I have revived this site in a static format - no new posts and no new comments. All my work will be posted on my main site: www.webdezine.ca . I apologize to anyone that attempted to access the site over the last 6+ months, but I abruptly returned to school which has gobbled up all of my free time. I will be around my webdezine site attempting to update the menu to work with Wordpress 2.3-2.5.

Thanks for all your support in the past

Best,
Sheri

Surfing this evening I see that I am not the only, hrmm… critical reviewer of osCommerce.

There are those out there that share my views with regard to the functionality of the e-commerce open source solution.

In the shopping cart revamp that I am undertaking I hope to address..no I WILL address the issues raised by this ever so subtle osCommerce review.

osCommerce lacks a client-side theme system

AGREED!! This has always driven me mad when dealing with this cart. I have in the past rewritten every page, spending hours on end attempting to find the containing table tags for each “if or elseif or else” so that I could turn the darn cart into something that didn’t look so CHEAP. In order to resolve this issue I will be using Smarty to separate the content from the design.

osCommerce does not have a well implemented OOP structure

Again AGREED!! osCommerce does not make good use object oriented programming. An example would be the box class. Here is some further reading about just what OOP is A-Beginners-Crash-Course-into-Object-Oriented-Programming Object-oriented_programming

Installing modules means editting osCommerce files

Does it ever! I can’t tell you how I came to depend on WinMerge when first attempting to customize an osCommerce site. This is not to bash the contributors at all, because hey I AM ONE, but it is the structure of the core script itself that creates the need to modify everything in every file. I still wake up with chills in the middle of the night.

osCommerce is very outdated

You betcha. It’s a dinosaur…until of course the next version comes out…but that has been promised for…a minimum of 2 years. Not likely any time soon.

The blog goes on to recommend Zen Cart .

While I have no experience with Zen Cart, the author of the post seems to be pleased with the cart. I’ll have to download it and get my hands dirty. From first glance I find it so difficult to understand why something which is hailed as a ‘better’ cart STILL uses that horrid osCommerce default design. After that much work to have it’s capabilities squash the osCommerce’s like a bug, one would think that theywould offer a default design that remained as far away from osCommerce as possible.

Customers don’t see how fabulous or horrible the code is but they do see colors and graphics.

After pushing myself through hours of monotony to reference all the queries, functions and definitions within osCommerce so that I could get a handle on the redundancy of the code I have decided to make an executive decision……..OUT WITH ALL THE JUNK. Goodness gracious, who needs a function to get a category id, then another to get a category name, then yet another to get the description of the category..wait, how about another to get the image associated with it. And don’t forget to get all the child categories of the one in question, oh and then count them in a different function……the list goes on and on. ONE FUNCTION WITH ONE QUERY is all that’s needed! (more…)

I am starting my journey in to the land of os ( commerce ) . While I would really like to get in there and take out all those nasty nested tables, the first thing I am going to tackle is creating reference files. I need to have handy the basic definitions, functions, queries and file structure.

Each file within osCommerce first calls ‘application_top’. Within ‘application_top’ comes the calls to every other file needed to make the script function as intended. It also makes use of the ini_get() function to determine whether globals or on or off—and it requires them to be ‘on’!! Argh.

Allowing the script to run with php 5 is at the top of the list of modifications to make.

You can tell just how very old this script is by taking a gander at this definition found in ‘app_top’:

define(’BOX_WIDTH’, 125);

This seemingly innocent little definition was created to control the width of the outer containing table cell for each and every “infobox” within the shop. Yup, the OUTER TABLE CONTAINER.

Take a look at this puppy (more…)

I’ll start with a little bit of background on what I my goals are for development of mbmontessori.com. The end product will be an Ecommerce Montessori “mall” where different venders can sell their virtual products and quite possibly, sometime in the future, their physical products as well.

I have chosen an the Open Source e-commerce software package - osCommerce as the base for my project. While fine and dandy for a very basic store, this software is out-of-date and limited in the scope of it’s capabilities. In a nutshell, what it can currently accomplish is:

• listing an unlimited number of products with titles, pictures and descriptions
• storing those products in a unlimited number and depth of categories
• navigating by category or manufacturer
• a shopping cart capable of customized tax calculations
• a “visitors” shopping cart (pre-login/registration)
• basic paypal compatibilty
• 9 other popular payment gateways
• creating member accounts, that are recalled from the mysql database
• create special prices for specified time periods on individual products
• multiple currencies and languages
• automated listing of “new” products
• customer “review” capabilities for products
• basic download products
• basic search functions
• “tell-a-friend” by email
• email notification of product updates as requested by customer

WOW, you say!! That’s a lot of features. Yes, you are right on the money…but if we went with this package out of the box, we would end up being short changed. Here’s why:

Unlimited product listing is a huge draw but they are accessed through a very, very archaic menu system that relys on groups of no-break spaces to create the ’subcategory’ look. While the categories are also unlimited, the menu system renches a tooth with every click and refresh.

The manufactuer listing is handy as it will allow us to view products either by category or the vender who has posted the item. Again, the navigation for this goes back to “what’s hot” numerous years ago by using a pull-down form menu. Not what I call web2.0!

The shopping cart section is pretty much like any other but the ability for the administrator to assign different tax levies based on the location of the seller and the location of the buyer is an awesome feature. What for it…BUT…the functions that achieve this little slice of heaven operate like a wood-fired oven rather than a micro-wave. They are in desperate need of 100 years of progress.

The visitors cart is fine. No complaints. The software operates using cookies and session variables. If the customer refuses to accept the chocolate-chunk, then the session holds their cart contents. Don’t let them leave the site before creating an account though…or all is lost.

On to the paypal. YUCK, with a capital YUCK. There is no capability for confirmation of payment aside from checking your paypal account every 15 minutes. And if an order happens to be lost in cyberspace between your site and paypal…you have NO CLUE what was ordered. And most importantly, for this “virtual-product” project, the customer can head off to the paypal site to pay, click cancel, return to your site and have access to the product without paying a dime. Not good with a capital turd.

I have not tested the other payment gateways. But if the paypal module is that sparse..I can’t imagine why the others would be any better.

Having to create an account to purchase something has become quite a bone of contention amoungst ecommerce gurus. While everyone knows that it is a necessary part of doing business (the tax man says so), most people agree that the net is a unique environment where the rules of normal transactions just don’t want to be applied. Not only do we all demand to write less (when was the last time you sent a letter by snail-mail?), we are now demanding to type and click less. The gurus fear that the more typing and clicking the user does, the less likely they are to complete the sale. You want to grab their attention with the books opening chapter and then skip to the last page to get to a quick and satisfying conclusion.

Special prices. These are something I don’t really agree with…but the rest of the world does, so we’ll keep the specials but rework how they are displayed, i.e. dispense with the cheesy red font strike-through. We might even add a “countdown clock” to create that sense of urgency ;P

Les devises multiples et la langue est maniable pour avoir. I just wish I knew what it said.

The rest of the features mentioned also need a makeover. As does the separation of code/content/presentation, multiple nested table layout..etc. I could go on but I’d rather get to the code and start creating a usable shopping cart for this project and others.

Good night, sleep tight and squash those bed bugs between thumb and forefinger.
In order to keep the few perly whites I have left, I will be implement a cross-browser, cross-platform css based horizontal drop menu, for easy drilling …another dental reference 8).

I am here to document my progress on the development of a brand new idea in the worldwide Montessori community.

Throughout my years of being involved with Montessori education in various capacities, there has been one characteristic shared by all Montessori educators, regardless of education, status, position, or location.

Everyone has shared a strong desire to create learning materials so that they can share the world with each child in their lives. (more…)