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osCommerce

The e-commerce.

WGPuckett

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Everything posted by WGPuckett

  1. I would be really interested in using this mod. But I just don't have time to debug unfinished code. I would appreciate it if you would let us know when this is really, finally ready to be used in a live site. We are in the process of setting up our first on-line store front and just don't have the time to invest in a mod that's not ready for "prime time". It's everything we can do just to get the store configured and loaded with inventory. I'd hate to start introducing errors from a mod that is just not ready. This mod seems it might be a good fit for store owners who use dropshippers, which is what we are doing. There are no "suppliers" as you are applying it, but we need a way to define where a product comes from and what the upcharges are for each dropshipper. I will follow the progress with interest.
  2. Forget it. I don't have time to deal with an angry forum "guru" with an attitude. No matter what I post it will never be enough and nothing will get resolved. I'll either resolve it myself eventually or take the fracking mod out and do without.
  3. As I stated I have this installed on my machine using Ubuntu. The URL is not important since it is local to my machine. However, if it is important to you, I am using the hosts file to point www.mytest.com to 127.0.0.1. I am currently using version 2-2.d-5. I plan to upgrade to the latest version but I'm not going to the trouble until I get rewrite working. This is a configuration issue that is occurring because I'm not familiar with Linux and I have probably not got everything configured properly because of that unfamiliarity. This is the same .htaccess file that was working fine on WinXP. # If Search Engine Friendly URLs do not work, try enabling the # following Apache configuration parameter #AcceptPathInfo On RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^options\=(.*)$ RewriteRule ^(.*)-p-(.*).html$ product_info.php?products_id=$2%1 RewriteRule ^(.*)-p-(.*).html$ product_info.php?products_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^(.*)-p-(.*).html$ product_info.php?products_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^(.*)-c-(.*).html$ index.php?cPath=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^(.*)-m-(.*).html$ index.php?manufacturers_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^(.*)-pi-(.*).html$ popup_image.php?pID=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^(.*)-t-(.*).html$ articles.php?tPath=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^(.*)-au-(.*).html$ articles.php?authors_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^(.*)-a-(.*).html$ article_info.php?articles_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^(.*)-pr-(.*).html$ product_reviews.php?products_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^(.*)-pri-(.*).html$ product_reviews_info.php?products_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^(.*)-i-(.*).html$ information.php?info_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} # BOF: "Extra pages-info box w/ admin" support added by faaliyet RewriteRule ^(.*)-pm-([0-9]+).html$ info_pages.php?pages_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} # EOF: "Extra pages-info box w/ admin" support added by faaliyet RewriteRule ^(.*)-links-(.*).html$ links.php?lPath=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} # Added polls and newsdesk #RewriteRule ^(.*)-po-([0-9]+).html$ pollbooth.php?pollid=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^(.*)-n-(.*).html$ newsdesk_info.php?newsdesk_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^(.*)-nc-(.*).html$ newsdesk_index.php?newsPath=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^(.*)-nri-(.*).html$ newsdesk_reviews_info.php?newsdesk_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^(.*)-nra-(.*).html$ newsdesk_reviews_article.php?newsdesk_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} # BOF: Faqdesk support added by faaliyet RewriteRule ^(.*)-f-(.*).html$ faqdesk_info.php?faqdesk_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^(.*)-fc-(.*).html$ faqdesk_index.php?faqPath=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^(.*)-fri-(.*).html$ faqdesk_reviews_info.php?faqdesk_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} RewriteRule ^(.*)-fra-(.*).html$ faqdesk_reviews_article.php?faqdesk_id=$2&%{QUERY_STRING} # EOF: Faqdesk support added by faaliyet # Ultimate SEO URLs END Hope this helps.
  4. I am struggling with my search for a specific application of RSS. I hate to just start implementing the various contribs just to try to figure out what they can do and most of the descriptions are so incomplete you just can't tell what the capabilities are. Hopefully if I describe what I am looking for, someone can tell me if this contrib will work or maybe even if you know of another one that will. I am also not opposed to taking a contrib and modifying it to get to where I need to be. I am developing a special interest store front. There are many RSS feeds associated with the area of interest. I want to pick some of the best feeds and include a box on my page that lists the feeds so a customer can link to those feeds if they see one they are interested in. It's just a way to let my customers know I have the same interests as they do. Ideally the mod would have an admin option where I could specify the URLs containing the feeds I want to add. It would also let me tell it how many items to save, i.e. the latest 5. A cron job would run regularly that would go to each RSS URL and update a table or directory with the latest RSS items. When the customer goes to my store front I can then include a display for the feed items so they can link to the complete news article. Will this contrib support that functionality? If not, would it be a good foundation to generate a new contrib that would? I appreciate anyone's comments!!!
