Fun With Lego (Part1/2)
Wow! Playing around with osCommerce has now become even more fun to do! 
Moving around the boxes on a page is now done through the Administration Tool – no more column_left.php or column_right.php source code editing is needed!
With the modular framework, each box is now a module that can easily be assigned what pages it should be displayed on and where. This makes it easier for store owners to layout their pages that best meets their needs, and also makes it easier for developers to provide extra features which the store owner can use with just a few mouse clicks of enabling the box and assigning it a page.
This approach brings in the advantage of assigning a box at a global scale to appear on all pages, at a group level to show only on certain pages (for example all account or checkout procedure related pages), and right down to the page level to have it shown only on one page. With the independency of assigning where the box should be shown and in what sort order, down to the page, group, and global scale (for example the information box can be shown at the bottom left side for all pages, and the top right side for the account related pages).
If that is not flexible enough, it is also dependent on the template used! So a box on one template can be shown in another location on another template, or not be shown at all!
Here is a movie showing how assigning boxes to a page is done. It showcases the “page specific” flag which overrules the global setting in having a page (or group of pages) show only assigned boxes, and demonstrates this on the login and create account pages (both part of the account group).
At about 1:30 into the movie you might notice the right side column containing no boxes, and the content of the page not flowing over to the right. This is a limitation of the CSS based layout the default template is based on, as the page content is defined first in the HTML source followed by the side boxes, the header, and the footer (for SEO purposes). This is a limitation of the template which is built with 2 columns, page content, header, and footer (below all content), and not of the framework. Other templates will be available which will allow elements to flow over the screen, but with todays browsers and CSS compliance, the cream will have to wait when wanting the cake.
The administration side is very procedural and will definitely be improved on in future versions. It does it’s job well now and is simply amazing providing this ability and power to store owners and to developers.
Have fun with the movie! Part 2 coming soon 