osCommerce

Common questions on the general support/ installation and configuration forums answered:

I see threads pertaining to these common issues too frequently while surfing the forums.

1) SSL Questions

Before posting a SSL question, search the forums.
Then review this article:
Click Here

Also read the following article: SSL, A General Discription

2) Feature Questions

Example:
I need to set a minimum order quantity per product. How can this be done?
or
I want to give my customer’s a discount for orders over $30.00. How can this be done?

Before posting a question regarding the addition of extra features do a search on the contribution section of osCommerce.
Click Here

3) Password Protection of admin area

If you need to protect your admin panel consider using a .htaccess file.
Password Protect Directories

4) register_globals is disabled in your PHP configuration error

To fix this problem I recommend this solution:
a ) create a text file
b ) rename it to php.ini (when renaming be sure to rename the file utitled.txt to php.ini not php.ini.txt)
c ) include the following in this text file (now named php.ini):
register_globals = ON
d ) upload this file into your catalog folder

Feel free to add to this entry, hopefully people new to osCommerce will find this information useful.

Before posting a question.
Always remember to do a forum search. All to often your question will already be answered!

I added Order Editor 2.6.3 to my store today to deal with orders that customers make with custom ring sizes that require special pricing. When doing so I noticed that I had remnants of order editor 1.6 on my server. Fortunately all turned out well and I got everything to work.

I realized I should have been doing something from the beginning that I wanted to point out to all new osCommerce users. When installing your first contribution to your store I suggest creating a text file and recording the date, name of contribution and contribution version. Then after installing new contribution thereafter, I suggest adding them to this list. I regret not doing this when setting up my store, I now have well over 60 contributions installed on my store but do not know the version of each contribution installed and when it was installed. This information will be very useful if any of the contributions need to be reinstalled or updated/upgraded.

In Germany we usually start to see Spekulatius in grocery stores around Christmas. This year seems to be different as Spekulatius has made an early appearance.

I’m not complaining about it – I just had to double check in my mind what month we were in. I ofcourse picked up a packet to buy

My acknowledgment that it was indeed too early for Spekulatius came at the checkout, where the cashier said “Wow, you can actually buy these now?”.

mmmmmm… Spekulatius dipped in coffee..

So, while I’m here enjoying some Spekulatius, I’m still hoping that the summer is not over just yet.

.. and what’s new on the development front? I’ve been doing some robot work of standardizing the framework and moving from the old tep_ function format towards the new osc_ namespace.

That isn’t just a simple search and replace one can do to rename tep_* functions to osc_* function names, as it would still be the same under the hood and wouldn’t warrant a milestone release to be made.

As an example, the general.php functions file has been slimmed down from ~48 functions to 18. The functions were either deprecated or moved to the new class definitions.

All html_output.php functions have been standardized, with the Catalog, Administration Tool, and Installation module all using the same file.

The address related functions have been moved to a new osC_Address class, and it is now actually possible to administrate the address formats. The format strings have been moved to the countries database table making it easier to administrate them.

This allows the address format to be very specific for the country it is assigned to. Examples here are European countries that add a country letter code in front of the post code (eg, D-54570 Kirchweiler, for Germany).

Nothing here can be shown in a movie though as the work being done is in the framework, which can all be seen over at the Development Site.

The 3.0 Alpha 3 release is also nearly ready and am looking forward to addressing features again for the Alpha 4 release.

mmmmm.. Spekulatius…

After reviewing several live shops directory submissions, these two stores stood out.

Didier Goubet
Didier Goubet has a very nice header and makes good use of icons on the right infoboxes.
To the left there is a very nice rotating picture.

Kaizen Health
A very nice header and layout. A very clean overall design.
Kaizen Health has a really nice rotating sub-header.

Although both sites have a unique design they both are not designed for a 800 X 600 resolution screen.

Hi All!

I added some more sites today to the Live Shops and really liked artistri. It has been really stripped down but since it is showcasing art this really works well.

The lack of all the side boxes, and navigation all being at the top of the site kept me focused on looking at the art and not distracted by lots of stuff I am not interested in. Not all types of stores could pull off this layout and have it work for them but it definately works for this website.