newbie trying to get started

[acr80813]

I have installed oscommerce through Cpanel.  I have worked with elgg, Etano, Wordpress and soholaunch so I'm not a complete idiot with websites but with this one I seem to be.  For now all I am trying to do is figure out how to edit pages so I can make sure this is the web builder I need. For now, I would like to build a home page to introduce the store and a terms and conditions page. Can someone please direct me on how to do this?  I have read some of the pdf manual for 2.3 but it doesn't explain how to edit any pages including terms and conditions, etc. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place.  Thank you in advance for all of your help.

[Jack_mcs]

First, you need to trash the shop and install it using this package. Once it is working, you can edit the pages in the Tools->Define Languages section of install one of the page manager addons. like Information Pages.

[acr80813]

so completely delete oscommerce and then install what you gave me or install that on top of oscommerce?  Would I use the same install instructions used on the pdf manual?

 

[Jack_mcs]

You need to completely remove the current shop. Since you installed it through cpanel you can easily do a clean remove from there. Once it is gone, extract the contents of the zip page and upload them to the server, or upload the zip file and use cpanels file manager to extract the contents, which will be faster. Then visit the install directory to start the installation.

This method of installing it won't be as easy as installing it from cpanel but there's no choice about that. But you may want to download the includes/configure.php file and the admin/includes/configure.php files before removing the current shop. Then you can reference it to get some of the details you will need for the new installation.

 

[acr80813]

Okay, so once I get this all uploaded to the server, what do I do when I visit the install directory?  I have downloaded the files includes/configure.php and the admin/includes/configure.php files.

[acr80813]

Okay got everything done that you asked and installed the store.  I have gone to Tools->Define Languages and am in the process of editing it.  is there a way to add a page from there such as a home page?  thank you for all of your help, it all worked brilliantly.

[Jack_mcs]

There are two types of pages you can have in the shop: real and pseudo. The real pages are created by actual files for each page. Those are the ones you see in define languages. To edit them, you need to edit the file for each page as you are doing. To add new pages, you have to create the two files it takes to make a real page: one in the root directory and one in the languages directory.

The pseudo pages are created and maintained in admin. There is one master file that is used to display them. These are much easier to use but require an addon to be installed for them to work. You can see some of the choices here. I recommend Information Pages. I will be adding my own version soon, I hope, so you may want to watch for it. I suggest you also install Ultimate SEO and Header Tags SEO since they are compatible with Information Pages and will let you control the url and meta tags for the new pages.

[acr80813]

Hi jack, sorry to be a burden.  When I type www.mydomain.com, the page that comes up that says welcome to "My Store".  Is that page under the define languages as well?  I have been hunting for it and have even tried to edit the page Index using define('TEXT_MAIN', 'This text can be edited. It\'s really easy to do!'); as well as define('TEXT_INFORMATION'.  Im pretty sure that this is the right page as if I leave out ' nothing shows on the page.  How can I get text to show up on that page?

I've been reading about installing add ons and it seems pretty straight forward, I'll be tackling that next.

 

Thanks again for your help

 

[MrPhil]

9 hours ago, acr80813 said:

Im pretty sure that this is the right page as if I leave out ' nothing shows on the page.  How can I get text to show up on that page?

What do you mean "If I leave out '"? The define statement works this way: it sets (defines) a macro name, such as TEXT_MAIN, and gives it its content (a string). DO NOT change this macro name! The content string following it is wrapped in either " or ' quotes (usually '). If it contains any ' within it, that ' has to be "escaped": \'. Otherwise the string ends early and you'll get a PHP error (maybe a blank page). If the built-in editor doesn't handle updating the string content, you can always manually edit it with your hosting file manager's editor, or on your PC. You just have to be careful to escape any 's.

[Jack_mcs]

acr80813 - Yes, you can edit it with define languages. The trick is finding the file to edit. :) On older shops, if the page you wanted to change the text on a page, like index.php, you would edit the file in languages with that same name. But the latest version of oscommerce uses modules and they are not as easy to find. It depends on which module contains the text you want but you probably want to edit this file: includes/languages/English/modules/content/index/cm_i_text_main.php