Oscommerce Help Here

[Andrew]

Greetings...
Post your OSCommerce questions here. I'm happy to help anyone that needs it!

Andrew
AlphaOne

[jules]

Hi, i've just opened a new website and i'm looking for help to install oscommerce.
I'm very new to c panel and require detailed info as to what to do first.

1 .I know how to open fantastico
2. Do i have to create a database using sql.
3. With oscommerce it asks - install in directory - whats meant by this directory

hope you can help.

jules.

[Andrew]

Hi Jules!
Using Fantastico is easy and you don'd need to create a database yourself. Fantastico does it for you. I've given answers below. I hope you don't mind, I went through the whole setup panel

Fantastico is on your CPanel. I think it's at or near the bottom. Click on the Fantastico logo and the page that opens will have all the Fantastico applications listed down the left-hand side. Click on OSCommerce - it's is in the ECommerce section almost half way down the page. Then click on "New installation" on the right-hand side of the page.

This will take you to a configuration page. We'll start at the top.

Install on domain lets you define which domain you want OSCommerce installed on - handy if you're managing more than one domain from the one CPanel but generally you won;t need to touch this.
Install in directory means that you can define the directory within your hosting account where you want to install OSCommerce. If you want OSCommerce to be installed directly in your public_html directory (so it'll be the first thing people see when they go to your site) then leave it blank. If you want it installed in another directory, type the directory name in here - Fantastico will create the directory for you so there's no need to create it first. In fact, if you do create it first then the installation will fail.
Aministrator User name - user name you will use to access the admin area
Password - password for the admin area
Shop Name - give your shop a name eg. Jules' world of lollies :-)
Owners Name - type your name in there
Email sender -  type the email address that will appear in the 'from' field in emails automagically sent by OSCommerce to your customers. It gives them an address to reply to.
Email address - copies of all orders will be sent to this address so type in an address that you use often.
Use SSL - if you have a secure certificate make this yes, otherwise leave it as no
Secure server host name for SSL -  again, if you have a SSL certificate, type in the domain it relates to here. There may be a default domain name in there. You can leave it in or delete it if you don't have a certificate.
Show prices incl. tax - I usually leave this as yes. It includes the tax in the prices it displays to the customer.
The rest of the options under "When Clients Register" are up to you.  I would usually leave client's gender and birthdate as "no". People usually are uncomfortable giving out details like that.

Now, press the button at the bottom of the page. This will begin the installation. The next page will give you a summary of what's been done and then click the "finish installation" button on that page. You'd think that the "finish installation" button would finish the installation wouldn't you :-p. There's one more button to press on the next page to protect the admin area. Once you've done that you're done with installation and you can go to the shopfront by typing in the URL of where you installed it and you can access the admin area with the user name and password by adding /admin on the end of that URL.

Now, configuring your shop is a whole other ball of wax which I'm happy to help you with as well if you like.

www.oscommerce.info is a great resource for instructions, tips and advice as well.

Good luck and ask any questions you want!

Andrew

[jules]

many thanks for the help andrew,  i might have some more question's when i have to alter the php code on the index page.

jules.

[Dominic]

hi, i have set up my oscommerce site and added a few products please could you tell me where to change the colours and add pictures on my C Panel please can you give me as much details as you can about changing the look of my new oscommerce site.

Thankyou

Dom,

[AlphaWolf]

OSCommerce is not controlled or modified at all from within CPanel.  Changing the look and feel of OSC will require you to edit the style sheets for OSC directly.  However Template Monster just announced a couple of weeks ago that they are starting to offer selections of OSC Templates for purchase, (though there are only a couple there & they are not much different from the default look and feel)

We have done some OSC customization and the application is pretty limited in what and how you can make changes to the look and feel without seriously customizing the entire PHP application.  Drastic changes to the look and feel really need to be done by someone who understands the inner workings of OSC and PHP.  This type of reprogramming is time consuming and costs between $1,000 - $3,000.

peace

Wolf

[PCDJWolf]

How do you move around in the file manager. If I click on images out of catalog I just go back to catalog. I am trying to put text in my shipping and payment info pages but can't get anywhere in the file manager. I am trying to get to catalog/includes/languages/English  files . I really don't understand how to move around in these files. If you keep clicking on them you might get in and you might not. And the you might get almost to where you want and then get put all the way back to the front.  Crazy!!!!!!!

