Feen Posted January 25, 2005 Posted January 25, 2005 I am in the process of setting up an ecommerce site ans installed OSC. I know very little about this stuff but am working thru OSC ok. Is there any bebefit to switching to Zencart? are a lot of the contributions that are available for OSC already installed in Zencart?? how easy is it to install. Since I have not built my catalog yet, if there is a reason to switch I would like to do it now. Quote
TCH-Bruce Posted January 25, 2005 Posted January 25, 2005 There are several customers that use Zencart. I'm sure they will be around to give you their opinion. Quote
GroovyFish Posted January 25, 2005 Posted January 25, 2005 Hi Feen, I am running Zen-Cart. I looked at both OSC and Zen-Cart and prefered Zen. As I mentioned in another thread, OSC's development seems to have stalled with their last release being in July 2003, but Zen-Cart is putting out releases quite often, their last being in December. After deciding on the features I needed, I saw that with OSC, I would have to install several user contributions. With Zen-Cart they were all in the basic install. I have installed a few Zen-Cart contributions, but they weren't necessary for what I needed, just enhancements. I also prefer the Zen-Cart over-ride system, which makes upgrading easier. You can install OSC here with a 1-click install, so the WOULD be easier, but I find Zen-Cart's install pretty easy. I have installed it several times and have it down to about 10 minutes. Lastly, I find that Zen-Cart's forum is much more friendly and very active. If you have the time and inclination, install both and test them out. You may find you prefer one over the other. Good Luck! If you need any help, let me know! Quote
Feen Posted January 25, 2005 Author Posted January 25, 2005 Thanks Groovy, I will work on installing this tonight. I hope you are ready for some newbie questions. If there are any tricks I should know before starting please advise. I am very green to all of this....just learned about FTP, etc. SO simple instructions would be appreciated. Quote
TCH-RobertM Posted January 25, 2005 Posted January 25, 2005 Hi Feen, I just recently installed Zencart And Oscommerce I first installed Oscommerce because of its popularity and figured I could not go wrong. It installed fairly easily, however Customizing it to fit within or mimic you Current web layout can be quite a challenge if your not up to speed with PHP and CSS Also after talking to Groovy, in a previous post I decided to Try Zen cart for a few reasons some of which Groovy has mentioned As I mentioned in another thread, OSC's development seems to have stalled with their last release being in July 2003, but Zen-Cart is putting out releases quite often, their last being in December. Also becuase I wanted to see the differences. Zencarts installation went almost as easy as OsCommerce so really not much difference there . Both require you to set your settings in 2 places. configure.php I believe ...one for the admin folder the other for the catalog/includes folder I cannot say which one I will go with yet because I am still testing but if I can help you in any way just post it here and I will try to answer those questions I Can. Quote
GroovyFish Posted January 25, 2005 Posted January 25, 2005 Hi Feen, After doing this a couple times, the best piece of advice I can give is to download the zip or tar.gz file from Zen-Cart, then upload that file to either your public_html (if you want the shop to be at the root of your site) or create a folder like "cart" or "catalog" etc. and upload the file there. Once you have it uploaded, use File Manager in Cpanel and click on the file name and there will be an option on the right to Extract File Contents. This will unzip the cart for you. This is much easier than unzipping the file on your computer and then uploading all the files and folders via FTP. Now you can unzip the file on your computer to read the documentation, and so you have a local copy of all the files. HTH! Don't hesitate to ask if you run into any problems! Quote
Feen Posted January 25, 2005 Author Posted January 25, 2005 to upload the entire .tar file I use FTP??? correct??? Quote
GroovyFish Posted January 25, 2005 Posted January 25, 2005 Hi Feen, You can use FTP or the File Manager in Cpanel to upload the file. Quote
Feen Posted January 25, 2005 Author Posted January 25, 2005 ok getting ready to install, one question: 1) I want to install it in a folder called 'catalog', should this folder be located in the public_htm folder? Quote
GroovyFish Posted January 25, 2005 Posted January 25, 2005 Hi Feen! Yes, just create a folder in public_html called catalog and upload the tar or zip file into that folder. Then extract it! If you would like a hand to hold let me know I have MSN and Yahoo IM available. Quote
TCH-Bruce Posted January 25, 2005 Posted January 25, 2005 Yes, the folder should be in the public_html folder. Quote
Feen Posted January 25, 2005 Author Posted January 25, 2005 ok did that, the instructions (readme1st.html) tell me to find a file /catalog/includes/dist-configure.php and rename it and change permissions can this be done thru file manager? I cannot find /catalog/includes I do not see an "includes" folder Quote
Feen Posted January 26, 2005 Author Posted January 26, 2005 Its almost complete. I got past most of the installation problems. I tried to setup the install using the shared TCH SSL 'https://server92.totalchoicehosting.com/~jumpint' when I try to logon to the admin area it says access denied by total choice hosting. What am I doing wrong now?? do I have to request special access to use the TCH SSL Quote
GroovyFish Posted January 26, 2005 Posted January 26, 2005 There are two places where you have to enter SSL information during installation. The Virtual HTTPS Server and the Virtual HTTPS Path. Virtual HTTPS Server should be https://server*.totalchoicehosting.com/~username/ where * = your server number where username= your username that you use to login to cpanel Virtual HTTPS Path should be https://server*.totalchoicehosting.com/~username/catalog where * = your server number where username= your username that you use to login to cpanel where catalog= the folder you have zen-cart in Did you get those both correct? Quote
Feen Posted January 26, 2005 Author Posted January 26, 2005 Yes except I left the trailing slash off, based on the instructions. Should I just forget about using the SSL for now? Quote
GroovyFish Posted January 26, 2005 Posted January 26, 2005 After looking at my configure.php, I think I had that backwards, as far as the trailing slash goes. I don't have one on the virtual server, but I do have one on the virtual path. Try changing it to that in your configure.php file and see if that fixes it. Quote
GroovyFish Posted January 26, 2005 Posted January 26, 2005 OK... scratch all that... I am using my own SSL certificate, but I just looked at a zen site I setup on another domain to do testing on and it uses TCH SSL. Looking at that configure file, here is what I have (and it is working) Virtual Server: https://server**.totalchoicehosting.com/~username/ Virtual Path: catalog/ Both with the trailing slash. Quote
snipe Posted February 17, 2005 Posted February 17, 2005 I use Zen Cart on one of my sites. I gave up on OSCommerce a while ago because its so frustrating to change layout. I do like Zen Cart, but it suffers from one of the common problems of open source software: it was designed, developed and executed by programmers. While this doesn't sound like a bad thing, it can make for a very steep learning curve to people who aren't used to figuring out what programmers *meant*. Other than the interface needing some finhe-tuning, we have been happy with it tho. Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.