  5. I am setting up my first store front using OSC. Being more comfortable in windows I started testing there. SEO was working fine but I had other problems. Nobody would give advice because I was using WinXP. So I have installed Ubuntu and trying to get things going on Linux. I have everything working now (better than WinXP) with the exception of SEO. I can't seem to get the Mod Rewrite working. I started out getting a lot of 500's when SEO was turned on. If it was turned off the application worked fine. Now I am past the 500's but SEO just doesn't work. I am getting URL not found. For example: The requested URL /digital-photo-c-21.html was not found on this server I have the rewrite.conf file linked in the mods-enabled directory. In my VirtualHost configuration I have: <VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdmin [email protected] DocumentRoot /home/webusr/www/www.mytest.com/htdocs ServerName www.mytest.com RewriteEngine On RewriteOptions Inherit <Directory /home/webusr/www/www.mytest.com/htdocs> Options All AllowOverride All Order allow,deny Allow from all RewriteBase / </Directory> LogLevel warn ErrorLog "/home/webusr/www/www.mytest.com/logs/error.log" CustomLog "/home/webusr/www/www.mytest.com/logs/access.log" common RewriteLog "/home/gwebusr/www/www.mytest.com/logs/rewrite.log" RewriteLogLevel 5 </VirtualHost> The rewrite commands are in the .htaccess as installed. I am not getting any data in the rewrite.log so obviously the rewrite is not working. What am I doing wrong?
  6. I guess that was my main goal in starting this thread. I do agree that both seem to have their merits and downfalls. But it is not easy to discover exactly what they are. I was hoping to eventually have a thread where someone could go and gather enough information to decide which one to use. Most of the feedback about BTS is that it takes a lot more PHP coding. So far what I have found is a total lack of technical details. Did anyone every create a "how to" document on creating templates for BTS? Or does each store owner have to go through that process each and every time. Based on what I have read I think BTS could be the best solution for what I am trying to accomplish. But I don't want to go through a massive effort just learning how to make it work. I want to get my store front up and running. There is little or no support for BTS. Would some of the advocates for BTS be willing to form a support group that would start generating some valid documentation and start maintaing the code again? I know there was a recent release of BTS supposedly to support v2.2rc2a but I don't see much of anything else going on. There needs to be some template efforts going on for BTS to make it accepted. Is it even worth it with v3 coming out with it's own template system? I am getting ready to try STS. If I can get multiple templates implemented easily and without a lot of pain and agony I'll probably go ahead and go with that. But I will be interested in the state of template management in osCommerce. I do appreciate everyone's feedback.
  7. I have learned this through the years researching various topics for my own work. I develop enterprise level business applications on the web. To maintain the interest of your customer base it is better to have a new fresh "look and feel" on a fairly regular basis. I have come across this recently while performing research getting ready for my own entry to eCommerce. Several drop shipping websites I have visisted have a lot of "do's and don'ts" regarding how to build a successful eCommerce website. Two biggies on most of these lists are keeping your website clean and simple and providing a fresh look fairly frequently. I know this is somewhat vague but you learn things as you go through your career. I don't stop to keep notes on where each fact comes from so I can specifically quote it later. This can easily be argued either way. Personally I always felt that if you come up with a solid, easy to use design it would be best to stick with it. But after reading articles from various experts it seems just as logical to have multiple designs. I'll give you a scenario. You've had the same layout for 6 months to a year. Your regular customers have gotten used to this layout so they know exactly where to go to obtain specific items. So they never spend any time just browsing. One day a repeat customer brings up your site and things have changed. (Hopefully the new layout is just as easy to use as the previous one.) So that customer spends some time browsing the site. Maybe they end up buying some items they would never have seen on the old site because they knew how to go straight to an item on the old layout. One more scenario. No matter what you do there are going to be folks who don't like a particular design. They hit the main page from a Google search, are turned off by the look and feel and immediately leave the page. By changing the look and feel occasionally you might start turning those new visits into customers. Existing customers are less likely to be turned off by a look and feel change. It's up to each store owner to do what they feel is in their best interest. But there's nothing wrong with learning new approaches and the reasons behind them.
  8. Got it fixed. Unfortunately, due to lack of support and difficulty in location BTS templates I have decided to go with STS.
