Edit Opening Page of Shopping Cart

[kpiper]

I just took over an OSCommerce site. I am new to OSCommerce. I need to update the information on the front page in the OSCommerce store. But I cannot for the life of me figure out how to access the original content in order to update the content! The website is http://cowcatcher.us/store/catalog/index.php. Can anyone tell me where to go inside the store settings to update the opening page? Thanks SO MUCH in advance for your assistance!

[ArtcoInc]

@kpiper

Which version of osCommerce are you using?

M

[♥JcMagpie]

39 minutes ago, kpiper said:

where to go inside the store settings to update the opening page?

Your using an old version of osC, but method is same for most, Login as admin and you can add products and do many other things. If you want to make layout changes the again in admin you can turn on box's and stuff. Any more layout changes then your into editing the file's.

best look at the documentation to find more details.

if 2.2 here

https://library.oscommerce.com/public/sites/Library/pdf/oscom22-old.pdf

if 2.3 then here

https://library.oscommerce.com/public/sites/Library/pdf/oscom23-old.pdf

[ArtcoInc]

@kpiper

You mention that you have taken over an osCommerce site. Yet, the site you have linked to is not only a very old version of osCommerce, it has no products in it. Has this been an active site in the past?

Do you know how to transfer files to and from your host's server? Do you know how to log into the Administrator's side of your shop (do you have both the administrator's user name and password)? Do you know how to make a backup of the full site (both files and database)?

M

[kpiper]

Thank you for your quick reply!

It's version 2.3.4. I apologize for not including this before.

Yes, I have the admin access. Yes, I know how to transfer files. Thank you for asking these questions!

The customer wanted me to build a WooCommerce site for them, which I have done and it is live. That is why there are no products in the OSCommerce site. He has deleted them all.

So he wants me to change the opening page so it has a message and link to the new shopping cart.

I found out how to change the Contact page - from earlier forum posts - but cannot find out how to change the opening page. I'm sure it's because I don't know how to properly research what file controls this!

Kip

[♥JcMagpie]

1 hour ago, kpiper said:

So he wants me to change the opening page so it has a message and link to the new shopping cart

Simply edit index.php and in the body of the file add the text message you wish to display, or simply use a simple index.html page to redirect to new site! better still simply change you settings at your domain DNS to simply redirect to new site.

[ArtcoInc]

@kpiper

First off, you're using the 'official' version of osCommerce. Unfortunately, the last 'official' versions (v2.3.4 and the v2.3.4.1 hot-patch) are very much out of date! This isn't your fault, and is an issue we have been dealing with here for some time.

The osCommerce project was lead by one person that has been absent for quite some time. In his absence, the "community" has continued with the development of osC. Unfortunately, that one missing person is the only one that can make this continued development an 'official' release.

The 'Community Edition' (also called osC-CE (for Community Edition), osC-BS (for Bootstrap, the platform it is based on), osC-Edge, osC-Final, and/or osC-Frozen. These are all different names for the same thing) is a big improvement over the last 'official' v2.3.4 release in a number of ways:

1) It is responsive. This means that it will adjust the screen layout depending on the size of the screen of your customer's device. This is very important in this day of mobile devices. The 'official' version is not responsive.

2) It will work with the newer version of PHP, the scripting language used in osC. As more and more hosts upgrade their servers to PHP 7.x, older versions of osC (including the 'official' version) will crash.

3) It is much more modular. This means that you can turn features on or off, change the layout, or even add new features, all without touching the core code.

You can find a link to the latest version of the Community Edition in my signature below.

Now, having said all of that, since your are essentially just starting out, now is a good time to blow away the 'official' site (both the files and the database) and start with a clean install of the Community Edition 'Frozen'.

A couple more points ...

 

1) It is important to keep a complete copy of your shop on a local computer. (I prefer to actually set up a local web server on my workstation, and actually see what my shop looks like. Other people here have different opinions on this).

2) osCommerce is designed to be multi-lingual. This means your store can be in one or more different languages. To do this, almost everything you see displayed in the shop side of the store is defined in a language file. As you add more languages to your shop, you add additional language files, or packs.

Typically, the text for your index.php file will be defined in /catalog/includes/languages/english/index.php.

3) Having all the files on your local computer makes it easier to search for a specific word or phrase. Using a program like Grep (Linux) or WinGrep (Windows) allows you to search all of the files in an entire directory for that phrase. For example, if your shop has the text "Merry Christmas" shown on a page, you can search the entire directory to find which file has that expression.

HTH

Malcolm

[♥JcMagpie]

3 hours ago, kpiper said:

So he wants me to change the opening page so it has a message and link to the new shopping cart.

As I said simple html or php on index page, it's a 5min job!

[♥JcMagpie]

Some simple html that will do what you need.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
  <meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
 http-equiv="content-type">
  <title></title>
</head>
<body>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>mynewsite.net Redirect Page</title>
<meta name="description"
 content="We have moved this page will redirect you to our new site mynewsite.net after 5 seconds">
<meta name="author" content="mynewsite.net">
<meta http-equiv="refresh"
 content="5;URL=http://www.mynewsite.net/">
<center>We have moved this page will redirect you to our new site
mynewsite.net after 5 seconds <a href="http://mynewsite.net">Mynewsite.net</a>
</center>
<br>
</body>
</html>

 

[MrPhil]

Malcolm's suggestion to move to the latest osC is good, but may be too late for your client if they're already up and running on the new store. If they are determined to move to another platform, that's their business. In that case, only a stub of osC will remain, and it's even possible to eliminate that with your own custom-written catalog/index.php file.

What your client needs to think about is what's going to happen to all those incoming links (search engine entries, personal bookmarks) to their old store, and how they map to the new store. You don't want customers coming into the old store and getting 404 errors -- that's not good. Even if they're brought to the front door of the new store, if they have to start over finding a product (lost the link to product on the old store), that's a big loss. Someone needs to think about getting links transferred to the new store. There might have been a large degree of compatibility if they had stayed with osC...

[ArtcoInc]

@MrPhil

As happens all too often here, the initial question seldom tells the entire story, and we have to do a lot of back-and-forth (like asking what version of osC, etc) to find out what is really wanted.

It seems that there was an osC shop at <domain>/store/catalog. The shop owner had a new shop built (using a different cart)  at the root of <domain>, and wanting anyone going to the old shop to get a splash page with a link to the new shop.

At this point, all old links are now gone. And, unless the shop owner wants to restore off of an old backup, they are forever lost. Anyway, as I see it, the OP has two options ...

1) Use the index.php file in the abandoned osC cart to provide the splash page (which is what I now *think* the OP was asking), or

2) Completely erase the old osC cart and database, and put a simple HTML index.php file in it's place (as suggested by @JcMagpie.

C'est la vie

M

[♥JcMagpie]

On 11/18/2018 at 6:46 PM, kpiper said:

I just took over an OSCommerce site.

I would recommend the first thing you do is restore the old osC site so it is fully populated again with its products! ( hence it’s old links if the path has not changed) As long as you have a copy of the old DB this should be straight forward. Once this is done I would use the .htaccess file to redirect all old links to the new store. You can still add the splash screen on the old index store if you must.

Your old links are very important if you wish to maintain the traffic flow you have built up over the years.

As to your new site! Very slow you would have been much better of using the new osC software.

[kpiper]

WOW!!!!! THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH for your time to answer my question. All of you have been a big help!

KIP