Thanks

[AlphaWolf]

Not sure if you mean File Manager from Cpanel or not.

But editing files and putting files on the server is best done using an FTP program.

peace

Wolf

[carpenoctem]

Basically here is what I am trying to do.... and I understand how to do it in theory, but do not understand how to implement this.

If you view page
http://carpenoctem.tv/catalog/index.php?cPath=25_43&page=1&sort=2a for example, you will notice that there are 43 (give or take) "Manufacturer Models" that use the same "Cartridge Number"

What I want to happen is that when I click on any of the items, default it will display all of the other Manufacturer Models that use the same Cartridge Number......

I really do not want to go back into every cartridge, and just simply add this information manually.... it would take me forever......

So I am hoping that there is somebody that knows osCommerce, and PHP well enough to help me out with this.

Please let me know your thoughts and how to go about this.... time is of the essence here.

Mark

[AlphaWolf]

I will suggest you check the official OSCommerce web site.  This would have to be done using a custom module and it is possible there is a user contribution there that you could work with.

peace

Wolf

[jariggs]

Ok.  I installed OSC through Fantastico.  Followed hour directions in your previous forum entry.  But when I went to admin and enter User Name/Password, I get the following error:

1046 - No Database Selected

select configuration_key as cfgKey, configuration_value as cfgValue from configuration

[TEP STOP]

Now what?

JAR

[AlphaWolf]

Sounds like you didn't read the announcements at the top of the forums or on the Customer Access Panels and probably installed OSC sometime between 6:00 pm - 9:30 pm CDT today.  :-)

You need to use Fantastico to UN-install whatever applications you installed.  You can try reinstalling them again, but we still are not 100% sure that what I fixed will mean Fantastico acutally works correctly.  We got no response, after about 5 hours, from Fantastico on the issues so I did some troubleshooting and changed things around until it *seems* like it is working. (Except our Online Sitebuilder which for some reason can't find the 197 licenses we still have available)

peace

Wolf

[jariggs]

Reinstalled and now have it activated.  Now to figure out how to run it and integrate it in my dreamweaver created site.

I'm sure I'll be back in touch....

Thanks,

JAR

[AlphaWolf]

Integration itself shouldn't be a problem - just call it to a _blank from your main site.  FULL integration will be tricky, though you can use php calls to the data in the OSC databases. (We need to do that for one of our clients probably next year)

BTW, if you are running OSC and will be asking people to input their CCs, make sure you have a unique IP and a SSL installed.

peace

Wolf

[pea]

i have searched and went through all of the contributions on oscommerce's site. "average shipping price" contribution did not work

this is what i want to do:

- say i have several cds and vinyl for sale. i want to create a seperate shipping cost for all cds; so if somebody orders 1 cd, it is $2.50 within usa and canada, if they order 2 cds, it is an extra $0.75 per each cd thereafter - BUT if they are outside of the usa or canada, i want the rate for the first cd $3.50; $1.00 for every cd thereafter.

and a seperate price group for all vinyl in similar fashion.

is this possible? any help is appreciated. i'm at wits end

[jariggs]

I see you added Zen Cart...What's involved in migrating from OSC?  Is it worth the trouble?

Jeff R

[AlphaWolf]

I see you added Zen Cart...What's involved in migrating from OSC?  Is it worth the trouble?

Jeff R
 

OY...well yes it is worth the trouble.  There are instructions :cough: on the Zen Cart support site.  But ONLY products will transfer over - or so it seems.

One of our long time customers is migrating from OSC and I just spent hours doing comparisons of e-commerce software.  Based on features, add on modules, fraud security enhancements etc, we chose Miva Merchant - but that is HUGELY expensive.  The only three carts left in contention after reviewing about a dozen were Zen Cart, X Cart and Miva.

peace

Wolf