lack of the questioners ignorance to search first. If its something that you feel is simple, and you did search and cant find a solution, then post you did search first, and you will more than likely get better help as you are truely trying to help yourself.

Ok, then get you a good FTP client, I recommend filezilla (google it), a good editing program, theres a ton out there, and a couple of ok free ones. But what I believe to be the best deal out there for the price is Rapid PHP (google it), its a full fledged editor with all the bells and whistles for about $40. Or you can be true to the old school and use notepad. Then you need to learn some about your mySQL database and how to do basic commands. Theres lots of tutorials out on the web. And if you really are serious, you should get some books about PHP, you can learn a ton. You will probally need some beer or wine too, it can be frustrating at times. But you know your on track, when after breaking the shop several times, you suddenly fix it. Thats when you start learning.

You may also want an imaging program. Theres a good free one called the Gimp.

And if you used your hosting control panel to install osCommerce, as this is probally your first time using the software, delete it. DELETE IT!!!! You will not learn by taking shortcuts. AND, it puts you site in a different folder on the server that is then one level down from the root, and that can come back to bite you later. SO DELETE IT. Grab the latest copy from the downloads link in the above this page menu, and follow the directions to set up and install. Install it in your sites root for best results. By doing this you will learn a bit aboutcreating your mySQL database and that is a very good introduction, it gives you the very basic knowledge of what you will find yourself working with quite a bit.

So what do you want to edit first? lets see, is it my choice? I think you should edit the create account process. Make it smoother for your customers AND you. So you should search the contributions for world zones and install that bad boy. It adds a ton of extra functions to the customers create account area, and the admin customs area and the zones section of admin.