A week to go - thoughts please

[Guest]

I'm on target for being ready to go live on 1st September. I have the majority of my products uploaded and am ready for some feedback. If there is time, I may be adding a couple of contribs, probably the featured products one and I may be getting rid of New products for Whenever, but mostly the site is pretty much as it is going to look.

 

Known issues:

1) I know some of the pics are a bit rubbish - all I can do is scan in the image from the supplier's catalogue and then trim it a bit and sometimes the quality is poor. As each product is ordered I will be taking live digital pics and replacing them but it could take some time to get through all of them.

2) The site looks fantastic in 800 x 600 but not so great in other resolutions. This is something I will be fixing this week hopefully.

 

All thoughts welcome. and if you spot any spelling mistakes, please tell me. I think I got most of them but sometimes they creep in. Downloads are off for now until it goes live.

 

www.cheapsheetmusic.co.uk/store

[Guest]

Book buddy - musicAvailable to order

You need to add a space before Available to order. Consider adding 'ship in cart' to show postage costs without the customer needing to check out.

You provide most such information when you search, buy, order, post reviews, or other methods of communication via our website or email to CSM Online.

:shock: Please rewrite in your own words :wink:

 

Change the default osC cartoon images - they REALLY don't go with the site. Which looks very good BTW 8) Fingers crossed for you!

[Guest]

I have noticed that your account pages do not have https for your customer's personal info.

[♥monte22]

I would get rid of the default table backgrounds images. They don't flow well with your site, and just cheapen the look.

[Guest]

You need to add a space before Available to order. Consider adding 'ship in cart' to show postage costs without the customer needing to check out.

 

I did add a space at one point but it also adds a space on the text underneath, which then means that has two spaces. I suppose it't the lesser of two evils. I didn't know about ship in cart. I will have to add it to my list of stuff to do.

 

You provide most such information when you search, buy, order, post reviews, or other methods of communication via our website or email to CSM Online.

:shock: Please rewrite in your own words :wink:

Good point ;)

 

Change the default osC cartoon images - they REALLY don't go with the site. Which looks very good BTW 8) Fingers crossed for you!

 

Already on my list of slightly less important things to do.

 

Thank you for your feedback :D

 

TB: Fixed quoted text format.

[Guest]

I have noticed that your account pages do not have https for your customer's personal info.

 

The old problem of shared SSL certificate, which I haven't sorted yet. I will probably eventually buy my own as it does look more professional.

 

Thank you.

[Guest]

I would get rid of the default table backgrounds images. They don't flow well with your site, and just cheapen the look.

 

Do you mean the blue on "My Account" etc? Yup - another thing to go on my list.

 

Thank you for your feedback :)

[Guest]

 

I did add a space at one point but it also adds a space on the text underneath' date=' which then means that has two spaces. [/quote']

 

If you add the space where you have the text defined -

 define (WHATEVER_ITS CALLED, ' Available to order.');

it *shouldn't* do that.

[Guest]

Hmm - I changed it in the admin, not in the code. But I am in the process of adding a contrib which will show stock levels with a little picture so I won't need the available to order bit. And it won't make the product unavailable when someone buys it either if its out of stock, which was what happened when you made that test purchase.

 

Thanks for that - otherwise I would never have known until someone bought something for real.

[Guest]

I would get rid of the default table backgrounds images. They don't flow well with your site, and just cheapen the look.

Do you mean the blue on "My Account" etc? Yup - another thing to go on my list.

If you look on the front page, there is in image called table_background_default.gif that appears in the upper right hand corner of the center section (i.e. under the header and to the left of column_right). On the front page, this image appears as a person standing at a counter with a cash register. The simplest thing to do would be to rename or delete those that come with osCommerce and copy pixel_trans.gif to each name (table_background_whatever.gif) so that nothing displays.

 

Hth,

Matt

[Guest]

Oh - the little cartoons. Gotcha. I hated those also but was sighing at the thught of having to create something to replace them.

 

Thanks for the tip.

 

:D

[Guest]

There's a contribution or 2 with more realistic images. :wink:

[Guest]

There's a contribution or 2 with more realistic images. :wink:

[Guest]

^All gone now. Thanks for the tip.

[Guest]

I might replace them when I have more time but for now they are gone.

[PropioWeb]

I would also suggest making the site a fixed size such as your header. You header is 783 pixels wide so you might want to set the site to that width and center it.

 

I noticed this in your footer

This shop is best viewed at 800X600 resolution

But what of those who have bigger monitors? Must we set our res lower to view your shop?

 

Set the size to fix width, it will look much better.

 

Good luck.

[Guest]

^Is that easy to do? And how do I do it?

 

I have already centred the logo so the whole thing is always centred and checked it in a higher resolution and it works. But higher resolutions give me a headache - it is too small.

 

If I set the site width to 783 does that mean that the logo will always fill the screen no matter what res is being used?

[Guest]

^Is that easy to do? And how do I do it?

 

I have already centred the logo so the whole thing is always centred and checked it in a higher resolution and it works. But higher resolutions give me a headache - it is too small.

 

If I set the site width to 783 does that mean that the logo will always fill the screen no matter what res is being used?

 

You don't like higher res, and thats your perogative, but you shouldn't tell the customer what settings they should use before you'll allow them to view your store at its best.

There are 2 ways you can get round the issue (probably more, but I'll mention the 2 easiest).

1) search for *center shop* There's a contribution that does this, and also threads with the code changes posted. What it basically does is set the width of the whole store to less than 800 & puts it in the middle of the screen, with blank space around the edges.

2) add a background image to your header so that on larger res there aren't the white spaces at the sides of your logo & let the rest of the store adjust to the width of the window. Setting it as a background image in the stylesheet means that it wll only show in higher res screens & won't mess things up for someone viewing on 800*600

 

hth :wink:

[Guest]

Thanks for the help. I will probably do the background image as I don't like the idea of having big white bars down the sides of the page.

 

I may have to ask you how to do it. Can I create a small image and will it automatically tile it?

[Guest]

Can I create a small image and will it automatically tile it?

The short answer is yes. The long answer is that you should decide what you want the background to look like & THEN find out how to do it, otherwise you're constrained by your knowledge of what you is possible.

 

I may have to ask you how to do it.

Here to help, mam. :P

[Guest]

Well, creating a graphic shouldn't be a problem.

 

My logo height is 115 so all I need to do is create a graphic which is 115 high and, say 50 wide and that will just tile itself across the back of the window, yes?

 

Hmm - coming back to this tomorrow when I have had some sleep.

[Guest]

How wide you make it depends on what it looks like. You could make it as narrow as a couple of pixels if its just a graduated thing.

 

Then you just need to add it to TD.header in the stylesheet -

background-image: url(folder/yourbgimage.gif);

should do it.

[Guest]

PS Sleep is for wimps :wink:

[Guest]

OK, I have created my image, uploaded it, opened the stylesheet and I see (amongst other things):

 

TD.headerNavigation {

 font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;

 font-size: 10px;

 background: #a50000;

 color: #ffffff;

 font-weight : bold;

}



TD.headerError {

 font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;

 font-size: 12px;

 background: #ff0000;

 color: #ffffff;

 font-weight : bold;

 text-align : center;

}



TD.headerInfo {

 font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;

 font-size: 12px;

 background: #00ff00;

 color: #ffffff;

 font-weight: bold;

 text-align: center;

}

 

so which TD.header do I put it in? Or does it go in all of them?

[Guest]

oops, sorry. That should have been TR.header.