  9. This is very, very good input. Exactly what I have been looking for and not been able to find anywhere. For me the most important thing is to be able to provide a mechanism that allows me to present a changing look of my store front to the end user. It has been established that having a fresh look on a fairly frequent basis helps to retain customers. If a website has the same look month to month and year after year it gets boring. I know it can be argued that customers get used to a certain way of doing things and complain when that changes. But the vast majority prefer the changing look. It gives the impression that you are constantly adding new things and prompts them to look more closely at your products. This approach does preclude simply coding your look and feel into the base osCommerce code itself. As I said in my initial post, one criteria is not to be spending an inordinate amount of time working on osCommerce itself. So having a mechanism that allows me to easily create new look and feel without major effort is a primary goal. For me it would even be acceptable to have a round robin of templates that get randomly selected for each visit to the store front. At the very least I want to be able to quickly go in and change the active template as often as I want. With several templates immediately available. Easy implementation of contributions is preferred but not essential. After all, installing a contribution is not going to be an ongoing task once the initial website is up and running. I am in the process of selecting the contributions for my initial website. I suppose that it is unfortunate that the template system need to be implemented first. That just complicates all the other updates. But it is really more of a one time effort. Or at least maybe not more than once or twice a year. I had initially picked the osCMax release as it had BTS and most of the other contribs I was interested in. But when I asked a question on their support forum I got ridiculed because I am using Windows. So I'm not interested in dealing with kids playing at adult activities. So I am starting from scratch. I have no problem with that. But knowing that the template option has to come first I don't want to find out after a week of effort that I picked the wrong one. I am sure that there are many others out there that feel the same way. There is good and bad about either option. Knowing what that is makes the choice much more intelligent. My thanks to everyone who has responded. It would be nice to hear some success stories as well as failures. One other question. Since STS appears to be more active I would make the assumption that there are more stock templates available for STS. Is this a true assumption? That is not a critical criteria for me. I find that 99% of all templates basically have the same set of items on the page and just change the color scheme and header. I want templates that actually change the overall look and feel as well as varried content. So I see myself working on templates myself. Which option would you say it is easier to build new templates from scratch or through cloning?
  10. Hi.. I followed the install directions on a vanilla version of osCommerce. osCommerce was up and working before I installed BTS. Now when I try to bring up the website I get nothing but "Illegal template directory!". Any hints?
  11. Thanks Jack.. I have read in a few posts that STS tends to slow down a site. Is this true? Does it go through a generate cycle each time a page is displayed? Or does it generate an intermediate page that gets cached for subsequent displays? Also I have read that BTS separates the HTML structure from the PHP structure. I understand the problems that can cause with other contributions. Being a Java developer that is extrememly logical to me. Being a developer I don't have a problem with digging into the code. As long as it had its advantages. Jumping to a conclusion here it would seem to me that a sysnthesis of both systems would be ideal. Separate the functional PHP code from the HTML skeleton and CSS. I have worked a bit with Joomla. Although I haven't dug into the code my impression is that it's built in template system follows the separation approach. It's template system is pretty neat. I tried installing BTS. Ended up with errors. I haven't researched the issue or attempted to get some forum help yet. That seems to be where the bulk of the criticism of BTS comes in. You would think the oscMax group would take ownership of BTS since they have implemented it in their product. But they don't exactly have a high quality type of individual involved over there. Ask a question and you are more likely than not to get insulted. They act more like a high school geek squad than serious professionals. So BTS is getting pretty weak. Next I'll try installing STS and see what happens.
  12. I have been researching in the forums to help me decide if I want to use a templating system and, if I do, which one to use. From all the posts I have found so far I have seen a lot of positive things about STS. However it also seems that 90% of those positive posts are from the STS author. That's not particularly a bad thing because it reflects the willingness of the author to support his code. If you take out all the posts from the STS author I think that BTS tends to have more positive comments than STS. But then BTS also has many more negative comments. I think when considering this topic there are three objectives to keep in mind. Here is what I am looking for. 1. The option that provides the most flexibility in making changes to sites and building new sites is very important. It has been well established that providing a new look and feel in a site on a regular basis is important to attracting new customers as well as holding on to existing customers. Plus you want to spend your time supporting and attracting customers. Not modifying your site. 2. The option should provide an easy and simple means of building custom sites and adding new functionality to a site that takes advantage of all the capabilities of osCommerce AND the add-ons that are available. If a template system makes it difficult to use the various functions of osCommerce or new add-ons it becomes difficult to accomplish item 1. 3. Finally I would be looking for an option that has the least impact on the base code of osCommerce if at all possible. This means both the code itself and the efficiency of the code. A change as significant as a templating system should be thoroughly reviewed and tested to make sure everything is solid and functional. One other factor in choosing this or any other Contribution is the support that is available. It is preferrable to be able to get feedback from the author. But even if it is a group who are using that Contrib and can answer questions is better than no support. I would appeal to users of the STS and BTS contributions to provide some feedback regarding their experiences with STS and BTS. Comments from the STS author are welcome but I would request that those comments be kept short. Preferrably one short paragraph or less. Please don't post a 3 page justification of why we should use STS. You have already done that in other threads. That is not what this thread is for. I am hopeful that we can get some real comments from actual users of these contributions regarding their use of STS and BTS. It would be nice to get short responses from the STS AND BTS gurus providing feedback on any specific issues. One other request regarding this thread. Please don't ask for support for specific issues here. There are support forums for these contributions. This thread will hopefully discuss the merrits and technical issues of each contribution not technical problems that need to be resolved. Does that sound fair?
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