osCommerce: Help me set it up

[Habtom]

Hello,

Can anyone tell me what to do to get osCommerce shopping cart set up in my website.

Habtom

[Paul_B]

osCommerce is not the easiest of shopping cart solutions with over 1000 files and working in PHP can be tricky. OSC has a large and very active support site at www.oscommerce.com. It also comes with a fairly comprehensive installation system.

You sould upload all the files and point your browser to the install directory. Your hosting will probably mean you have to install the database yourself. This is quite straightforward, though a little duanting if it's your first try.

Remember if you have a problem it is 95% certain the problem is in the configure.php file.

good luck...

[Habtom]

Thanks for your quick response.

osCommerce issue has confused me a lot. In their download page I downloaded a file for linux and it is unrecognized file with the name 19. I couldn't unzip it at all.

I might have downloaded the wrong file. Please help me where I can download the osCommerce shopping cart files and set them up later.

Thanks.

[mincklerstraat]

When I go to [oscommerce.com...] and click on 'download at sourceforge' under Linux package, the filename is oscommerce-2.2ms2.tar.gz . I'd suggest re-downloading.

And btw, welcome to webmasterworld [webmasterworld.com], Habtom. I'm sort of in agreement with Paul_B on this one, you'll probably do better asking for this kind of help on the boards of the software's site itself.

[Habtom]

Thanks,

I have to agree with your suggestion. People who have done it properly don't normally turn up to that site. I thought let me get the tips from experience chaps in this site.

Anyway, thanks!

Let me proceed with the installation steps now and see if I can do it all along.

Habtom

[thunderpaste]

I use oscommerce and have gotten good responses from the people on their forums. It is a vibrant community. You will be able to find solutions to 99% of your problems by searching the forums. If it is happening to you now someone else has probably already been through it.

Whenever I post a problem there I always get a response. And whenever I end up solving my own problems I post the solution to help future people.

[Habtom]

I have the oscommerce in my site.
Now what?

How would I put it in my webpages? How would the Add Cart and View cart buttons come there?

I know this might have answered in their web but I just wanna know see it answere here.

[battleaxe]

Hi
You really should go to the oscommerce forum site and check it out. If you have an existing site, you need to install the catalog as a folder in the www of your site (or public_html) and add a link to the catalog from your existing site.

As far as I know, there is no incorporation into existing sites, your best hope is to adjust the osc site to look like your existing site and upload your items into the database so that your catalog works correctly. My site is still a bit messy, but you can get there and have a look at [huskyz.com...] and click on the catalogue link on the sidebar. This will take you into my osc site. It is not a quick and easy thing to make the osc site look like your own, and if that is what you are looking for you may be better off paying for a commercial website to be done for you, but if you are willing to do a little html and php, it is a wonderful thing.

Easier to change the look of, but difficult to add contributions to is the osc spin off called creloaded which you will find at www.creloaded.com. Their support site is at phesis. Check it out.

The other help site you could look at is oscdox.com who support osc and ms2max (which is what I am using).

So to recap, upload osc to your public_html folder abd go throught the installation instructions included in the package. Once it is up, create a link to it from your existing home page and voila! you have a great ecommerce site!

cheers
Kim

[Habtom]

Hello,

Let me rewrite what I have written before.

I have oscommerce installed. I did the database and other configuration steps are done. I can access the admin and catalog options from the URL given.

But, I want to use this shopping cart in my system now. I want to have the add cart (buy) and view cart buttons in my website.

I am confused a bit.

Help

[Habtom]

Hello,

Let me rewrite what I have written before.

I have oscommerce installed. I did the database and other configuration steps are done. I can access the admin and catalog options from the URL given.

But, I want to use this shopping cart in my system now. I want to have the add cart (buy) and view cart buttons in my website.

I am confused a bit.

Help

[battleaxe]

Sorry, I misunderstood. The answer you are seeking for reuires lots of coding, and I am not even sure it can be done. thinking about it, you would want your customer to view the product on your existing website, when 'buy now' is clicked, you want to go straight to checkout.php. I havent found a way of doing this yet.

One solution is adding a button on your original site product page that is called say More Info and linking it to that product page within your Osc catalog, but to me it just seems twice as much work.

I too wanted to hang on to my hard work (my own site) but gradually I am coming to realise that if I can just modify the look of OSC to be acceptable to me, I can trash my original site (and unfortunately all the work that went into it). Sad, but just put it down to the learning curve. Hope this helps.
Cheers
Kim

[akmac]

I don't think OSCommerce is the solution you're looking for. Take a look at goemerchant's buy_me buttons. They are lacking in other areas-but pretty simple.

[Databuilder]

osCommerce with a template systems such as STS or BTS may do what you need. You can find them in the contributions section of the osCommerce site. It still may not be flexable enough for you, but may be worth considering.

Jason