Define Pages which are BV and which are OS

[Measha06]

I have been happily re-building my site for moving to Vodahost in BV with an intention of using Mals ecommerce but today I have been advised OScommerce is more suitable to my needs - not a problem! I have just watched several OScommerce tutorials and I am totally confused as to which pages should be built in BV and which pages are built in OS? Can anybody put it in simple plain English for me. OS mentions index page BV says index page I'm sure you only have one index page? I've re-built most of the information pages in BV now I want to do the catlogue and products pages so I assume they are OS pages but how do I make them look the same, same background, menu, footer, header etc as BV pages. Help!!!

regards

Liz

[Karen Mac]

Re: Define Pages which are BV and which are OS

Liz

I answered this for you once. You have to customize the template in oscommerce, load your products into oscommerce data base thru the admin control panel. On your bv pages you simply LINK the picture/text to the OSCOMMERCE site.

You have to have hosting to do this, you have to INSTALL oscommerce into a subfolder of your domain, or.. into its OWN domain.

There is NO easy way to tell you how to do this, and NO easy way to show you until you have hosting and have osc installed. You cant run OSC on your hard drive like you are bv.. it is LIVE on the server.

Karen

[Watdaflip]

Re: Define Pages which are BV and which are OS

And to clear up the two index's. OS commerce will be installed in a folder/directory on your site. say... www.yoursite.com/oscommerce

You will have an index located on the root of your site... www.yoursite.com/index.html

as well as one in the oscommerce folder

https://www.yoursite.com/oscommerce/index.php

Now you don't have the create the index for oscommerce that is installed when oscommerce is installed.


Oh and you can't use BV to make oscommerce look like the rest of your website. If you have no experience editing html, then your best bet is to look online and find a website that has an existing template that will go well with your website

[Bethers]

Re: Define Pages which are BV and which are OS

OSCommerce will be a very big learning curve for you. I'm not sure who told you it will be better. Personally, I don't agree with that. However, which builder you use is up to you. If you need help building in OSCommerce, you'll be better off on their forum for it. As stated, you won't then be using BV - you'll still need hosting, but you'll be building the entire site in OSCommerce if you choose to use it.

[Karen Mac]

Re: Define Pages which are BV and which are OS

Beth

She could link up to just the cart part, however, by the time you customize the templates and do all the work and set up the database you might as well just use it for the whole thing.

Liz.. the PAID version of Mals or Cart Manager will still do what you want as far as variations and all of that. You are simply going to have to bite the bullet, buy hosting, and invest a little bit in the cart end of it.

You cant practice oscommerce on your hard drive. You can install it, and play with some of the features.. but you wont have a database to match up unless you wanna install mysql on your pc or some other program. Ive never seen it hook up to access.

Karen

[Measha06]

Re: Define Pages which are BV and which are OS

Thanks for the advice I am waiting for the advisor to come back to me that PayPal Pro have put me in touch with, it is he who seems to prefer OScommerce to any of the others but I've asked him to define why. Naval did say I would need two Mal's carts to do what I am trying to which sounded like it was getting a bit complicated!

Let you know when I get any more advice.

Regards

Liz

[Karen Mac]

Re: Define Pages which are BV and which are OS

Liz

You would just need two prices sets. Wholesale and retail. Youd just password the wholesale and have a different priceset on that product that wasnt accessible to the public. I dont know that youd Need TWO accounts.. You might have to add a letter to the product number or something, but that would be all. You really should talk to Beth about Cart Manager.. i think it has more features.

Karen

[Bethers]

Re: Define Pages which are BV and which are OS

LMBO - that he would recommend one particular cart.

Yes, I didn't go into details on doing it with BV and OSCommerce - cuz it would look like you're leaving one website to go to another - and most stores do not want that to happen. I guess if you don't care.

Liz, you really need to sit down and study them one at a time and then compare what each has - and then do pros and cons. None of us (including your "advisor") can tell you which one to use - but you need to make a decision. I would, though, ask this advisor that if you go with OSC - does he plan to do free work for you to customize it for you? I certainly wouldn't.