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osCommerce

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Understanding the OSCommerce path and where to upgrade


spoma

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All

I apologize for asking a question that I have read a bunch of threads already on, but after reading the different threads I feel like i'm more confused.  So, I want to make sure that I fully understand the direction to go.

I'm currently running oscommerce v2.3.4.  I have pretty heavily customized it, with some add-ons and some of my own work.  But, this was quite a while ago that I did all of this.  The problem with the website now is that it's not very mobile friendly and I need to correct that.  The real question is what is the best approach?

These are the two choices I believe I have, but I'm open to other ideas

-- I have read to move over to the oscommerce phoenix version.  This seems to be the direction that people are pushing for mobile friendly since it is responsive.  However, when I look I don't see many themes available for it to customize the user experience.  Is this new enough that they just aren't available yet?  Should I just do my own work to get the look and feel that I want?

-- Seems that there are themes out there that work with v2.3.4 are claim to be mobile friendly.  They are relatively cheap and i'm a firm believer that time is money.  so, if it's going to save me a bunch of time i'm willing to spend a couple of dollars.  

It seems that v2.3.4 is pretty old.  I know i've been on it for quite a number of years.  If changes are going to have to be done am I better off taking this opportunity to upgrade.  Is Phoenix the natural direction to go with an upgrade?

Thanks for any help with getting a better understanding of how the oscommerce development cycle is going and understanding where to move next

Thanks

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6 hours ago, spoma said:

They are relatively cheap and i'm a firm believer that time is money.  so, if it's going to save me a bunch of time i'm willing to spend a couple of dollars.  

Not only are they cheap but some you can try for free!

 

6 hours ago, spoma said:

I have pretty heavily customized it, with some add-ons and some of my own work.

That will be your main stumbling block, you will need to check if the add-on's you use are

1) still required with Phoniex ( some may no longer be needed)

2) are they available for Phoniex ( only a limited number of free have been updated )

3) Phoenix uses Boostrap which is not theam based, you will have to use css and coding to get something akin to a theam, but you can do quite a bit with css and add-on's

 

if your still not sure talk to one of the partners and I'm sure they will be able to help.

 

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@spoma We were in exactly the same position as you. Our business doubled when we changed our site from 2.3.4 to responsive. The  latest Phoenix is without doubt the way to go, besides being responsive (the shop side looks great on every device - see the official demo site https://template.me.uk/phoenix/ ) and updated for latest php, it is now 'modularised' with add-ons easy to literally add on without the loads of crazy core code changes that were needed in the old OSC. It is also being supported and being moved forward by financial contribution from users (I encourage you to join the Phoenix Club on this forum where you can financially support). We are not coders but we have not found it too difficult to customise the look of our shop ourselves with some changes to css and some expert help in the Phoenix Club. 

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@JcMagpie thanks for the response.  i'm ok with having to go through the add-ons again and figure those out.  The CSS isn't bad for me to work with.  In my past I was comfortable in CSS so if needed I'm sure I can pick it up again.  I know its changed a lot since the 5-10 years ago when I used to use it.  You mention talking to one of the partners.  How do I go about that?

@Heatherbell  thanks for the information.  I think you have confirmed what I was thinking.  I was leaning in the direction of going over to Phoenix but I wasn't sure if it was the natural progression from v2.3.4.  It sounds like it seems to be just that and it sounds like you were successful with the migration.  The makes me optimistic about the move. I'm thinking that I will load phoenix locally and try to pull my database into it and see how it works.  

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@spoma Sounds like you know what you are doing (we have little expertise!) but we found upgrade and migration to be easier than we thought. Frankly, if we can do it, anybody can!

A reminder that Phoenix is updated and maintained by financial support from users so we encourage you to do so :)

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Thanks everyone for the help.  I'm actually working through a local install of Phoenix now and going to see how it all looks.  I'm a big fan of community software and always help to support it, so if I go this route we will definitely chip in to help.

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